The role of young people’s aspirations to achieve upward social mobility, social mobility
being defined as people’s upward or downward movement in relation to others within the
same society with respect to status or social class (Gough, 2008, Azevedo and Bouiilon,
2010), has been of increasing interest in international development. Especially for young
people of disadvantaged social backgrounds, high aspirations are perceived as the main
driver for future enhanced social conditions (Appadurai, 2004). With a particular focus on
educational and occupational aspirations, young people are encouraged to aim for higher
education and higher occupational outcomes to achieve upward social mobility (Kintrea et
al., 2015). However this discourse shifts the responsibility of achieving upward social
mobility and for being successful adults in the future, on to young people themselves,
promoting social mobility as an individualised obligation (Brown, 2011, Spohrer, 2011). Yet
social mobility and corresponding aspirations are not attained independently of young
people’s social context. In order to enhance their social mobility they need to acquire the
necessary social and cultural capitals and have access to adequate opportunities within
their social and physical environment to navigate themselves towards their aspirations.
Informed by ethnographic and participatory fieldwork, this thesis explores young
Colombians’ (age 15-22) aspirations for social mobility in Cartagena and adds to the
critique of the increasingly powerful discourse about the need to enhance disadvantaged
young people’s aspirations in order to achieve upward social mobility (cf. Kintrea et al.,
2015)