SPECIMEN #2025-E: Screens of Possibility: Resilience and Connectivity among Sudanese Youth

• In Event: Digital Ecologies of Hope: A Natural History of Emerging Media Futures

Abstract

This research documents how Sudanese youth maintain educational aspirations through digital platforms during armed conflict. Through analysis of virtual thesis defenses and graduation ceremonies conducted via Zoom and WhatsApp, this research reveals digital media as tools for temporal resistance. Students create formal academic spaces amid physical destruction, refusing present circumstances to define future possibilities. Virtual ceremonies shared through family networks enable collective participation in milestone achievements despite geographic displacement. These practices allow youth to traverse time, connecting past investments to future possibilities while present realities threaten both. The research contributes to understanding how digital platforms support educational continuity during crisis, revealing young people's use of technology to maintain agency and community connection when traditional structures collapse, demonstrating digital tools' role in sustaining hope during systemic disruption.

Author

• Abubakr Abdelbagi, Teachers College, Columbia University