Youth In Conflict And Peacebuilding

This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.

This book highlights the important role youth can play in processes of peacebuilding by examining music as a tool for engaging youth in such activities. As Lesley J. Pruitt discusses throughout the book, music—as expression, as creation, as inspiration—can provide many unique insights into transforming conflicts, altering our understandings, and achieving change. She offers detailed empirical work on two youth peacebuilding programs in Australia and Northern Ireland, countries that appear overtly peaceful, but where youth still face structural violence and related direct violence at the community level. She also pays careful attention to the ways in which gender norms might influence young people's participation in music-based peacebuilding activities. Ultimately, the book defines a new research area linking youth cultures and music with peacebuilding practice and policy.

In Youth and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Agents of Change, Stephanie Schwartz goes beyond these highly publicized cases and examines the roles of the broader youth population in post-conflict scenarios, taking on the complex task of distinguishing between the legal and societal labels of "child," "youth," and "adult."

This book investigates the ways in which young people engage with and contribute to civil society, community development, and local peacebuilding in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Youth engagement and contribution to civil society and local peacebuilding can play a crucial role in development; however, there is often a lack of effective engagement, policies, and opportunities for young people in policy and practice. This book analyses their experiences of civic engagement and community participation and the challenges they face, across diverse areas including youth empowerment, freedom of expression, mobilization, ideologies, conflict resolution, and peacebuilding. Drawing on cases from Yemen, Syria, Iran, Morocco and the Palestinian Territories, this book offers new insights on how youth not only are shaped by, but also react to policies, conflict, constraints, and challenges. The insights drawn from this interdisciplinary collection will be of interest to researchers of civil society, youth, peacebuilding, and development, as well as to policymakers, donors, and NGO staff.

In 1998, the Council of Europe and the European Commission decided to take common action in the field of youth. Both institutions initiated a partnership agreement with the aim "to promote active European citizenship and civil society by giving impetus to the training of youth leaders and youth workers working within a European dimension". In 2003, additional agreements were signed in the fields of "youth research" and "Euro-Mediterranean youth co-operation". Since 2005, the partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth activities has focused on the following topics: European citizenship, human rights education and intercultural dialogue, quality and recognition of youth work and training, better understanding and knowledge of youth and youth policy development. The partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth brings together the two institutions' experience in non-formal education, youth policy, youth research and youth work practice. Activities organised within its framework gather representatives of those areas who share their knowledge and experience for the benefit of enhancing evidence-based policy, practice, quality and recognition of youth work and training. Results and other material are made available on the partnership website (http://youth-partnership-eu.coe.int) and in various publications, including the Training Kits (T-Kits). T-Kits are thematic publications written by experienced youth trainers and experts and constitute easy-to-use handbooks for educational activities. All activities and publications enhance the exchange of experience and good practice between the actors involved and contribute to the implementation of the political objectives of both partner institutions.

"In the aftermath of violent conflict, no society can afford to rebuild its future without the participation of its young generation and consideration for their interests and needs. Yet, trapped in a state of protracted victimhood, children and youth - and their needs and potential - risk being overlooked in the planning and implementation of post-conflict peacebuilding. They are frequently mere bystanders to peacebuilding efforts, disempowered to change their fortunes in the midst of societies scarred by death, poverty and destruction. Their voices will not be heard unless they can escape the chains of victimhood and their active agency in post-war recovers effort is recognized. The contributors to this volume explore the lack of child- and youth- specific peacebuilding practices by local, national and international players; and young peoples' struggle to escape the continuing victimhood or the pathways of survival criminality and instead secure more opportunities to be agents of sustainable peace. By drawing on experiences from post-conflict environments in different parts of the world, a diverse group of researchers and scholar-practitioners working in academia, non-governmental and international organisations examine the proactive roles of girls and boys in promoting security for themselves and their families ; their disproportionate suffering and their specific vulnerabilities during and after the war; international legal frameworks created to protect and empower children and youth in post-conflict environments; examples of initiatives to help young people escape the traps of victimhood and voicelessness and actively engage in rebuilding their communities and nations; and international and national efforts to provide for the security of children and young people in post-conflict environments. Children and youth are essential catalysts for the successful rebuilding of war-torn societies. Many will reach adulthood as new social, economic and political orders are being consolidated, as first elections are held and as international assistance and early rebuilding efforts are handed over into local hands. As the young post-war generation will become the next leaders, parents and teachers, ensuring children and youth's active role in post-conflict peacebuilding today could be among the most effective means of building a sustainable peace tomorrow."--Publisher's description.

Many contemporary armed conflicts are fueled by young people, who, after peace accords are signed, remain both potential threats to peace and significant peace building resources. Troublemakers or Peacemakers? explores the contributions of youth and their multidimensional roles as political activists, soldiers, criminals, economic actors, peace activists, and community-builders. This volume breaks new ground in the importance it assigns to the political agency of children and youth in war zones. Contributors support their arguments and conclusions with original research based on intensive fieldwork in places such as Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Guatemala, Colombia, Angola, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Israel-Palestine. The leading scholars who have contributed to this volume contend that the puzzle of why peace accords succeed and fail can be better understood with the use of a multidimensional youth lens. Troublemakers or Peacemakers? is a vital resource for anyone interested in conflict resolution and the peace building process.

Young People and Everyday Peace is grounded in the stories of young people who live in Los Altos de Cazucá, an informal peri-urban community in Soacha, to the south of Colombia’s capital Bogotá. The occupants of this community have fled the armed conflict and exist in a state of marginalisation and social exclusion amongst ongoing violences conducted by armed gangs and government forces. Young people negotiate these complexities and offer pointed critiques of national politics as well as grounded aspirations for the future. Colombia’s protracted conflict and its effects on the population raise many questions about how we think about peacebuilding in and with communities of conflict-affected people. Building on contemporary debates in International Relations about post-liberal, everyday peace, Helen Berents draws on feminist International Relations and embodiment theory to pay meaningful attention to those on the margins. She conceptualises a notion of embodied-everyday-peace-amidst-violence to recognise the presence and voice of young people as stakeholders in everyday efforts to respond to violence and insecurity. In doing so, Berents argues for and engages a more complex understanding of the everyday, stemming from the embodied experiences of those centrally present in conflicts. Taking young people’s lives and narratives seriously recognises the difficulties of protracted conflict, but finds potential to build a notion of an embodied everyday amidst violence, where a complex and fraught peace can be found. Young People and Everyday Peace will be of interest to scholars of Latin American Studies, International Relations and Peace and Conflict Studies.