Details

In this webinar JEFCAS (John & Elnora Ferguson Centre for African Studies) and the Children and Family Research Centre (School for Policy Studies, the University of Bristol) will discuss the role of children and young people in mitigating violence in sub-Saharan Africa.

The webinar will take the form of a panel discussion, which will be interesting to students, scholars and practitioners who wish to go beyond the usual tropes of children and young people in conflict in Africa and explore the role they play in conflict mitigation.

Panel

The panel will be chaired by Dr David Harris from the University of Bradford and Dr Afua Twum-Danso Imoh from the University of Bristol.

Speakers will include;

Prof. Stacey Hynd, Professor in History, University of Exeter
Dr Kieran Mitton, Reader, King's College London
Ruby Quantson-Davies, Senior Learning and Impact Advisor, Peace Direct

Dr Akin Iwilade from the University of Edinburgh will act as discussant.

Titles and Abstracts

Professor Stacey Hynd

Title: Children and Youth in War and Peace: Evolving Approaches to Children in Armed Conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: In the 1990s saw the eruption of the ‘child soldier crisis’ in humanitarian agendas, bringing African children in war to the forefront of international attentions. However, the 'child soldier crisis' was as much a result of shifts in rhetoric and strategic framing as in empirical realities. Humanitarian understandings of the roles of children and youth in conflict, and its mitigation, are shaped by globalised norms and the demands of advocacy. Narratives of African child soldier violence and the victimhood of civilian child have served important roles in generating both global and local responses to war in Africa, but these have also occluded the complexity of children and youth’s roles in violence and its mitigation. This paper explores the evolution of both humanitarian and scholarly understandings of African children’s roles in war and violence from 1970s to the present, highlighting how intersecting agendas have shaped knowledge production and focused on youth violence rather than peace-building capacities.

Dr. Kieran Mitton

Title: The Dangers of “Dangerous Youth” Discourse

Abstract: In Sierra Leone, as across the world, unemployed and street youth have been typecast as criminally-inclined and a threat to peace. The civil war of 1991-2002 was widely understood as a crisis of youth, and post-war peacebuilding has been centred on the notion that only by addressing the needs of marginalised youth can real peace be achieved. In this presentation Kieran Mitton draws on fifteen years of regular fieldwork with ex-combatant groups and more recent street gangs to challenge the assumption that marginal urban youth are necessarily a threat to security, highlighting their efforts to consolidate peace and contribute positively to their communities, even in the face of provocation to mobilise for violence.

Ruby Quantson Davis

Title: The Youth Action for Peace Programme: Doing Peace Work Differently

Abstract: Recent occurrences of instability in Sub Saharan Africa, including coup d’états and election violence coupled with weak economies of countries in the region have again surfaced the plights of young people as an unemployed and vulnerable group, prone to engaging in violent acts . This is a dominant narrative that fails to highlight the many diverse ways in which young people resolve conflicts, prevent violence and build everyday peace. Through two brief case studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mali, this paper demonstrates the innovative and practical ways by which young people respond to early warning signs of conflict with peace interventions. These initiatives supported through the ‘Youth Action for Peace Programme’, a locally led response to UN resolution 2250, and supported by the international charity, Peace Direct, suggest that a wholistic narrative on young people and conflict, requires a different way of perceiving and doing peace work. Assessing peacebuilding programmes requires local epistemologies and decolonised knowledge systems that enable us to see the everyday roles of young people in conflict.

Organisers

This event is a collaboration between the University of Bradford and the University of Bristol.

The John and Elnora Ferguson Centre for African Studies (JEFCAS) has been based in the Division of Peace Studies and International Development (PSID) at the University of Bradford since 2002 and funded by the Allan & Nesta Ferguson Trust since 2005. Its current mission is to support academic and applied research, teaching and knowledge transfer concerning Africa within the University academic theme of Sustainable Societies.

The Children and Families Research Centre is one of seven research centres based in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol. The Centre brings together academics and PhD students working on various aspects of childhoods and family life, especially as they relate to social or public policies from different disciplinary perspectives, notably social policy, social work, sociology, and psychology. For more information visit: www.bristol.ac.uk/sps/research/centres/family/

D﻿etails

Panel

T﻿itles and Abstracts

O﻿rganisers

Details

Titles and Abstracts

Organisers

JEFCAS Webinar with University of Bristol