from victim to citizen: exploring the social role of young people in post-conflict settings* julie...
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From victim to citizen: Exploring the social role of young people in post-conflict settings*
Julie Guyot, M.S.W.Africanist Doctoral Fellow
Woodrow Wilson International Center for ScholarsAugust 4, 2008
*enhanced with presentation notes for posting
Presentation outline
• Social transition from conflict to “post-”
• The limitations of trauma approaches
• Person-in-environment (ecological) perspective
• Introduction of social role theory
• Political youth, a role?
• Country examples
• Considerations and further research steps
Social transition from conflict to “post-”
“A key task of reintegration is to help youth achieve a positive, respected role in their communities”
(Wessells & Jonah, 2006, p. 39).
As children and youth “now constitutethe majority of the African population,…Their integration into society, in terms of both civic responsibility andmembership, has…enormous economic,cultural, political, and social consequences”
(Diouf, 2003, p. 2).
Purpose of this research
• Desire to shift from the study of ex-combatants as a segregated youth cohort from a perspective that privileges a “between the ears” (or trauma) approach, to an investigation into how youth fit into the post-conflict social environment
• A belief that African youth are political beings and constitute a vital component of civil society
• To reframe the traditional approach that largely views young
people as “lost generation” (www.npr.org) or “perennial security threat” (ICG, 7/31/08)
• To explore civic engagement and political participation as
therapeutic processes for post-conflict youth
DDR as an organizing frame
Zegeye (2004) stresses that “both childhood and adulthood aresocially constructed and are defined within institutionalframeworks” (p. 854, emphasis added).
Demobilization, Demilitarization, and Reintegration (DDR) isa useful construct to interrogate youth, transformation, andsocial role theory the reasons that:
• Represents a cluster of programming (accessible)
• It operates as a liminal space, as a site of transition, transformation, and decision-making—the space between, where things are named (Ferguson and Gupta, 2002; Foucault, 1991)
Demobilization, Demilitarization, Rehabilitation (DDR) and roles
While DDR programs are set up to ease the reintroductionOf young people to their communities, the challenge
youngPeople face in locating a meaningful role can be
complicatedby notions held by community leaders and programadministrators of what it means to be a young person.
Along with medical checks, family tracing and resettlementpackages, young people are assigned roles.
The trauma paradigm—from PTSD to cleansing
For a more detailed critique: Guyot, J. (2007). Suffer the Children: The psychosocial rehabilitation of child soldiers as a function of peace-building. Available on: www.child-soldiers.org/psycho-social/english
•“Medicalized suffering” (Kleinman, 1996)
•Focus on violence, not how it is processed
•Based on western notions (Summerfield, 1998)
•Relies on outside expertise (Pupavac, 2002)
•Deficit-based
•Does not capture resilience
•Not culturally congruent or appropriate
•A “between the ears” approachPhoto by Lindsay Stark
Building an empirical base
The Study of War-Affected Youth (SWAY) Project in northern Ugandaand the Harvard School of Public Health longitudinal work takingplace in Sierra Leone are enriching our understanding of how youngpeople fare by:
- incorporating variables related to pro-social behavior, employment, and political activity
- moving away from traditional trauma approaches that quantified [western] medical symptoms
- expanding beyond exclusive concern with depression and anxiety symptoms
Too often, ex-combatants are characterized as traumatized victims (UN, 2000), “robbed of childhood” (HRW, 2006), comprising a “lost generation” (StC, 2006).
Child-in-environment
• Broad-based community-level interventions
• Ecological approach, holistic (Bronfenbrenner, 1979)
• Culturally-appropriate – Communal worldview
• Shift from trauma to social functioning
RE: Child-in-Environment
• Children may become embedded in adult narratives of community development, subsumed by household (as a unit of analysis) and schooling (as a normative, status-appropriate activity)
• Rather than focus on the dynamic interaction between young people and the environment, this model may simply assign them the concerns of the broader community
• They may serve as no more than a window to the community, rather than for the frame to function so as to enrich understanding of young people’s particular circumstance within it
Social Role Theory
Biddle (1979): “a behavioral repertoire, characteristic of a person or aposition; a set of standards, descriptions, norms, or concepts held forthe behaviors of a person or social position” (p. 9).
• typically associated with duties, norms, and expectations
• dictated by social structure and social interactions
• understanding is reciprocal and didactic
Photo by Lindsay Stark
Social Role Theory• One way of understanding the ways in which people are socially
positioned, how the self is constructed, and how this informs behaviors and expectations regarding behavior
• Alternative, asset-based perspective that focuses on the individual agency that is exercised through role-taking and role-making (Turner, 1962)
• Focuses on the interaction between individual behavior and social structure
• Unlike the prevailing trauma paradigm it captures coping, capacity, socio-economic condition, and community-level interaction
• It addresses issues of power because negotiation is central to the process of role formation
• Culture and psychosocial development are not treated as static, but evolutionary
World Bank DDR report (2002)
The soldier has been changed by his/her life and experiencesas a soldier. Demobilized soldiers go through the process ofleaving the status of soldier, leaving the life with which theyhave become familiar, and leaving the community of soldierswho have been companions through many experiences. [SeeHansen, 1999] Certainly, for the child soldier this importantperiod of forming a social and personal identity has beenthe capstone of his/her childhood to that date
(Verhey, 2002, p. 14).
Multiple levels, multiple roles
Community Roles
Group Roles
Structural Roles
decision-maker parent ally entrepreneur caregiver mentor
head of household economic contributor
helpmate advisor
protector jokester
messenger cook porter driver
On multiple roles
• Marks & MacMermid (1996) found that “people who maintain more
balance across their entire systems of roles and activities…score lower on measures of… depression and higher on measures of self-esteem,…and other indicators of well-being” (p. 417)
• Research has shown that multiple roles may be good for one’s health (Verbrugge, 1986) and psychological well-being (Baruch & Barnett, 1994)
• According to Linton (1987), “people with many self-aspects are buffered against stress from negative events because they have the option of refocusing on which selves have remained unaffected by any particular event” (Marks & MacMermid, 1996, p. 418)
• An example from a CHF International study on the Economic Re-
integration of Ex-combatants in Lofa County, Liberia (2008): “I’m a mother now, so I wouldn’t fight again” (p. 25)
Multiple, simultaneous roles
•ex-combatant
•youth
•survivor
•leader
•friend
•sister
•girl
•storyteller
•vital member of civil society
•political constituent
•ideologue
•footballerMay 14, 2008, www.metro.co.uk
On the subject of female combatants…
What’s emerged from a participatory action research with female
former combatants taking place now (10 agencies in threeAfrican countries) is a strong desire expressed by participantsnot to be reduced to incidence of sexual assault—not to beviewed as “sex slaves.”
But to be recognized in ways that connect with participants’personal sense of power and self-identity, which form analternate role, pulled from within complex selves, with dignity.
Self-concept and Definitions that come from outside the self
Ex-combatant
News mediaCommunity
elders
NGOs
Researchers
Local officials
Teachers
Social workers
Politicians
Former military
commanders
Role Definers
Ex-combatant
Family
Local Elites
School officials
Youth leadership
Civilians
Social workers
Village elders
Spiritual
leaders
Peer Group
Employers
Former commanders
Peers
Researchers
Market women
Government
Neighbors
Interaction
From a research and intervention perspective this dynamic is particularly useful as role theory highlights the agency of anindividual while also providing a sense of environment, as:
A. an actor’s self is a reflection of the attitudes that others hold toward her B. elements are shaped by what the actor brings to the encounterC. the quality and type of interaction/engagement is
highly relevant (Breese, 1997)
Role consensus is the meeting point of role, self-concept, andexpectations. It depends on the alignment among these three.
Liberian cases
• Lofa County (2008)
• Sinoe County (2005)
Liberianreintegrationthrough a role lens
Lofa County, Liberia (2008)
From a CHF International Study on the Economic Re-integration of Ex-combatants (Taylor, Hill, & Temin, 2008):
“Anecdotal evidence suggests that some of the ex-combatantsreturned expecting to be treated as heroes, or at least receiverespect for who they are and what they had done. This often was not the case and many ex-combatants went through aperiod where they were at odds with community and family.Some continue to have problems. And even though they have (or perhaps had) an image of themselves as heroes, few
tookadvantage of skills gained during warfare to build a life forthemselves after the fighting ended. In short, ex-combatantscontinue to struggle…” (p. 27).
Sinoe County, Liberia (2005)
Opportunities for economic independence + respected social position =
More successful process of spontaneous social reintegration.
• Utas (2005) noted how men were taking on “adult” roles that had taken place at a later age prior to the period of conflict (e.g. able to farm their own land and to marry).
• A separate report cites a Senior Reintegration Specialist
who noted the presence of a 15 year-old military commander of Sinoe County’s Tubmanburg region
Matching role sets:
• consistency across time as it relates to the duties, norms, and expectations
• autonomy and authority of wartime translated to positive social role for post-conflict period
Assigned role and DDR: The making of a Child Soldier
• 15-year-old “adults” and 20-year-old “children” – no birth certificates, and no clear-cut way to make the
distinction
• Under-18s v. Over-18s– A certain set of combatants could conceivably portray
themselves as either adult or child
• Role (label) determined benefits and future program track– Primary education v. vocational training, etc.– “and an assessment of which promises were more likely to be
kept” (p. 119) (Shepler, 2005)
Role, identity and recruitmentAn example from Sierra Leone
www.candacescharsu.com
Role assignment: Negative representation of youth
Nigerian “Area Boys,” South African Tsotsis, the Breakers and Gang Boys of Senegal; Savis Man and Rarray Boys inSierra Leone, the Gronah Boys of Liberia.
Representation of a troubled and troublesome youth has helped to criminalize youth, and fuelled an underestimation of the capacity for, and possibility of a “positive” youth in Africa (Honwana & De Boek 2005 in Oyewole, 2006, p. 7).
Emergent themes
1. Characterizations of youth emanating from security concerns and trauma frames are so negative as to preclude a sense of positive youth leadership
2. “Youth” as a category is implicitly somehow deficient developmentally or inappropriate to the social order (e.g. tradition)
“Everyone we spoke with told us that the hope for Sierra Leone lies in itsyouth…The U.N. civil policeman…told me that there were some stellaryoung men in the police force in his town, but he was afraid that theywouldn't be given the opportunity to pull the force out of its rotten pastbecause they were thought too young to be leaders.”
Photo by Rob Peterson www.slate.com/id/2093103/
Perception: How old is leadership?
Resistance to political youth role
• Elders rule, young people serve (Carter, 2007)
– A strong tradition of youth voice has been documented by Gables (2000). The Culture Development Club: Youth, Neo-Tradition, and the Construction of Society in Guinea-Bissau, and others…
– Notion of tradition itself is highly problematic – See: Ranger’s Invention of Tradition in Colonial Africa (1983)
• Co-opted by “big men” for hire as spoilers (Abdullah, 1998)
– Case studies of youth-led civic education (e.g. NAYMOTE)
• Token role in local governance structures (Manning, n.d.)
– Somehow not authentic: Imposed. Done to pacify or stimulate interest of NGOs, not reflective of an appreciation for youth voice
• Outcome of therapeutic/trauma paradigm (Pupavac, 2006)
– The trauma paradigm provides a role that is wholly circumscribed by vulnerability and dependence. Systems are so convinced that youth are broken by trauma that belief in decision-making capacity is thoroughly undermined. Lost generations don’t lead!
Resistance to political youth role
See: Youth and Politics in Conflict Contexts, May 16, 2007. WWICS publication.
Youth leadership
“Children lead…14-year-olds going on 25 areleaders—they lead in the camps, in thetransition points, in the reintegration facilities…”
Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire
(UNICEF, 2002)
Findings on violence and political participation
• 22% more likely to vote
• Twice as likely than non-abductee peers to hold public office
• 73% increase in likelihood of joining a peace-promoting organization
MORE RESEARCH NEEDED
Blattman, 2008
Blattman (2008) and political participation
Dominant theories regarding war-trauma and young people assume that it renders them incapable of normal functioningmuch less participation in the public sphere. And yet, Blattman(2008) articulates a very different vision, based on data fromnorthern Ugandan abductees. But, what is most significant here is that there is a particularlypolitical face to community activity.
Interestingly, he found no relationship between abduction,violence, and NON-political forms of participation andvolunteering…
MORE RESEARCH NEEDED
Is there a political role for youth?
Victim or Citizen?: Post-conflict programming
for African children and youth
Social Role, future considerations?
Community-based interventions:– intergenerational partnerships– “cooperation on superordinate goals” – duel impact of community healing and
role valorization (Flynn & Lemay, 1999)• “normalization” processes
Employment/training:– shift to cooperative livelihoods
arrangements• Fund collectives, rather than individual
training modules?
– value of apprenticeships• Role mastery, broader skill-base
Social Role, future considerations?
• Education programming (Collier & Morgan, 2005):– peer-to-peer, across combatant/civilian divide– role mastery, education beyond knowledge base
• Service delivery evaluation (Guirguis & Chewning, 2005):– quality of community partnerships– worker burnout (role overload)
UNICEF, Stevie Mann, 2003
“Youth represent the possibility of either anexit from Africa's current predicament or an intensification of that predicament.”
- Alex de Waal
Photo by Lindsay Stark
Resources: Youth and Politics
Blattman, C. (2008). From violence to voting: War and political participation in Uganda. Center for Global Development. Working Paper, No. 138.
Boyden, J. (2006). Children, war and world disorder in the 21st century: A review of the theories and the literature on children’s contributions to armed violence. Working Paper 138, Queen Elizabeth House, Univ. of Oxford.
Hickey, S. & Mohan, G. (2005). Relocating participation within a radical politics of development. Development and Change, 36 (2), 237-260.
McEvoy-Levy, S. (2001). Youth as social and political agents: Issues in post-settlement peace-building. Kroc Institute Occasional Paper, #21-OP-2.
Newman, J. (2005). Protection through participation: Young people affected by forced migration and political crisis. RSC Working Paper Series. No. 20. Oxford, United Kingdom: Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
Twum-Danso, A. (2004). The political child. In, McIntyre, A. (Ed.), Invisible stakeholders: The impact of children on war (pp. 7-30).
Resources: Social Role Theory
Biddle, B.J. (1979). Role theory—expectations, identities and behaviors. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Breese, J. R. (1997). A re-examination of the concept of role and its divergent traditions. Virginia Social Science Journal, 32, 113 – 126.
Flynn, R. J., & Lemay, R. A. (Eds.) (1999). A quarter-century of normalization and social role valorization: evolution and impact. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press.
Goode, W.J. (1960). A theory of role strain. American Sociological Review, 25, 483-496.
Linton, R. (1945). Social structure and cultural participation, In, The cultural background of personality (pp. 55-82). New York: Appleton-Century.
Mead, G.H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press.
Thomas, E. J., Feldman, R. A., & Kamm, J. (1967). Concepts of role theory. In E.J. Thomas (Ed.), Behavioral science for social workers. New York: Free Press.
Turner, R.H. (1956). Role taking, role standpoint, and reference group behavior. American Journal of Sociology, 41, 316-328.
