Social Navigation and Power in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: Reflections from a Former Child Soldier Turned Bike Rider

  • Myriam Denov
Chapter

Abstract

Social navigation is a concept increasingly being used by scholars to capture the complexities of young people’s wartime experiences, and simultaneously dispel portrayals of child soldiers as powerless, passive and/or pathological. In his discussion of youth and armed conflict in Guinea-Bissau, Vigh (2006) defines wartime social navigation as the way in which war-affected young people assess the changes within their socio-political environment, evaluate the emerging possibilities within this environment and, accordingly, direct their lives in the most beneficial and advantageous ways. Challenging frameworks of victimhood and taking into account elements of both broader structures and individual agency, social navigation encapsulates the ways in which agents such as child soldiers navigate the terrain of war – a terrain that is constantly moving and changing:

Keywords

Armed Group Bike Rider Child Soldier Reconciliation Commission Primary School Enrolment 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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© Myriam Denov 2011

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  • Myriam Denov

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