Social Science Research Council

The Social Science Research Council, in collaboration with the Pretoria, South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS), convened a workshop from December 9-11, 2004 on the theme, “Youth in Organized Violence: Comparing Contexts.” The goal of the meeting, held in Pretoria, was to broaden understanding of the links between a vast range of issues regarding youth involved in organized violence—from participation in war and armed conflicts (including military and para-military groups) to forms of urban violence in gangs, protection rackets and street children organized around violent acts. Funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, it brought together scholars and field workers who carry out research in Australia, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Liberia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United States, and Zimbabwe.

The 3-day workshop examined the roles that organized violence play in young people’s lives; developed new theoretical and analytical insights on the issue; and encouraged a comparative analysis of the various forms and structures of violence in which young people are engaged. A key outcome of this process was the identification of perspectives that might not otherwise occur when viewing them in isolation. Drawing directly from their own field research, participants in the workshop provided careful analysis of the complexity inherent in the relationship between youth and organized violence and the various factors that contribute to their involvement. Participants discussed and compared how issues such as poverty, for example, influence young people in contexts as far-ranging as:

• drug factions in the Brazilian favelas
• youth gangs in the US
• selective ontological violence in communities in Australia
• child soldiers in Sierra Leone, Colombia and Sri Lanka
• death squads and vigilantism in South Africa
• protection rackets in Nigeria
• warlordism in failed states
• and generative transnational processes such as the export of gang culture from Los Angeles to El Salvador.