Doctoral Dissertation Research: Youth and Humanitarian Futures in Post-Conflict Societies

冲突后社会的青年往往代表着两种相互矛盾的力量。一方面，它们代表着对更和平未来的希望。另一方面，由于经常出现大规模失业，特别是在青年男子中，青年也可能成为对重返冲突的焦虑的化身。该奖项支持的研究旨在培养一名研究生掌握科学数据收集和分析的方法，探讨年轻人如何应对冲突后生活的限制和可能性，以及旨在帮助他们做到这一点的多种干预措施。以往的研究强调和平建设项目如何在战后和平的期望下改变社会生活。但年轻人在展望自己的未来时，很少看到与过去如此彻底的决裂。当政府和非政府的干预计划试图使年轻人在暴力事件后“富有成效”时，这究竟意味着什么？这些项目内外的年轻人如何理解他们的社会边缘地位？回答这些问题对世界各地冲突后局势的安全和发展具有重要意义，包括在美国较小和更局部的范围内。杜克大学人类学博士候选人马修·塞巴斯蒂安（Matthew Sebastian）将在查尔斯·皮奥特（Charles Piot）博士的指导下，进行为期16个月的民族志实地考察，研究乌干达北部冲突后年轻人如何经历和应对脆弱性和安全问题。他之所以选择这个地点，是因为乌干达有超过四分之三的人口年龄在30岁以下，在那里他可以比在美国更清晰地看到这些变化是如何实时发生的。他将使用多种民族志方法收集数据，包括参与观察、访谈、焦点小组和绘图技术。他选择了三个关键地点进行研究：(1)年轻男女作为武装警卫工作的安全空间；(2)一个当地的非政府组织，致力于帮助曾经被监禁的青少年重新融入社会；(3)一项旨在打击年轻人懒惰的地方政府倡议。这些数据将使他能够评估人道主义和其他干预措施对年轻人日常生活的影响，以及这些干预措施是否成功地改善了青年的生活，确保了当代社会和长期和平。调查结果将有助于发展关于冲突后局势如何能够产生持久和平结果的新理论。确保敌对行动停止后的安全也将是有关决策者所关心的。

Youth in post-conflict societies frequently come to represent two contradicting forces. On the one hand, they represent hope for a more peaceful future. On the other hand, because there is frequently large-scale unemployment, particularly among young men, youth may also personify anxiety about a return to conflict. The research supported by this award, which trains a graduate student in methods of scientific data collection and analysis, explores how young people navigate the limits and possibilities of post-conflict life and the multiple interventions that are designed to help them do so. Previous research has emphasized how peace-building projects transform social life under the expectation of peace-after-war. But young people looking at their own futures, rarely see such a clean break with the past. When governmental and non-governmental intervention programs attempt to make young people "productive" in the aftermath of violence, what exactly does that entail? And how do youth both within and outside of such programs make sense of their social position as marginal? Answering these questions has important implications for both security and development in post-conflict situations worldwide, including at smaller and more local scales in the United States.Duke University anthropology doctoral candidate, Matthew Sebastian, under the supervision of Dr. Charles Piot, will pursue the research through16 months of ethnographic fieldwork on how young people experience and respond to vulnerability and security in post-conflict northern Uganda. He has chosen this site because Uganda, where more than three-quarters of the population is under thirty, offers a sharper view of how these transformations take place in real time than could be obtained in the U.S. He will collect data with multiple ethnographic methods, including participant observation, interviews, focus groups, and mapping techniques. He has chosen three key sites for the research: (1) securitized spaces where young men and women work as armed guards; (2) a local nongovernmental organization that works to reintegrate formerly incarcerated youth; and (3) a local governmental initiative that is designed to combat youth idleness. These data will allow him to evaluate the carry-over of humanitarian and other interventions in the everyday lives of young people and whether or not they succeed in improving the lives of youth and securing contemporary society and long-term peace. Findings will help to develop new theories of how post-conflict situations can have sustained peaceful outcomes. They will also be of interest to policy makers concerned to assure security after hostilities cease.