Children of War: Evolving Local and Global Understandings of Child Soldiering in African Conflicts, c.1940-2000

儿童既是干预的对象，也是人道主义的象征，是当代人道主义和人权运动的组成部分。在20世纪90年代，一种形式的儿童受害者开始受到关注：儿童兵。据当时的全球估计，有30多万儿童兵在战斗或最近遣散，其中12万在非洲。“童兵”的形象绝大多数来自非洲。20世纪90年代的人道主义运动强烈反对这种新的“儿童兵危机”，将儿童兵描述为成人虐待的创伤受害者，以及当代战争中新的超暴力、平民化形式的“野蛮”。然而，与这些运动相反，儿童兵并不是一个新现象：该项目表明，儿童在整个二十世纪的非洲冲突中占有重要地位，他们的参与与更广泛的战争模式、童工和现代奴隶制以及青年动员有关。这个为期三年的项目通过对从殖民时期到当代儿童参与战争的比较分析，首次对非洲儿童兵的发展进行了适当的历史描述。它追溯了从第二次世界大战到反殖民叛乱，从内战和冷战代理冲突到20世纪90年代的“新战争”，这些战争使“非洲儿童兵”成为全球倡导的真正典范。主要案例研究将以乌干达、安哥拉、卢旺达和刚果民主共和国（DRC）为例，提供跨时间、区域、战争形式以及不同形式的儿童招募和军事用途的比较。将重点关注性别和代际动态，对儿童兵的三个层面进行分析，着眼于整个过程中的直接和间接参与：青年是健全力量的倍增者；作为有限的秘密特工；作为象征性的军事化“孩子”。“儿童兵危机”之所以出现在20世纪80年代末至90年代，并不是因为儿童突然出现在全球战场上，而是因为儿童、儿童权利、人类安全和战争观念的变化，使他们成为人道主义关注的对象。因此，本项目还追溯了对儿童卷入战争的人道主义反应的演变，从1949年《日内瓦附加议定书》对2000年《儿童权利公约任择议定书》的缺席开始。它形成了对非洲和全球知识系统中“非洲童兵”观念转变的现象学研究。该项目分析了“儿童兵”类别的法律和话语的出现和扩展，突出了当地和全球儿童和青年规范之间的紧张关系。从后殖民和非殖民的角度来看，它展示了儿童兵作为受害者的对象形象是如何被充斥在国际组织中的非洲/全球南方社会的种族化和家长式的比喻所框定的。为此，这个开创性的项目分析了来自帝国、国际人道主义和非洲档案的定性证据，以及人权报告、新闻媒体和儿童兵回忆录。对主要人道主义工作者和活动人士的口述历史访谈，以及选定的前儿童兵，构成了一种补充方法。通过对战争摄影、电影、纪录片、小说和音乐的分析，增加了视觉和文化历史的维度。项目开发将纳入乌干达、安哥拉和卢旺达/刚果民主共和国的国际儿童兵非政府组织和基层组织的意见，以确定影响产出，包括简报、全球调查数据和教材。学术产出是pi撰写的专著，合作和全团队撰写的文章，以及PDRAs的文章。研究成果将通过项目网站/数字档案公开传播，以促进非洲研究人员和社区的参与

Children are integral to contemporary humanitarian and human rights campaigns, both as subjects of intervention and as humanitarian icons. In the 1990s one form of child victim came to prominence: the child soldier. Global estimates at that time posited that over 300,000 child soldiers were fighting or had recently been demobilized, 120,000 of those in Africa. The iconographic image of 'the child soldier' was overwhelmingly African. Humanitarian campaigns in 1990s raged against this new 'child soldier crisis', depicting child soldiers as traumatized victims of adult abuse and the 'barbarism' of new hyper-violent, civilianized forms of contemporary warfare. However, contrary to these campaigns, child soldiering was not a new phenomenon: this project shows that children were a significant presence in African conflicts throughout the twentieth century, and their involvement was linked to wider patterns of warfare, child labour and modern slavery, and youth mobilization.This three-year project delivers the first properly historical account of the development of child soldiering in Africa, through a comparative analysis of children's involvement in warfare from the colonial to contemporary eras. It traces African child soldiering from the Second World War to anti-colonial insurgencies, through civil wars and Cold War proxy conflicts to the 'new wars' of the 1990s that made the 'African child soldier' the literal poster child of global advocacy. Key case studies will be Uganda, Angola, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) providing comparisons across time, region, forms of warfare, and varying forms of child recruitment and military use. There will be a strong critical focus on both gender and generational dynamics, with three levels of child soldiering analysed, looking at direct and indirect participation throughout: youth as able-bodied force multipliers; as liminal covert agents; and as symbolic militarized 'children'. The 'child soldier crisis' emerged in late 1980-90s not because children suddenly appeared on global battlefields, but because changing notions of childhood, child rights, human security and war rendered them visible as objects of humanitarian concern. As such, this project also traces the evolution of humanitarian responses to children's involvement in war from their absence in the 1949 Geneva Additional Protocols to the 2000 Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child. It forms a phenomenological study of shifting ideas of 'the African child soldier' in both African and global knowledge systems. The project analyses the legal and discursive emergence and expansion of the category of 'child soldier', highlighting tensions between local and global norms of childhood and youth. Informed by postcolonial and decolonial perspectives, it shows how the object figure of the child soldier as victim was framed by racialized and paternalistic tropes of African/global South societies that suffused international organizations. To do so, this groundbreaking project analyses qualitative evidence from imperial, international humanitarian, and African archives, alongside human rights reports, news media, and child soldier memoirs. Oral history interviews with key humanitarian practitioners and activists, and selected former child soldiers, form a supplementary methodology. A visual and cultural history dimension is added through analysis of war photography, film, documentaries, novels and music. Project development will incorporate input from international child soldier NGOs and grassroots groups in Uganda, Angola and Rwanda/DRC to determine impact outputs, including briefing reports, data for global surveys, and teaching materials. Academic outputs are a PI-authored monograph, co- and full-team authored articles, and articles by PDRAs. Research findings will be publically disseminated through a project website/digital archive to facilitate engagement by African researchers and communitie