Abstract

Anthropological research on youth in war-affected sub-Saharan Africa is biased: much attention goes to documenting and understanding the roles and perspectives of child and youth combatants, ignoring youths who have lived through war as civilians. This paper focuses on civilian youths in a provincial town during the latter days of the armed conflict in Sierra Leone, giving voice to youths discussing different aspects of a phenomenon that has now gained currency as the "crisis of youth." This crisis—postulating itself across sub-Saharan Africa—refers to the inability of young people to attain social adulthood because of continuing gerontocratic and patrimonial control of resources. Initially used to explain the involvement of young people in armed conflict, the evidence below suggests that the crisis is experienced much more widely among youths.

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