Vanguard or Vandals

Jon Abbink is a Social Anthropologist. His research interests are ethnicity, Ethiopian ethnology, the comparative study of violence and culture, and developments in the political cultures of the Horn of Africa. His current projects include a study of ethnic relations, ethno-history and social organization in societies in Southern Ethiopia.Ineke van Kessel is a historian whose work mostly focuses on contemporary South Africa. She is currently researching the history of Dutch-Ghanaian relations and of the African soldiers enlisted in the Netherlands East Indies army in the nineteenth century.

'The remarably contemporary case studies vary in theme and cover youth in East Central Africa and five nations on the hump of West Africa.R.M Fulton, Choice, June 2005.

• ContentsIllustrations viiMaps viiTables viiPhotographs vii1 Being young in Africa: The politics of despair and renewal 1Jon AbbinkPART I: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON YOUTH AS AGENTS OF CHANGE2 Towards a political history of youth in Muslim northern Nigeria, 1750-2000 37Murray Last3 Imagined generations: Constructing youth in revolutionary Zanzibar 55G. Thomas BurgessPART II: STATE, CRISIS AND THE MOBILIZATION OF YOUTH4 Clash of generations? Youth identity, violence and the politics of transition in Kenya, 1997-2002 81Peter Mwangi Kagwanja5 Re-generating the nation: Youth, revolution and the politics of history in Côte d’Ivoire 110Karel Arnaut6 War, changing ethics and the position of youth in South Sudan 143Jok Madut Jok7 Anglophone university students and Anglophone nationalist struggles in Cameroon 161Piet Konings8 Past the Kalashnikov: Youth, politics and the state in Eritrea 189Sara Rich DormanPART III: INTERVENTIONS: DEALING WITH YOUTH IN CRISIS9 From generational conflict to renewed dialogue: Winning the trust of street children in Lomé, Togo 207Yves Marguerat10 Children as conflict stakeholders: Towards a new discourse on young combatants 228Angela McIntyre11 Warriors, hooligans and mercenaries: Failed statehood and the violence of young male pastoralists in the Horn of Africa 243Simon Simonse12 Reintegrating young ex-combatants in Sierra Leone: Accommodating indigenous and wartime value systems 267Krijn PetersList of authors 297