Space, Power, and Terrains of Insecurity

Making Meaning of Peace: A Study of Adolescents in Bogota, Colombia

“…Peace takes shape in social environments but depends on individual attitudes, self-awareness, and self-acceptance. This perspective importantly stands in juxtaposition to possible definitions that emphasize the role of leaders, institutions, or social systems (Berents, 2018; Galtung, 1996). For the second research question, minimal differences were found by gender and age, but participants from different SES groups varied in how they talked about the possibility of peace, obstacles that they noted, and how they invoked equality as necessary for peace.…”

“…This developmental framework coalesces well with the concept of “everyday peace,” which argues that localized and daily interactions, behaviors, and orientations are central to individuals’ peacebuilding and resistance to violence (Berents & McEvoy-Levy, 2015). Attention to young people’s meaning-making provides insights into the orientations and actions they are already taking, as well as the challenges that they experience in their everyday lives (Berents, 2018; Berents & McEvoy-Levy, 2015). The framework extends current understandings of the developmental processes in young people’s thinking about peace (Hakvoort & Oppenheimer, 1998): even as adolescents become increasingly able to think abstractly about systems (like democracy and human rights), they may build understandings of peace through experiences of efficacy within their local contexts among peers, families, schools, and neighbors.…”

“…A second study in Colombia on this topic took place only at the very beginning of the peace process. In this work, Berents (2018) employed ethnographic methods to investigate understandings and manifestations of peace for youth in a low-resource area just outside of Bogotá. She identifies seven themes in their understandings of peace, which tended to emphasize social justice and structural focuses, the need for a basic negative peace (that is, the absence of armed actors and violence between them), and collective responsibility for building a peaceful society.…”

“…This study builds on the work of Sacipa and colleagues (2006) and Berents (2018) using a developmental lens to explore how adolescent Colombians made meaning of peace in 2016 toward the end of the peace process. I present this study as an initial approach to understanding what adolescent Colombians thought was necessary for, and how to build, cultures of peace, as well as situating the meaning-making of peace as an important element in considering how to promote adolescent engagement in peacebuilding and the development of peaceful self-identities.…”

Reciprocal institutional visibility: Youth, peace and security and ‘inclusive’ agendas at the United Nations

“…Recent scholarship has sought to understand the disconnect between formal and informal demonstrations of agency, visibility and capacity within the peace and conflict fields (Björkdahl, 2007; Björkdahl and Gusic, 2015; Björkdahl and Hoglund, 2013; Millar, 2013; Talentino, 2012; Zahar, 2012). Where youth are concerned, policymaking has historically ignored their substantive contributions to peace, reconciliation, and development (Altiok et al, 2020; Berents, 2015, 2018; McEvoy-Levy, 2006; Mollica, 2017b; Pruitt, 2015). Representations of young people rely on limited and gendered stereotypes that render their participation invisible, particularly at the institutional level.…”