From waithood to empowerment: Youth leadership within peacebuilding in Ethiopia

Sammanfattning

This study examines how youth leaders in peace projects in Ethiopia develop through their engagement. Based on six weeks of fieldwork across three peace projects in Addis Ababa, Jimma and Hawassa, the study takes a strength-based perspective of the leaders and asks how the peace-project engagement serve developing. Drawing on Honwana's concept of waithood, the study argues that youth leaders in Ethiopia face not only an economic form of waithood but what this study terms a 'waithood of meaning', a state where one has the capacity and ambition to contribute but lacks platform. Peace projects alleviate this by providing forums for meaningful contribution in a context of high youth unemployment and scarce opportunities. Further analysis demonstrates that engagement in peace projects can constitute an empowerment trajectory. Through ownership of self-initiated social change, with recognition from peers within shared value horizons, empowerment develops. Simultaneously, social capital accumulates, also in the form of a trajectory. From bonding within youth groups, through bridging toward adults, to the formation of youth-adult partnerships that provide access to influential networks. This social capital is later mobilised and converted into tangible assets, as illustrated by informants who used their accumulated networks to initiate organisations, access resources and navigate complex social situations.