Revolution & Displacement: Exploring the Effects of War and Displacement on the Political Ambitions of Sudanese Youth

Sammanfattning

The Sudanese revolution of 2019 was shaped in large part by the contributions of youth to collective action. Many of these youth have since been displaced by the ongoing Sudanese war. This study aims to explore how these youths’ emotion orientations towards political engagement have been affected by experiences of war and displacement. This will be explored by comparing how these youth convey their emotions surrounding political engagement through narratives of the past and the imagined future. This context has so far been underrepresented within academia, and not much work has been done on the effects of war and displacement on imagined future political engagement within groups of youth. Using an interpretivist framework and narrative methodology, this study draws upon interviews conducted with twelve Sudanese youth who had been active in the revolution of 2019 and who have since been displaced to Egypt or the UAE. Most participants retroactively narrated strong feelings of hope and belief in political agency and collective action, even in the face of personal risk or sacrifice. Participants’ emotions towards political engagement and collective action were changed by experiences of war, with varying levels of political disillusionment amongst youth. Where motivations for political engagement still existed, the concept of personal aspiration was instead shifted to individual sacrifice for the collective good.