Dissertation Research: Migrant Youth in a Shadow Economy: Liberian Child Soldiers in Cape Town, South Africa

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD

Investigators

Abstract

Graduate student James Williams, supervised by Dr. Jane I. Guyer, will undertake research on Liberian youth who participated in the civil war in Liberia and who, following disarmament in 2004, migrated to Cape Town, South Africa. Liberian youth are representatives of a growing population of unaccompanied children and youth who cross national borders in search of employment and refuge from war. The study examines the economic activities of the young migrants and their strategies for survival and asks to what extent their ability to survey depends upon skills and behaviors learned in war and how the urban environment of Cape Town -- a global city -- might make such opportunity possible. The researcher will use qualitative and quantitative ethnographic field methods to understand the nature of the ties that hold Liberian youth as groups and allow them to operate within the informal economy. These methods will include participant observation, life history interviews, focal follows, and the collection of ego-focused and whole network data to determine the internal structures of the groups and their external relations. Previous research on former child soldiers has portrayed them as either victims or agents of violence. In contrast, Liberian former child soldiers in Cape Town are viewed by South Africans as successful in being able to maintain themselves outside of either state or family institutions. This project will help to understand alternative trajectories for unaccompanied youth and thus contribute to social science theory and policy concerning violence and children. This award also supports the education of a social scientist.