When the Peace Generation is a Hundred Years Away… Youth, Citizenship, and Democracy in Times of Transition to Peace in Colombia

Abstract

Efforts to consolidate a democratic citizenry are salient in societies transitioning to peace. These endeavors have spawned educational approaches to promote democratic skills, behaviors, and values in young citizens. Yet normative civic framings do not always align with students’ lived experiences, nor with their everyday decisions and expectations. Drawing from in-depth interviews with students in Leticia, Colombia, this study discusses youth understandings about citizenship in relation to the current political process. Findings provide a textured view of how young citizens participate in their civic subjectification through negotiated meanings and values they grant to the peace process and the prospects for sustained peacebuilding. Students’ perspectives prompt us to consider more comprehensive civic practices and frameworks that resonate with their everyday lives and the increasingly challenges of disrupting protracted violence and its legacies.