Childhood deployed remaking child soldiers in Sierra Leone Shepler, Susan creator author. text bibliography History nyu 2014 monographic eng remote 1 online resource (xiv, 209 pages) : illustrations, map "Childhood Deployed examines the reintegration of former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. Based on eighteen months of participant-observer ethnographic fieldwork and ten years of follow-up research, the book argues that there is a fundamental disconnect between the Western idea of the child soldier and the individual lived experiences of the child soldiers of Sierra Leone. Susan Shepler contends that the reintegration of former child soldiers is a political process having to do with changing notions of childhood as one of the central structures of society. For most Westerners the tragedy of the idea of "child soldier" centers around perceptions of lost and violated innocence. In contrast, Shepler finds that for most Sierra Leoneans, the problem is not lost innocence but the horror of being separated from one's family and the resulting generational break in youth education. Further, Shepler argues that Sierra Leonean former child soldiers find themselves forced to strategically perform (or refuse to perform) as the"child soldier" Western human rights initiatives expect in order to most effectively gain access to the resources available for their social reintegration. The strategies don't always work--in some cases, Shepler finds, Western human rights initiatives do more harm than good. While this volume focuses on the well-known case of child soldiers in Sierra Leone, it speaks to the larger concerns of childhood studies with a detailed ethnography of people struggling over the situated meaning of the categories of childhood. It offers an example of the cultural politics of childhood in action, in which the very definition of childhood is at stake and an important site of political contestation"-- Youth in Sierre Leone -- Child Protection Deployed -- Learning "Child Soldier" across Contexts -- Informal Reintergrators, Communities, and NGOs -- Dinstinctions in the Population of "Child Soldiers": RUF and CDF, Boys and Girls. Susan Shepler. Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-201) and index. English. f-sl--- Child soldiers Sierra Leone Child soldiers Sierra Leone Reintegration Children and war Sierra Leone Sierra Leone History Civil War, 1991-2002 Enfants soldats Sierra Leone Enfants et guerre Sierra Leone Sierra Leone Histoire 1991-2002 (Guerre civile) POLITICAL SCIENCE Public Policy Social Security POLITICAL SCIENCE Public Policy Social Services & Welfare SOCIAL SCIENCE Anthropology Cultural Child soldiers Children and war Sierra Leone Abrüstung Jugend Jugendschutz Kind Konflikt Soldat Soziale Integration Auswirkung Kinderschutz Repatriierung Reintegration Demobilmachung Sierra Leonean Civil War (Sierra Leone : 1991-2002) fast https://id.oclc.org/worldcat/entity/E39Qhp4vBbhpYTXgMX9XGVt9VK 1991 - 2002 fast UB418.C45 S44 2014 362.77 SOC002010 HIS027130 POL000000 Childhood Deployed Shepler, Susan. New York : NYU Press, 2014 (DLC) 2014002554 (OCoLC)863200889 9780814760192 0814760198 9780814760925 0814760929 9780814724965 0814724965 9780814770252 0814770258 2014002554 FF0816B1-8DDE-418D-93B8-706965D7B6C8 OverDrive, Inc. 22573/ctt8jw3jk JSTOR https://www.degruyter.com/openurl?genre=book&isbn=9780814760192 https://www.degruyter.com/openurl?genre=book&isbn=9780814760925 MHW 140515 20240419184815.8 in00004787389 eng