Youth’s Mesopolitical Agency: A Valuable Lens for Peace Research and Praxis

This brief article introduces a new empirical assessment of the concept of mesopolitical agency to ‎examine youth engagement in peace and conflict in South Sudan. Mesopolitical agency refers to an ‎active role of managing power across multiple spheres of life. Drawing on data from a people-to-‎people peacebuilding project, the assessment focuses on the analytic power of mesopolitical agency to ‎‎(i) explore youth engagement in peace and conflict in the Unity State and, in so doing, to (ii) ‎contribute to advancing peace research and praxis. The assessment was conducted using governance ‎diaries, interviews, focus groups, and documentary data from multiple stakeholders. The findings ‎demonstrate, inter alia, that youth actively engage with local systems of power through conflict and ‎emerging roles in modest peace initiatives. The findings illustrate youth’s exercise of mesopolitical ‎agency, where the substance and extent of their participation or disaffection can significantly shape ‎and be shaped by the dynamics of peace and conflict. Overall, this article notes challenges to ‎essentialist perspectives on youth as subjects of inherent, static, or unidimensional determinable ‎positionalities vis-à-vis peace and conflict. Finally, there are concrete implications for research and ‎practice that may achieve a stronger understanding and optimization of youth’s potential role in peace.‎