Brown Bag: The Power of Youth: Exploring Young People’s Engagement in Local Conflict Transformation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo

This research aims to explore if and how young people’s participation in political and social affairs can contribute to local conflict transformation and post-conflict peacebuilding in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. More than two decades after the end of the wars, the majority of youth in both countries continue growing up in ethnically and religiously segregated communities. Moreover, they remain particularly affected by the chronic economic underdevelopment of their countries. The approach taken is bottom-up, empirically driven, multi-dimensional, interdisciplinary, comparative and emancipatory in nature. The analysis differentiated, by ethnicity, religion, socio-economic status, gender, age and between urban and rural spaces, will focus on young people in their socialization environments in conflict-prone locations in both countries.

Bert Preiss is a lecturer in international politics and peace and conflict studies at the Department of Political Science, University of Vienna, and a research affiliate at the Department of Southeast European History and Anthropology, University of Graz. He is currently working on a book based on his dissertation on local conflict hotspots in Northern Ireland and Kosovo. His research interests include nationalism, power and hegemony, social justice, community studies and youth participation in (post-)conflict contexts. He has published book chapters and journal articles and he is the editor and co-editor of some books, such as Democracy in Crisis: The Dynamics of Civil Protest and Civil Resistance. Among his previous positions, he worked at the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University College Dublin.