War in worcester

This book combines a study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)'s findings on the stand taken by youth with extended fieldwork undertaken with fourteen young men who, starting in their schooldays, were involved in the anti-apartheid struggle in a small town in the Western Cape. Filling a gap in the ethnographic analysis of the role of youth in armed conflict, the book describes, from the perspective of the young fighters themselves, the tactics that young local leaders used and how the state retaliated, young peoples' experiences of pain and loss, the effect on fighters of the extensive use of informers by the state, and the search for an ethic of survival. War in Worcester problematises the use of the term `victim' for the political engagement of young people and calls for attention to patterns of documenting the past in recording the character of political forces and the uses of violence. It encourages a fresh analysis of the kinds of revolt being enacted by the young elsewhere in the world, such as North Africa and the Middle East.