ABSTRACT
Child soldiers are generally portrayed either as victims of structural forces that are beyond their control and comprehension or as knowing agents of mayhem in search of revolutionary change or personal gain. Yet these singular perspectives are bedevilled by their dialectical limitations, the one overlooking capacities of individual will, the other prone to discounting historical and socioeconomic contexts. In this paper, through the lens of structuration theory that postulates the interconnectedness of structure and agency, we examine how boys were transformed into armed and organized combatants in Sierra Leone’s recent civil war. Drawing from a series of interviews with a cohort of boys who fought with the rebel Revolutionary United Front ( RUF), we map out their experiences and perspectives in a way that high-lights the juxtaposition of profound social forces and the capacity for personal agency that underlay the process of becoming child soldiers. We conclude by ruminating on the challenges of rehabilitating and reintegrating former child soldiers in the impoverished circumstances of post-war Sierra Leone.
