Introduction

The introduction explains the two innovative moves that this book makes. The first move is territorial. This book expands the frame of war, armed conflict, ethics, and security studies by interrogating overlooked aspects of armed violence, including cyber-warfare and self-defence, and then proceeds to consider other kinds of fights – including criminal violence, political activism, and gender equality – that ensnare and embroil children and youth. The second move is conceptual, namely, it interrogates the reality of child soldiering and of children’s experiences with ‘fights’ from the perspectives of both the South and the North. This book tilts towards assessing implicated children as actors with the capacity for ethical discernment, as demonstrating agency, and as having awareness of virtue and evil.