Derry girls and the politics of the everyday: theorising for a more youth-inclusive approach to peacebuilding

Abstract

ABSTRACT The popular sitcom Derry Girls is a witty take on director Lisa McGee’s adolescent experience in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. While set in an era of exceptional sectarian violence, Derry Girls showcases the ways that conflict becomes entangled within mundane, everyday life and how young people are profoundly affected by conflict yet are continually excluded from conflict-related decision-making. I draw on Derry Girls to unpack the theoretical framework offered by Berents and McEvoy-Levy that seeks to include young people more intentionally in peacebuilding. This paper offers credence to a movement that defines peacebuilding differently than the state-centric and elite-driven model that has predominated peace and conflict studies, and instead follows the important contributions of sociological perspectives to the field. I argue that a more youth-inclusive approach to peacebuilding requires re-examining the very concepts that underpin ‘youth’ and ‘peacebuilding’ and the barometers by which successful peace is measured.