Narrating Crisis From War Zones to Disease Zones

Abstract

Previous research with young people growing up during and after wars offers insights for how youth are understanding and coping with the COVID-19 crisis. This literature review summarizes findings from research with adolescents who shared their experience and knowledge in war zones as those findings apply to research with youth in this pandemic. Circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic differ in important ways from military wars, yet emerging research explains how abrupt disruptions of daily life and consequences like lack of social support and uncertainty challenge young people’s psychosocial orientations and health. A brief review of issues relevant to youth in crises sets the scene for a discussion of how their uses of narratives in war zones engaged powerful psychosocial processes, including sense making, imagining, and advising, and how those processes apply to youth narrating in disease zones. Focus is on how such discourse activities symbolically manage instability, uncertainty, and separation challenging youth in the COVID-19 era. Because narrating is an interactive process, adults’ open invitations and empathetic listening to youth storytelling are, moreover, pivotal for supporting youth expression rather than shutting it down. The article concludes with implications for future research with youth growing up in the COVID-19 crisis.