Contents

1 Introduction................................................................................................................................. 170

2 NavigatingTowardsocialJustice...............................................................................................

3 Young People, Costs of War, and Stages of Recovery......................................................... 173

4 Study Population and Methodology........................................................................................ 174

5 Navigating Through a Changing Terrain: From War To Postwar......................................... 175

5.1 War: Displacements, Militancy, and Mistrust.............................................................. 175

5.2 Postwar: Limited Opportunities for Social and Spatial Mobility.............................. 177

5.3 Beyond Postwar: Can Youth Navigate Toward Justice?........................................... 180

6 Concluding Discussion: Troubled Past, Harsh Present, and Uncertain Future.................. 182

References......................................................................................................................................... 184

Abstract

The intention of this chapter is to inform already existing scholarly narratives of recovery where a perspective of youth is found to be limited. In Sri Lanka, youth are not visible in the general discourse on post-conflict recovery and its mani­festations. Given the account by youth about their experiences and strategies during the war and postwar, the chapter shows that multiple transitions take place in the process from war to postwar and not all processes reach all relevant groups. Among youth, multiple restrictions on social and spatial mobility have led to frustrations instead of increasing hopes for a safe, peaceful, and just society.

F. Azmi (*)

Department of Geography, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

e-mail: fazeehaazmi@gmail.com

C. Brun • R. Lund

Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

e-mail: cathrine.brun@svt.ntnu.no; ragnhild.lund@svt.ntnu.no

© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017

C. Harker et al. (eds.), Conflict, Violence and Peace, Geographies of Children and

YoungPeople 11, DOI 10.1007/978-981-287-038-4_17 these restrictions as injustices relating to ethnicity and the histories they have brought with them from living through war. Such experiences of exclusion by the young people of Eastern Sri Lanka show that recovery includes social and cultural aspects and point toward the need for both distributive justice (actions which may benefit the less advantaged groups in postwar Sri Lanka) and corrective justice (actions which may restore a situation of rightful distributions of benefits and resources in the country).

Keywords

Youth • War • Postwar • Social and spatial mobility • Justice • Sri Lanka

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