Ex-Combatants’ Voices

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xx

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • John D. Brewer, Azrini Wahidin

   Pages 1-9

3. Listening to Ex-combatants’ Voices

   • John D. Brewer

   Pages 11-34

4. Voices from Northern Ireland and Britain

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 35-35

      PDF

   2. Female Ex-combatants in the Irish Republican Army and the Rocky Road to Peace

      • Azrini Wahidin

      Pages 37-61

   3. The Experiences of Loyalist Ex-combatants on Their Journey from Conflict to Peace

      • David Magee

      Pages 63-91

   4. ‘Sin by Silence’: The Claims to Moral Legitimacy Amongst Northern Irish Paramilitaries

      • John D. Brewer

      Pages 93-122

   5. British Counter-Insurgency Veterans in Afghanistan

      • John D. Brewer, Stephen Herron

      Pages 123-147

5. Voices from South Africa

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-149

      PDF

   2. Contested Voices of Former Combatants in Post-Apartheid South Africa

      • Malose Langa, Godfrey Maringira, Modiefe Merafe

      Pages 151-177

   3. The Lives of Women Ex-combatants in Post-Apartheid South Africa

      • Siphokazi Magadla

      Pages 179-205

   4. ‘Why Did I Die?’: South African Defence Force Conscripts Pre- and Post-1994

      • Wilhelm Verwoerd, Theresa Edlmann

      Pages 207-235

   5. An African Comparison: Girl Soldiers Returning from a Rebel Group in Northern Uganda

      • Allen Kiconco

      Pages 237-262

6. Voices from Sri Lanka

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 263-263

      PDF

   2. Reflections on the Role of Female Cadres in the LTTE

      • Bhavani Fonseka

      Pages 265-286

   3. Media Representations of Women Ex-combatants in Sri Lanka

      • Ashleigh McFeeters

      Pages 287-313

   4. Concluding Reflections

      • Azrini Wahidin

      Pages 315-339

7. Back Matter

   Pages 341-348

   PDF

This book develops the discourse on the experiences of ex-combatants and their transition from war to peace, from the perspective of scholars across disciplines. Ex-combatants are often overlooked and ignored in the post-conflict search for memory and understanding, resulting in their voice being excluded or distorted. This collection seeks to disclose something of the lived experience of ex-combatants who have made the transition from war to peace to help to understand some of the difficulties they have encountered in social and emotional reintegration in the wake of combat. These include: motivations and mobilizations to participation in military struggle; the material difficulties experienced in social reintegration after the war; the emotional legacies of conflict; the discourses they utilize to reconcile their past in a society moving forward from conflict toward peace; and ex-combatants’ subsequent engagement – or not – in peacebuilding. It also examines the contributions that former combatants have made to post-conflict compromise, reconciliation and peacebuilding. It focusses on male non-state actors, women, child soldiers and, unusually, state veterans, and complements previous volumes which captured the voices of victims in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka. This volume speaks to those working in the areas of sociology, criminology, security studies, politics, and international relations, and professionals working in social justice and human rights NGOs.

• gender and peace
• conflict
• international relations
• transitional justice
• prison
• war
• global south
• veterans
• ex-prisoners
• victims
• moral legitimacy

“The book … successfully argues that the deep seated and binary moral judgments about the wrongdoing of ex-combatants not only revictimizes the ex-combatant but can also hold back peace processes. … For academic readers, the book serves as a rich and valuable source of qualitative research, a top text for a university peace programme. Brewer and Wahidin have skilfully crafted the volume to ensure that in each chapter, the reader is grounded in the arguments being made.” (Kisane Prutton, The Peace Psychologist, Vol. 30 (2), 2021)

• Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK

  John D. Brewer

• Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

  Azrini Wahidin

John D. Brewer is Professor of Post Conflict Studies sat Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, and Honorary Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. 
​Azrini Wahidin is Professor of Sociology and Criminology and Co-Director for the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender Studies at Warwick University, UK. 

Policies and ethics