PrintMarc Sommers
Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow, October 2009 - July 2010
Contact
Phone: (202) 429-4706
Email: msommers@usip.org
Project Focus: Youth, Popular Culture and Terror Warfare: Insights from Sierra Leone
Marc Sommers is Associate Research Professor of Humanitarian Studies in the Institute of Human Security at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. At USIP, Sommers will focus on Western popular cultural icons and youth as important contributors to warfare, as well as to peacebuilding. His project will draw on extensive field research in Sierra Leone, which analyzed the prominent roles that hip hop artist Tupac Shakur, the Rambo movie character and reggae musician Bob Marley played in Sierra Leone’s civil war. It also illuminated the influence of Tupac Shakur and other popular culture icons on youth adaptation to post-war life.
Sommers began researching the situation and perspectives of war-affected youth two decades ago. Since that time, he has conducted research, assessment and evaluation work in 20 war-affected countries, and has published extensively on youth, education, peace education, conflict negotiation, child soldiers, urbanization, forced migration, human rights, and coordination issues in war and post-war contexts. Countries and territories of particular research interest include Burundi, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and southern Sudan. Sommers has consulted for policy institutes and numerous United Nations, non-government, and donor agencies, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense.
Sommers received his PhD and MA in Development Anthropology from Boston University, and his BA in African and South Asian History from the University of Michigan.
Publications:
- “Embracing the Margins: Working with Youth amid War and Insecurity,” in L. Brainard and D. Chollet, Eds. Too Poor for Peace? Poverty, Conflict and Security in the 21st Century. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2007.
- “Fearing Africa’s Young Men: Male Youth, Conflict, Urbanization and the Case of Rwanda,” in I. Bannon and M. Correia, Eds., The Other Half of Gender: Men’s Issues in Development. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006.
- Islands of Education: Schooling, Civil War, and the Southern Sudanese. Paris: International Institute for Educational Planning, UNESCO, 2005.
- Fear in Bongoland: Burundi Refugees in Urban Tanzania. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2001.
Events
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January 19, 2010
The notion that an excess of male youth in a population leads to social unrest, war and terrorism is widespread. Jennings Randolph Senior Fellows Marc Sommers and Matt Venhaus agree that demographic factors can impact the stability and security of countries, but they caution against making easy causal linkages between the two. Instead, they argue that our understanding of why and how young men become violent or extremists is limited and often misguided. Hence many national and international policies and programs that attempt to deal with these two issues have little effect or - worse - are counterproductive. Issue Areas: Civil Society, Post-Conflict Activities, Terrorism and Political Extremism, Youth
| Programs: Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship Program
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January 15, 2010
A panel of experts will discuss how programs and policies addressing gender-based violence must take into account male gender issues. Their expertise draws upon significant field work experience in both Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. They will consider the practitioner challenges toward understanding and engaging men and boys in finding sustainable solutions to gender-based violence in zones of conflict. Countries: Congo, Republic of the, Rwanda
| Issue Areas: Human Rights, Identity, Ethnicity, and Culture, Women
| Programs: Jennings Randolph Senior Fellowship Program
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