Youth Choreographing Peace: Dance in and Beyond the Refugee Camp

About Research article

Recent scholarship examines key roles the arts may play in peacebuilding and highlights the importance of youth-led peacebuilding. Building on these literatures, we investigate how young people displaced by conflict dance for peace and in doing so offer insights into peacebuilding theory and practice. Drawing on the first author’s experience working in Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Malawi from 2018–2019 and 12 semi-structured interviews conducted from August–October 2021 with young people living and/or working in the camp, we argue that young people affected by conflict can and do use dance in various ways to create peaceful social change. This case study explores how displaced young people come together in Dzaleka Refugee camp to use dance to lead for peace. In doing so, they deploy dance to practice freedom and mobility, challenge negative representations of refugee young people, and create and access social and economic opportunities.