Special issue introduction: children, agency, and legitimacy in narratives of security and armed conflict

Children have been participants in, victims of, and powerful symbols during war throughout history. Since the mid-1990s, children as victims of war have been part of global peace and security discourses through UN Security Council Resolutions, media coverage, awareness raising by civil society, and new international law and best practice principles. Previous research has engaged with a wide range of children’s experiences during and involvement in war, including the impacts of armed conflict on children and vice versa, gendered and intersectional dynamics, and how constructions of childhood are mobilised by various actors. Across these areas of research, children’s agency has received growing attention, and this special issue brings together the latest research on children, agency, and legitimacy in narratives of security and armed conflict. The special issue asks how children’s participation in armed conflict is defined and understood, how children are mobilised to (de)legitimise various actors and conflicts through security discourses and narratives, and how children’s agency factors into these processes.