“Juvenicide”: Conceptualizing, Measuring, Preventing and Countering Systematic Violence Against Young People

Systematic lethal violence against young people is widespread around the world, yet it is largely overlooked. This project aims to bring together the co-PIs, in consultation with a wider network of scholars, to conceptualize, build awareness on, and counter the phenomenon of ‘juvenicide’, which we define as the systematic assassination of young people because they are young. Specifically, the project aims to finance a 2-month research stay of one of the PIs (Dr. Butti) in the institution of the other PI (Prof. Feixa) in order to allow in-depth collaborative work to achieve the project aims based on their complementary expertise. The 2-month collaboratively research stay has two main aims: 1) To consolidate the existing conceptual work of individual members of the “Juvenicides Network” (of which the co-PIs are part), bring it together in a joint output, and establish its contribution within English-language anthropology; and 2) to collaboratively chart concrete avenues for the practical exploitation of this conceptual work within institutional and policymaking arenas. To fulfill these aims, the project foresees four work packages: a) joint conceptualization of the juvenicide phenomenon; b) proposal for a legal definition of the phenomenon of juvenicide; c) construction of a “juvenicide index”; and d) public policy proposals. The project’s concrete outputs include a joint peer-reviewed journal article, a proposal for a journal special issue, the sketches of both a legal definition of juvenicide and an index to measure its prevalence, and a white paper with policy proposals. The project will culminate in a workshop (for which separate funding is being sought) which will involve all the members of the Juvenicides Network.