Hustling, cycling, peacebuilding: Narrating postwar reintegration through livelihood in Liberia

Abstract Ex-combatant youth originated the commercial motorcycling sector in Liberia and have played a dominant role its development. This article collates key insights narrated by one of Liberia's young ex-combatants-turned-commercial motorcyclists, Edwin Nyankoon, to build narrative accounts peacebuilding around conceptualisation livelihood, identity, politics after war. The contributes diverse literatures on agency emphasising need for subject-led methodologies that anchor research questions data analysis participants’ own language experiences post It applies about everyday peace interpret hustling as bottom-up peacebuilding, opposition top-down ex-combatants. These latter largely fail see actors agents, constructing them instead troublemakers interpreting their livelihood activities terms criminality threat. Additionally, it argues also constitutes style . More than coping strategy or an indicator peace, hustling-as-peacebuilding-style is performative: relational, embodied, contradictory, recognisable adherents peace-promoting even if (and arguably because) outsiders construct peace-negating. problematises agency, social relations, gendered collective security they relate ex-combatant conflict-affected during processes.