Paper short abstract:

Our communication is based on an ongoing investigation. It seeks to study youth participation in the nationalist armed struggle in Mozambique between 1964 and 1974 and the paths taken by these militants in the immediately subsequent period, in the new context of independence.

Paper long abstract:

Having as a background the study of the Mozambique Liberation Front, its emergence and action on the ground, but also on other fronts of struggle, we are mainly interested in studying the role played by young combatants, whose ages would be between 15 and 18 years old. It is intended in this way to see, in what molds it was.

Our starting question and the central question that we intend to answer taking into account the initial phase of the investigation was defined as follows, which guides the present work: What is the role of these young people in the armed struggle of liberation and what is its relevance to maintain the operationalization of FRELIMO?

This gave rise to the derived questions: What were its origins? How did the families face the situation? Were they against? Or were they in favor? What are your motivations? How were they seen by FRELIMO? How did they see themselves? Would there be a group identity based on an age group? What are the individual trajectories of young fighters in the post-independence period? Did this segment provide FRELIMO's intermediate cadres in the post-1974 period?

Taking into account our research so far, the following hypotheses can be put forward: their origins were diverse and this activity provided them with a certain social and material status; they were seen by FRELIMO as the “backbone” of their army and they themselves felt their value; some of these elements joined the ranks of FRELIMO after 1974.