Negotiating trust from below: youth, social cohesion and hybrid peacebuilding in Northern Mozambique

This article examines how organised youth contribute to rebuilding trust, strengthening social cohesion and shaping hybrid peacebuilding in conflict-affected settings, drawing on evidence from Northern Mozambique. While existing scholarship on Cabo Delgado has largely focused on insurgency, violent extremism and military responses, less attention has been paid to the everyday processes through which legitimacy, participation and trust are reconstructed in communities affected by conflict and institutional fragility. The study adopts a qualitative multiple-case design based on 62 semi-structured interviews conducted with young people, community leaders, local government officials and civil society representatives across six districts in Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Niassa provinces. Interview data were complemented by participant observation and documentary analysis, allowing for the triangulation of evidence across different actors and settings. The findings show that Youth Hubs, youth cooperatives and community dialogue platforms created opportunities for civic participation, collective action and constructive engagement with local institutions. These initiatives strengthened local networks of trust, enhanced the public visibility of young people and expanded opportunities for participation in community governance. However, their transformative potential remained constrained by persistent structural factors, including political centralisation, uneven state presence and limited institutional responsiveness. The study therefore identifies a persistent micro–macro gap of social cohesion, whereby meaningful local change coexists with broader governance constraints. Conceptually, the article develops the notion of negotiating trust from below to explain how legitimacy is reconstructed through everyday interactions between citizens, communities and public institutions in contexts of contested authority. By treating trust as a political process rather than simply a social outcome, the article contributes to contemporary debates on hybrid peacebuilding, youth agency and state–society relations in fragile contexts.