In this paper I explore and exemplify the processes through which youngsters become committed insiders of countercultural youth groups and how under-aged (child) soldiers go through a similar process of transformation to become members of what I will call a ‘community of military terror’. Finally, I discuss the extent to which the experience of more extreme counter-cultural groups and communities can be accommodated into the ‘community of practice’ concept (Lave, 1988; Wenger, 1998), and, when not possible, the modifications needed to achieve accommodation.
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