Increased attention to the predicaments and potential of youth in conflict has moved the conflict resolution field in important new directions. However, our understandings of and approaches to youth in conflict have been limited by an emphasis on the inclusion of youth in peacebuilding projects without a correspondingly thorough analysis of the often-contested social categories of youth in conflicts. Drawing on in-depth ethnographic work with youth in post-conflict Bali, Indonesia, where attempts to promote a local project to memorialise victims of mass violence exposed deep-seated intergenerational tensions around the meaning and relevance of ‘youth’, this article offers both an analytic reframing of youth in conflict and suggestions for more effective and reflective conflict resolution practice.