Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents : Innovative Approaches to Research Across Space and Time

"Each chapter makes a valuable and original contribution to the larger field of childhood and youth studies. Each author speaks with both passion and compassion about issues that too often are ignored or brushed aside. The collection as a whole is truly wonderful, bringing together such a diverse range of methodologies and foci into a cohesive and exciting whole." Katherine B. Rosier, Professor of Sociology, Central Michigan University, USA This textbook showcases innovative approaches to the interdisciplinary field of childhood and youth studies, examining how young people in a wide range of contemporary and historical contexts around the globe live their young lives as subjects, objects, and agents. The diverse contributions examine how children and youth are simultaneously constructed: as individual subjects through social processes and culturally-specific discourses; as objects of policy intervention and other adult power plays; and also as active agents who act on their world and make meaning even amidst conditions of social, political, and economic marginalization. In addition, the book is centrally engaged with questions about how researchers take into consideration children's and young people's own conceptions of themselves and how we conceptualize child and youth potentials for agency at different ages and stages of growing up. Each chapter discusses substantive research but also engages in self-reflection about methodology, positionality, and/or disciplinarity, thus making the volume especially useful for teaching. This book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including childhood studies, youth studies, girls' studies, development studies, research methods, sociology, anthropology, education, history, geography, public policy, cultural studies, gender and women's studies, and global studies. Deborah Levison is a Professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, USA. Mary Jo Maynes is a Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA. Frances Vavrus is a Professor in Comparative and International Development Education at the University of Minnesota, USA. Acknowledgments 5 Contents 6 About the Editors 8 List of Figures 9 1 Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents: An Introduction 10 Section 1: Construction of Children and Youth as SUBJECTS 12 Section 2: Critiquing OBJECTification of Children and Youth 14 Section 3: Recognizing Children and Youth as AGENTS 16 Conclusion 17 Part I Construction of Children and Youth as SUBJECTS 19 2 “So How’s Your Childhood Going?” A Historian of Childhood Confronts Her Own Archive 20 The Diary as Object 21 Manufacturing the Objective Gaze 26 Trauma as a Framework for Childhood: Comparative Chile and New Hampshire, 1986 31 Conclusions 36 Questions for Discussion 37 Glossary 37 Suggested Readings 38 References 38 3 Encountering Emotions in the Archive of Childhood and Youth 40 Theory: Emotion in the Archive of Childhood 41 Application: Middle-Class German Youth, 1770–1850 43 Conclusions 50 Questions for Discussion 50 Glossary 50 Suggested Readings 51 References 51 4 Visualizing the Spaces of Childhood in Graphic Memoirs 53 Re-Envisioning Childhood in American Graphic Memoirs 56 Perspective and the Child Subject 58 The Spaces of Comic Childhoods in Examples from the Global South 63 Conclusions and New Questions 70 Questions for Discussion 72 Glossary 72 Suggested Readings 73 References 73 5 Turning off the Recorder: Caring Relationships in Research with Youth 75 Grief and Sustenance 76 Collaboration and Friendship Background 77 Judith’s Story 78 From Rapport to Relationship 79 Laura’s Story 80 Turning the Microphone Off: Care and Power in Research Relationships 81 Hard Stories and New Life 83 Judith’s Story Continued 84 Laura’s Story Continued 85 Concluding Reflections on Critical Care, Knowledge Production, and Loss 86 Questions for Discussion 87 Glossary 88 Suggested Readings 88 References 88 6 Productive Tensions in Interdisciplinary and Mixed-Methods Research on Youths’ Livelihoods 90 Introduction 90 A Dynamic Longitudinal Mixed-Methods Research Project 92 Tensions in “Measuring” and Describing Youths’ Livelihoods 94 Tensions Over Interviewing, Translating, and Interpreting Youths’ Lives 98 Conclusions 102 Questions for Discussion 102 Glossary 103 Suggested Readings 103 References 103 Part II Critiquing OBJECTification of Children and Youth 105 7 The Daughters of Bengal: A History of “Western Eyes” on the Girl Victim 106 Introduction 106 The Hastings Trial in the Context of Imperial Expansion 109 Roman and Greek History 111 South Asian History 113 Christian History 115 Conclusion 117 Questions for Discussion 120 Glossary 120 Suggested Readings 120 References 121 8 Searching for the Child in Colonial Uganda’s Educational Archives 123 Stories Told About Children: Considering Child-Focused Sources 126 Photographs 126 Progress Stories 130 Stories Children Tell: Considering Child-Authored Sources 133 Discussion and Conclusion 137 Questions for Discussion 138 Glossary 139 Suggested Readings 139 References 140 9 Black Sites of Speculation: A Case for Theorizing Black Childhood as a Subject in Black Adult Narratives 142 The Empirical Problem of Making Black Childhood a Subject and Black Girls Agents in Historical Research 144 Stages of Enslaved Girlhood: Humanizing Slave Girls 145 Conclusion 151 Questions for Discussion 152 Glossary 153 Suggested Readings 153 References 154 10 Archives, Adoption Records, and Owning Historical Memory 155 An Exercise in Power: Law, Policy, and Rights to Access 158 Mediating Archives, Adoptee Childhoods, and Popular Discourse 162 Yang Kwi Hwa/Eileen Thompson 163 Bong Kyoo Choi/David Zastrow 165 Rights to Self 166 Conclusion 168 Questions for Discussion 169 Glossary 170 Suggested Readings 170 References 171 11 Global Girl Policy and the Girl Effect: Gendered Origins and Silences 174 How Did Girls Gain Ground on Global Agendas? 175 Girls on the Global Agenda: Women and Children? 176 Children’s Rights and Global Institutions as Building Blocks 177 Gendered Social Knowledge and the Case of the “Girl Effect” 181 Conclusion: Silences in the Girl Effect Discourse 183 Questions for Discussion 185 Glossary 185 Suggested Readings 185 References 186 Part III Recognizing Children and Youth as AGENTS 189 12 Is It Okay to Critique Youth Activists? Notes on the Power and Danger of Complexity 190 Intergenerational Relationships in the Peruvian Movement of Working Children 192 The Risks of Critique 194 Managing Risks and Minimizing Harm 197 Conclusion 200 Questions for Discussion 200 Glossary 201 Suggested Readings 201 References 202 13 Re/Writing Gendered Scripts: A Longitudinal Research Partnership Reshaping Gender and Education Policy and Praxis in Zanzibar, Tanzania 205 The Gendered Social Script 207 The Research Partnership 208 Baobab Secondary School 210 The Popular Theater Approach 211 Engaging with the Gendered Social Script 212 Turning Research into Praxis 215 Conclusion 217 Epilogue 218 Questions for Discussion 218 Glossary 218 Suggested Readings 219 References 219 14 Generational Power in Research with Children: Reflections on Risk and “Voice” 222 Conceptualizing “Voice” in Feminist Scholarship 224 Children’s “Voice” and Human Rights 225 Child Participatory Research and Advocacy 226 Longitudinal Ethnography 228 Animating Children’s Views: Can Children’s Perspectives Be Quantified? 230 Conclusion 234 Questions for Discussion 235 Glossary 235 Suggested Readings 236 References 236 15 Youth Circulations: Tracing the Real and Imagined Circulations of Global Youth 239 Why Youth Circulations? Personal and Professional Motivations 240 Narratives and Counter-Narratives 243 Scholarly Relevance 245 Lessons Learned 246 Questions for Discussion 249 Glossary 249 Suggested Readings 249 References 249 Index 254