Refusing the Limits of Contemporary Childhood: Beyond Innocence (Critical Childhood & Youth Studies: Theoretical Explorations and Practices in Clinical, Educational, Social, and Cultural Settings)

Each of the essays in this collection considers what lies beyond the limiting discourses of childhood innocence. Instead of focusing on how children "grow up," as has been the focus of developmental science for over a century, we ask what it might mean for discourses of childhood to finally "grow out" of childhood innocence? The authors featured in this volume explore this question through critical approaches that actively refuse the limits of normative and normalizing conceptions of the child by surfacing and centering complex, multiplicitous configurations of childhood. Together, these perspectives challenge existing discourses and social practices to reveal how power operates in and through the child and its uses. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Introduction Developing Innocence: A Brief History of the “Modern” Child Questioning Innocence: Deconstructing Development Disrupting Development Across the Disciplines Contemporary Resistance in Childhood Studies Refusing the Limits of Contemporary Childhood Moving Beyond Innocence: Toward Radical Refusals References Chapter 1: Who Is Entitled to Childhood Innocence: Black Girls and the Struggle against Racial Bias in Canadian Schools Reflections Introduction Black Feminist Autoethnography and Educational Research Black Feminist Knowledge Review of Education and Childhood Literature in Canada Childhood and Innocence Childhood and Education Black Girls’ Voice in Education Adultification Bias Research Methods Data Collection and Analysis Findings Black Girls on Exclusion and Misrepresentation Black Girls on Missed Opportunities and Miseducation Discussion Addressing Racial Bias as Experienced by Black Girls References Chapter 2: Unpacking the Adultification–Infantilization Paradox Introduction Weaponized Childhood: Little Angels, Little Devils, and Blank Slates White Children’s Ambiguous Experience of Childhood Why Racism Has Historically (Selectively) Recognized Black Childhood Why Racism Continues to (Selectively) Recognize Black Childhood Weaponized Adulthood: Reason and Criminal Responsibility The Privileges of Adulthood The Burdens of Adulthood Adulthood as an Ambiguous Category Weaponized Adult–Child Hybrids Hybrids for Annexing Childhood Innocence Hybrids for Containing Monstrosity Black Exclusion from White Adolescent Temporality Conclusion: Goals for an Antiracist Childhood Studies References Chapter 3: Childhood Innocence, Sanism, and the Image of the Child: Maddening Childhood Innocence Through the “Problem Child” Introduction Childhood Innocence Problem Children: Those Who Are Not Considered Innocent Childhood Innocence and Mad Studies: An Important Intervention Sanism and Mad Childhoods Madness, Childhood Innocence, and Modern Rationality Maddening Childhood Innocence: The De-ontologization of the Problem Child Notes References Chapter 4: Zapatista Childhoods: Children’s Participation and the Possibilities for Collective Knowledge Introduction Colonization, Culture, and Community in Mexico Indigenous Community Practices as Methods for Decolonization and Child Protagonism The Reflective Processes of the Zapatista Movement Zapatista Community Practices as Contexts for Childhood Methodological Strategies for Collaboration and the Construction of Childhood The Community Library as a Reflective Practice The Workshop Assembly as a Collaborative Methodology Exploring New Paths toward Children’s Participation Note References Chapter 5: Adultism in Uganda’s Child Protection Efforts: A Case of Violence against Children Introduction Review of Previous Research Childism as a Lens to Disrupt Adultism in Child Policy Violence against Children in Perspective Methods National VAC Laws and Policies Inadequacies in Uganda’s VAC Laws and Policies Tensions in Uganda’s VAC Laws and Policies Silences in Uganda’s VAC Laws and Policies Discussion Conclusion References Chapter 6: Malleability of Innocence: Reimagining Justice in the Indian Juvenile Justice System Introduction The Juvenile Justice System in India The Juvenile Periphery Social Order of Juvenile Periphery The Political Mobilization of Innocence “Prolonging” and “Suspending” Childhoods Conclusion References Chapter 7: Narrating Trauma, Subverting Innocence: Challenging Normative Childhood Representations in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India Writing Partition Trauma, Gender, and Childhood Subverting Innocence Nation, Violence, and Subversion of Innocence Sexuality and Subversion of Innocence Spatiality and Subversion of Innocence Other Subversions of Innocence Trauma, Childhood, and Maturation Conclusion References Chapter 8: The Arrivant Child: Afrofuturity and Contingent Childhood Agencies Introduction Background Literature Childhood Studies and Childhood Agency Science Fiction, the Future, and Afrofuturism Decolonization, Futurity, and Afrofuturity Theory and Reading Strategy Arrivance, Futurity, and Childhood Agency Arrivance, the Trauma of Slavery, and Childhood Agency as Resistance and Refusal Im/possibilities of Home, Contingent Childhood Agencies, and the Destabilizing Figure of the Arrivant Child Conclusions: Arrivant Childhoods and Afrofuturity References Chapter 9: Troubling Innocence: Staging Scenes of Black Youth Pleasures and Possibilities somebody/anybody sing a black girl’s song: Coming to Performance in Education dark phrases of womanhood/of never havin been a girl: Black Youth Stereotypes and the Difficulty With Innocence bring her out/to know herself: Theorizing Pleasure at the Nexus of Blackness, Queerness, and Girlhood sing the song of her possibilities: Staging Scenes of Black Girlhood References Index About the Contributors