Children for sail: British child migrants as colonial commodities

Children’s geographies I: Decoloniality

“…Addressing these issues in children’s geographies necessitates adopting historical perspectives on space, place, and mobility that would fully capture the historical and spatial development of oppression and marginalisation of children, addressing how local aspects of such marginalisation are linked to broader oppressive systems. While a considerable body of historical geographical research on childhood within Western contexts exists (recently Cope, 2023; Von Benzon, 2022), it is the less common research that delves into the historical geographies of childhood outside it that offers a valuable lens through which to address what Balagopalan refers to as ‘conceptual silences […] through which we view childhoods in the [M]ajority world’ (Balagopalan, 2019: p. 37). Koomson et al (2023), for example, call for a greater recognition of historical process that laid foundations of contemporary children’s mobility, illustrated through how a mode of children’s movement between fishing communities in Ghana that traditionally served the purpose of work socialisation have been reframed as criminal acts of child trafficking within the framework of the United Nations Palermo Protocols.…”

“All emigrants are up to the physical, mental, and moral standards required”: A tale of two child rescue schemes

“…where "good white stock" was requested to build the empire (Paul, 1995;Von Benzon, 2021). Both embody biological determinist viewpoints and racist eugenics, with the latter also reflecting white settler colonial projects (Kelly et al, 2021).…”

“…Moreover, driven by demographic considerations, the British authorities treated the Jewish child refugees as temporary immigrants and were reluctant to “replenish that good white stock with Jewish racial material” (Grenville, 2012, p. 4). It should be noted here that the notion of “white stock” was also central in decisions made in relation to the BHSs across the globe (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, as well as Canada) where “good white stock” was requested to build the empire (Paul, 1995; Von Benzon, 2021). Both embody biological determinist viewpoints and racist eugenics, with the latter also reflecting white settler colonial projects (Kelly et al, 2021).…”