‘Global/local’ research on children and childhood in a ‘global society’

Abstract

To start our conversation, I wonder if you would think of your own research as 'global' or as 'local' research? Also, how do you understand the terms 'local', 'global' and 'globalized' childhood? Do you personally find these terms useful/ productive? STUART AITKEN: For some time now, I've been persuaded by the notion of flat ontologies. Sally Marston and her colleagues David Woodward and J.P. Jones published the now famous piece in the Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers (Marston et al., 2005) that looked at the production of scale for what it was: precisely that, a production. They argued for an intense focus on flat networks and relationalities rather than hierarchical scales, and that is how I like to proceed with my own work with children and young people. I've published books on children and globalization, youth activists jumping scale (to use the term of the late, great Neil Smith, 1992) to affect national and international politics, the impact of neoliberal forms of governance on young people and so forth, and it always seems to come down to (if you will pardon the pun) engagement and aesthetics (the latter formed by the ideas of Jacques Rancière). My empirical work these days looks at young people as part of communities of care rather than scaled communities. Now, it is possible for some people (politicians, CEOs) to create scales and hierarchies to shut young people down so I do not want to diminish the politics behind the production of scale, but for me, at least at the moment, I am very much concerned with reproduction in the sense that Elizabeth Grosz and others use that term. I want to use the term reproduction here in perhaps a more expansive way than it is used by contemporary feminists like Grosz, Cindi Katz, Katharyne Mitchell and others, as the potential for young people to reproduce and remake themselves differently. The importance of the right to create and recreate themselves and their spaces is in the best interests of young people (and adults) and, as a consequence, the focus on spatial rights is not only about occupying spaces that are suitable for access to housing, livelihoods and education but also the right to stay put as well as right of movement and 779480C HD0010.

Children’s Involvement in Research—A Review and Comparison with Service User Involvement in Health and Social Care

“…Another concept which could benefit from cross-disciplinary exploration, is the notion of 'empowerment' which in both types of work predominantly draws on ideas about individual voice, participation and skills development, rather than more collective notions of empowerment. This may be due to the fact that the conceptual foundation of childhood studies largely originates in the Global North (Hanson et al 2018) and that service user involvement has a strong neo-liberal element (Beresford 2002).…”

Adultization and blurring the boundaries of childhood in the late modern era

“…Research shows that children’s lives are being affected by both global processes and local realities, which are closely bound together (Holloway and Valentine, 2000; Katz, 2004; Punch and Tisdall, 2012). Ababe claims that ‘‘global’ and ‘local’ are unstable and blurred in everyday life’ (Hanson et al, 2018: 274). Similarly, Balagopalan discusses that in colonial and political context all childhoods could be recognised as globalised, as ‘all children’s lives have been, either directly or indirectly, influenced by global events, including global capitalism, the most severe of which include histories of forced migration, colonialism, war, natural calamities and so on’ (Hanson et al, 2018: 276).…”

“…Similarly, Balagopalan discusses that in colonial and political context all childhoods could be recognised as globalised, as ‘all children’s lives have been, either directly or indirectly, influenced by global events, including global capitalism, the most severe of which include histories of forced migration, colonialism, war, natural calamities and so on’ (Hanson et al, 2018: 276). Moreover, the discussions on the distortion of the boundaries between the local and the global have mainly two apparent ideas which influenced how we think about children and childhood: The international children’s rights regime and the mobility and migration of children (Hanson et al, 2018). Punch, for example, referring to the globalisation and new technologies thinks that children have opportunities to develop and maintain relationships beyond their local communities.…”

The State and the world’s children

“….) The consequences are that northern privilege is inscribed in international policies for children, and children and families who fail to conform to those models are either stigmatized or rendered invisible' (Burman, 1996: 49) The divide between cosmopolitan/global and particular/local perspectives on children and childhood, as well as the relevance of this divide, continues to fuel many discussions in childhood studies literature (see for instance recently: De Castro, 2020;Drerup and Schweiger, 2019;Hanson et al, 2018;Wall, 2019). What seems less explored in these debates is the role played by nation-states and the solidarity between them.…”