The state of play: historical perspectives

Martin, Mary Clare

doi:10.1080/21594937.2016.1244025

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…It is still debated whether this association between childhood and play reflects a universal developmental pattern or is particularly associated with modern ideas of childhood and leisure, especially in defining the boundaries between child and adult. 49 In the South Indian context, a discussion of play was used by the authors to contest assumptions that South Asian childhoods were defined by work and therefore 'lack' as insufficiently 'childlike'. 50 This in turn contributed to the influence of this normative assumption and further Othered children, most likely the majority, whose days were primarily characterised by work.…”

Section: Days Of Mischiefmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remembering pre-independence childhoods in South India: interrogating autobiographies and identities

Ellis

2019

Social History

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This article discusses the potential of autobiography for understanding histories of childhood, the effects of late-colonial social policy and the experience of change in India in the decades immediately preceding independence in 1947. This was an era characterised by both increased state intervention in the lives of poor Indian children and the growing influence of universalising notions about modern childhood. Based on a detailed study of 55 autobiographies produced by those born between 1910 and 1940, the article analyses the ways in which childhood was imagined, defined and discussed by South Indians through memories that coalesce around the themes of innocence, play, education, work, family and social identity. It demonstrates that these narrations of memory also convey aspirations for contemporary Indian children through comparative reference to the binary of 'today' and 'those days'. The article reveals the complexity of ideas and experiences at a local level which, despite the commonality of age, were refracted through the distinctions of gender, religion, race and class.

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Section: Days Of Mischiefmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remembering pre-independence childhoods in South India: interrogating autobiographies and identities

Ellis

2019

Social History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The state of play: historical perspectives

Cited by 1 publication

References 16 publications

Remembering pre-independence childhoods in South India: interrogating autobiographies and identities

Remembering pre-independence childhoods in South India: interrogating autobiographies and identities

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