| Popis: |
Childhood in western societies is apparently at risk. In a globalised, interconnected world, ‘the child’ is in danger of loosing its innocence too early – ideal childhood seems under threat like never before. In this thesis I argue that concerns over childhood and the ideal child are nothing new. Questions over what ideal childhood looks like have preoccupied the social and political imagination for centuries. Taking a poststructural approach, I investigate how childhood and the western modern child have been produced discursively. I argue that the modern child has been shaped by political rationalities that emphasise the child’s potential as resource – the ideal child is the child with promise. This ideal child is governed through its Other, the child as/at risk who marks the boundaries of ideal childhood. Modern childhood as a domain has been structured by the tensions that are created between the child with promise and the child as risk. The contemporary preoccupation with childhood is embedded in wider social, cultural and political shifts in postmodern/late-industrial society. It is the modern ideal of childhood that is at risk. This study takes an interdisciplinary approach to childhood studies to map the transformation of childhood over time. I argue that changes in contemporary discourses of childhood are effects of changes in political rationality. |
