Centering the problem child: Temporality, colonialism, and theories of the child

Abstract

What would it mean to center theories of the child around those who are evacuated from childhood? I propose the idea of the "problem child" as an encapsulation of those who are constructed outside of Western understandings of childhood. In this essay, I explore how the problem child illuminates colonial entanglements between childhood and constructions of time, and the implications this holds for theories of the child. To do so, I position Carla Shalaby's Troublemakers as a provocation to theories of childhood: her masterful portraits illustrate how problem children are constructed as such temporally, repeatedly narrated as late or out-of-sync. Put otherwise, Shalaby's centered focus on troublemakers highlights the ways in which temporality is used as a limit to constructions of the child. I build on Shalaby's provocation to argue that the ways in which childhood and temporality interlock are a production of colonial understandings of subjectivity, in which childhood is co-constructed with linear time. In asking what it might mean to center the problem child, I argue for the contextualization of dominant Western understandings of the child in the colonial violence in which they were produced in order to challenge assumed connections between the child and temporality.

Initiating decolonial praxis: childhood studies curricula in an English university

“…This is particularly relevant because of adults' roles in children's lives. For example, disabled children are 'othered' and dehumanised through being subject to the professional 'gaze' (Tisdall 2012), similarly those from particular ethnic backgrounds are 'narrated into being problem children' (Knight 2019).…”

“…Examples of voices that have not merited a place in CS alongside the 'normal' child include: the problem child (Knight 2019); the DisHuman child ; the Black/Asian child (Graham 2006). The omission of Black and Asian children is not accidental, rather a reflection of the impact of the colonial world and structural racism in social settings (Wells 2018).…”

“…This requires seeing the human child and challenging models of childhood that favour discourses of normalisation (Burman 2019) and universalism. Equally, in the Global North there is a need to move away from pathologising children who appear different (Graham 2006) and positioning groups of children as a problem (Knight 2019). Thus, decolonising CS becomes a process of amplifying both differences and commonalities across contexts through local practices and voice.…”

Initiating decolonial praxis: childhood studies curricula in an English university

“…This is particularly relevant because of adults' roles in children's lives. For example, disabled children are 'othered' and dehumanised through being subject to the professional 'gaze' (Tisdall 2012), similarly those from particular ethnic backgrounds are 'narrated into being problem children' (Knight 2019). Framing children with regards to their deficiencies pathologises and medicalises them, threatening to remove humanness from those being gazed upon.…”

“…This requires seeing the human child and challenging models of childhood that favour discourses of normalisation (Burman 2019) and universalism. Equally, in the Global North there is a need to move away from pathologising children who appear different (Graham 2006) and positioning groups of children as a problem (Knight 2019). Thus, decolonising CS becomes a process of amplifying both differences and commonalities across contexts through local practices and voice.…”