‘Killed by charity’ – Towards interdisciplinary children’s rights studies

Children and young people’s rights in the digital age: An emerging agenda

“…He means to signal that what a person is able to do or be, and therefore the freedoms to which they can claim the right, will differ by time and place. Moreover, such claims must be achieved through a deliberative or discursive process that closely involves those concerned and yet also takes place across borders, for mutual distancing and critique (see also Hanson, 2014 Equally it is problematic that the opportunities and risks of internet use are grounded in the social or the collective dimensions of digital media (hence we talk here of children, emphasizing their plurality across contexts), yet it is the sovereign individual (the isolated and decontextualized child) who is the subject of rights claims. Indeed, a common critique of the human rights turn is its instantiation of a universalized subject, grounded in a blindness to 'the localized', to 'the contextual', and to the structural differentials of race, class, gender and age.…”

“…While acknowledging such critical doubts, especially since in the field of child rights many wrongs have been done (Hanson, 2014), we nonetheless suggest that before identifying practical pathways one must imagine desired goals and then, build sufficient consensus by discursive means to pursue them collectively. Thus the growing interest in rights in relation to digital environments is valuable for its imaginative and aspirational vision and its capacity to frame and mobilize action, even if significant matters of practical politics are still to be resolved.…”

Societal impact of academic childhood and children’s rights research: Sooner or later?

“…At the exact moment when Children's Rights and Childhood Studies are being praised by rectors and vice chancellors for responding so well to outside requests for social impact, demands have concomitantly been asked also from within the universities that emerging and socially motivated study fields such as ours include sufficient theoretical and methodological rigour and depth in their endeavours. In parallel with approaches from within Childhood Studies that aim at social impact of its research findings and from within Children's Rights Studies that lends its academic support for the international children's rights framework, also more self-reflective perspectives have emerged that critically engage with the contexts in which childhood discourses and children's rights practices are produced and applied (Hanson, 2014). At least part of the academic research is worried about the field's slow theoretical advancements or the little influence it has on academic debates within social sciences and humanities more generally.…”

Reframing media effects in terms of children’s rights in the digital age

“…Hanson (2014) argues that such advocacy might even be counter-productive, warning of research that obscures critical examination of "the intended and unintended consequences of developing legislation, policies and programmes in the name of children's rights" (p. 443). He calls for a reflexive and deliberative approach "that critically engages with the environments in which children's rights are produced and applied," thus calling for children's rights studies with the stress on "studies" (i.e.…”