Learning from a Living Archive: Rejuvenating Child and Youth Rights and Participation

Abstract

This paper reflects the findings of the first phase of the REJUVENATE project, which set out to understand and map approaches to integrating children, youth, and community participation in child rights initiatives. We did this through a scoping of existing practitioner and academic literature (developing a project-based literature review matrix), a mapping of key actors, and the development of a typology of existing approaches. All three of these elements were brought together into a ‘living archive’, which is an evolving database that currently comprises 100 matrices, and a ‘collection’ of key field practitioners (many of whom we have interviewed for this project). In this paper we: (1) present a user-friendly summary of the existing tradition of substantive children’s participation in social change work; (2) share case studies across various sectors and regions of the world; (3) highlight ongoing challenges and evidence gaps; and (4) showcase expert opinions on the inclusion of child rights and, in particular, child/youth-led approaches in project-based work.

Beyond the Shadow of Adults—Youth, Adultism, and Human Rights in the Contemporary Faroe Islands

“…Young people's sense of belonging is, to a high degree, the outcome of intergenerational relations across several generations. Young people need the capacity to imagine a 'different (better) society' in order to grasp the power structure facilitating adultism in society (Johnson et al 2020).…”

Mothers vs Children: Co-opting Child Rights as Gender Backlash

“…A specific challenge concerning child rights is negotiating protection versus agency for children. The Indian government and scholarship on child rights from India tend to lean towards adultist (power of adults over children and young people) approaches revealing a shared understanding of age-based hierarchy and capacity (Johnson et al 2020;Biswas and Wall 2021). In this context, it is relevant to note that Martinez et al (2021: 16) discuss how child rights are 'weaponised' by religious right-wing groups who use '…child protection rhetoric to cause moral panic and mobilize it against laws, policies, and other initiatives that protect and advance women' s, LGBTQIA+ persons, and even children' s rights'.…”