Responsibility to Protect the Future: Children on the Move and the Politics of Becoming

Abstract

Protection, development, progress: this is the trilogy of promises carried by the international framework for protecting young people. Based on the analysis of the unicef Unfairy Tales project videos, this article aims to unveil the fierce battle over the meaning of children for the international arena. Specifically, how the compelling claim for an international responsibility to protect children contains a promise of a progressive future to global politics. The focus is on the discursive manoeuvres that articulate the so called ‘children on the move’ as the epitome of vulnerability, positioning them as requiring protection; and, at the same time, as the image of a future at risk, threatened by violence and the prospects of an uncivilised becoming. We intend to discuss how this ambivalent understanding of childhood might produce limits to contemporary application of child protection practices.

Children & Migration: Political Constructions and Contestations

“…Burman (1994, p. 240) suggests that 'children signify our pasts, and (whether in evolutionary, ecological or genealogical ways) also our futures'. Likewise, Tabak and Carvalho (2018) demonstrate how children on the move have been represented as a future at risk that needs protecting, with helping these children represented as helping the future for everyone. Moreover, they note that: (1) children are often deemed to represent a future generation; (2) common representations suggest that children's futures would be curtailed if they are not protected; and (3) helping children is often framed as necessary for preserving a stable future.…”