Telling stories, washing hands: exploring the role of narrative in development programmes targeting children

McCarthy, Annie

doi:10.1080/19472498.2015.1030876

Cited by 6 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…44 Particular attributes linked to Global North conceptions of what children 'should' be like at given ages can be used to ascribe agency only to children who meet these norms, as Annie McCarthy explores in her work on NGO policies intended to promote children's participation in a handwashing campaign in Delhi, which saw children as natural storytellers and valorised children who could tell creative narratives. 45 Some scholars, such as Sarah Maza, assert unquestioningly that the history of childhood is distinct from the histories of other oppressed and marginalised groups because children do not have shared political aims related to the category of childhood, and have 'never set collective agendas for themselves'. 46 This is straightforwardly not true.…”

Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Tisdall

2022

History

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This state of the field article presents three questions for students and scholars of childhood: first, who is included in the history of childhood? Second, why does the history of childhood matter? Third, how should we do the history of childhood? It argues that all historians of childhood need to reflect upon modern developmental concepts of childhood which purport to tell us what children of different chronological ages can think, understand and feel. These limiting concepts of childhood originate from eighteenth-century Anglo-American concepts of liberal personhood that position children as non-people due to their lack of reason and their dependence on others. However, as 'childhood studies' scholars have shown, they still govern many of our instincts and assumptions about childhood today. Historians of childhood will have most to offer once we have interrogated our own concepts of childhood, but also when we fully consider how childhood has been historically constructed in relation to adulthood. I'The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken,' wrote Lloyd deMause in 1974. 1 DeMause was suggesting that premodern childhoods were marked by suffering, abuse and pain, and that only modern Western ideas about child welfare could save children from this horror. Despite the huge strides that historians of childhood have made over the last fifty years, this kind of assertion -that there is a 'right' kind of childhood that all children ought to experience -has been remarkably persistent. Paula Fass argued in 2013 that modern childhood is 'a privileged state' and that all children across the globe should have equal access to this model of protected innocence confined safely within the private sphere. 2 This ideal is relatively new. Late eighteenth-century Anglo-American classical liberalism introduced new dividing lines between childhood and adulthood, based on children's supposed lack of 'reason', and, in the Global North, this led to the development of ideas about the necessity of childhood 'freedom' from 1 Lloyd deMause (ed.), The History of Childhood (New York, 1974), p. 1. 2 Paula Fass (ed.), The Routledge History of Childhood in the Western World (Oxon, 2013), p. 2.

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Section: IIImentioning

confidence: 99%

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Tisdall

2022

History

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“…These programs create a trap, in which slum dwellers without access to adequate sanitation infrastructure can never be clean enough to shatter ideas of their innate proclivity toward filth, nor adequately demonstrate their desire and worthiness to be given the infrastructure that would allow them to be 'properly clean.' Seemingly stuck in this endless cycle of education campaigns, slum dwellers drift in and out of WASH initiatives that, just like the handwashing promotion campaign studied by McCarthy (2015) do not provide soap nor address issues of water accessibility.…”

Section: Managing Privacy and Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This chapter brings together the findings and insights of a number of research projects. The first author draws on her experience of fieldwork with children from four slum communities in Delhi, in which she documented the ways these children and their communities were framed by sanitation and hygiene promotion campaigns (see McCarthy 2015). The second author contributes specific data on women's experiences of menstruation, collected through long interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observation carried out in one particular slum cluster in the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA).…”

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confidence: 99%

Bleeding in Public? Rethinking Narratives of Menstrual Management from Delhi’s Slums

McCarthy

Lahiri‐Dutt

2020

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies

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McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt illuminate the menstrual experiences of women living in informal settlements in India. Beginning with a critique of menstrual hygiene management (MHM) and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) framings of women’s menstrual practices, they argue that these approaches ignore important spatial, social, and moral meanings attached to menstruating bodies in informal settlements. To substantiate their argument, McCarthy and Lahiri-Dutt take the reader into the jhuggīs and the lives of individual women who have migrated for work to the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority (NOIDA) area in Delhi, India. The authors show how, despite the congested and cramped conditions, women traverse the structural deficits of informal living to reconfigure notions of privacy and to navigate changing gender relations.

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“… 3 For more details on these activities, the plot of the film, and how children engaged with and challenged questions of cleanliness and hygiene see McCarthy (2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Staging joyful spectacles: Exploring the temporalities of positive affect in child-focused NGO programmes

McCarthy

2021

Critique of Anthropology

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The child has long been a powerfully affective figure in development work – whether as an abject victim or a joyful symbol of brighter futures. While the power of children to produce emotions in donors has been well studied, far less attention has been given to children’s own affective relationships with development organisations. This article explores the role of affect in children’s participation in non-governmental organisation (NGO) programs in Delhi, India. In particular, by focusing on spectacles of performance, this article highlights the importance of positive affects: happiness, fun, and joy in child-focused NGO programs. Yet, rather than a cynical critique of the way children’s joy is captured (typically in images) and translated into narratives of successful development, this article seeks to explore the possibilities for sincere ethnographic engagement with happiness itself. Drawing on the work of Sara Ahmed, and exploring the temporal dimensions of positive affects, I seek to engage seriously with children’s joyful experiences in development programs, while simultaneously questioning any simplistic equation of child happiness with developmental success.

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Telling stories, washing hands: exploring the role of narrative in development programmes targeting children

Cited by 6 publications

References 15 publications

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

State of the Field: The Modern History of Childhood

Bleeding in Public? Rethinking Narratives of Menstrual Management from Delhi’s Slums

Staging joyful spectacles: Exploring the temporalities of positive affect in child-focused NGO programmes

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