CFP: 4th Global Conference – Childhood

4th Global Conference
Childhood

July 17-19, 2014
Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom

Call for Presentations:

This inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary conference project seeks to investigate and explore all aspects of childhood. The nature of childhood and its significance as a separate phase of life is viewed quite differently in different cultures and in different historical eras. This conference will look at all aspects of the experience of childhood as well as the social, cultural, historical and psychological perceptions of children and childhood. We encourage submissions on any theme to do with the nature of childhood, including, but not limited to the ones listed below.

1. Definitions of Childhood
-How has the concept of childhood and the discourse on childhood developed over time?
-How is childhood viewed differently across different cultures and eras? Is childhood socially constructed?
-How are the boundaries of childhood defined and implemented and what are the effects on children and adults?
-Is ‘childhood’ a singular category or is it composed of quite distinct multiple categories? How does defining childhood also define adulthood and vice versa?

2. Childhood and Development
-How do we identify aspects of development in childhood (physical, psychological, emotional, intellectual, moral, social, etc.)?
-How do institutions effectively nurture the unique developmental needs of children in schools, medical centres, legal systems, etc.?
3. Children and Relationships
-What are the dynamics of children’s relationships with their family, peers, community and social institutions?
-How are children’s social relationships either experienced positively or negatively?
-What types of relationships do children establish with animals and nature?

4. Perceptions and Depictions of Childhood

Adults on Children:
-How do adults perceive children and childhood?
-How do they perceive their own experiences of childhood? (With nostalgia? embarrassment? amusement?)

Children on Children:
-How do children perceive themselves?
-How can children participate in research on children?

Culture on Children:
-How are children depicted in academia, in the media, in the visual arts, or in myths, folk tales, folk songs, graffiti?
-Children and literature: what are the characteristics of literature that is “for children?’ How did “children’s literature” develop? What role does it play in children’s lives?
-How does literature contribute to defining the boundaries of childhood?

5. Children and society: the larger world
-Children and education: What issues concern how children are educated?
Children and leisure: How is involvement in recreational activities (including sports) either beneficial or harmful to children?
-Children and the law: Does the criminal justice system effectively deal with children both as victims of crime and as perpetrators of crime?
-Children and rights: What rights do children have in virtue of being children? To what extent must the choices of children be respected? How do rights perspectives view children?
-Children and gender: How are children socialized into gender-specific roles? What are the issues and concerns connected to how children form gender and sexual identities?
-What is the nature of children’s relationship to the world of work? -Children and technology: how does the constantly evolving landscape of technology impact the lives and experiences of children?
-Childhood in transition: how does adolescence bridge the child/adult world and to what extent are adolescents caught in a double-bind of being children and being adults?

6. Children as Consumers: Objects and materialism
-How are globalisation and the spread of capitalism (consumerism) affecting childhood?
-What issues are raised by children’s consumerism?
-How do advertisements depict children and what are children’s responses to them/ what is children’s reading of them?
-What do objects made specifically for children tell us about our perception of childhood?
-How has the toy industry evolved with changing conceptions of childhood? Is it addressed only to children?
-How are adult objects adapted to children?
-How do children modify object’s uses to create new meanings?

7. Childishness
-What is “Childishness”?
-How do we distinguish among childishness, child-likeness, and infantilism? Are there gender differences in relation to these concepts?
-How have these concepts developed in different cultures and eras? -What distinctions do we draw between a child’s and adult’s childishness or between male and female childishness?

8. The values of Childhood
-How do adults perceive children’s values?
-What are children’s values in different societies and cultures? -How has the perception of gender affected children in different cultures and over time?
-How do we distinguish between collective and individual children’s values?
-How can children’s values help us better understand the role of children in a family and society?

FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.inter-disciplinary.net/probing-the-boundaries/persons/childhood/call-for-papers/

CFP: Re/framing Slavery, Contemporary Child Labor & Rights, and Abolition and Emancipation across Time and Space

SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS FOR AN INTERNATIONAL INTERDISCIPLINARY CONFERENCE

Re/framing Slavery, Contemporary  Child Labor & Rights, and Abolition and Emancipation across Time and Space: A Conference in Honor of Professor Paul E. Lovejoy

DATE: May 22-May 24, 2014
VENUE: Jaria Hotel, No. 1 Levender Street, East Legon-Accra, Ghana

During the past half-century or so, the study of slavery and debt-bondage, abolition and emancipation, and very recently child labor in the contemporary era, all related to the political economies of states and societies, has engendered a great diversity of fields that are marked by increasingly refined questions and perspectives. In this regard, one recent focus has been on contemporaneous abuse of the body and labor of the child, the woman, and the poor across the globe, both in industrialized and non-industrialized countries. This call for papers in honor of Professor Paul E. Lovejoy of York University, Toronto, Canada, will re/frame some of the issues that inform topics in the constituencies of unfree labor across time and space.

A prolific scholar, Lovejoy has been an uninterrupted incandescent light in the field of slavery, debt-bondage, and abolition in Africa. Another plank of his work is the ways that slavery configured the African Diaspora and the broader Atlantic basin. Problematizing child labor in Africa and the African Diaspora in historic and contemporary times, Lovejoy is among scholars who continue to chart new pathways by asking ever more piquant questions in the field that relate research to life and wellbeing. Some of his perspectives on child labor have found a niche in recent works by other scholars who show that postslavery labor, in so many ways defined by the ongoing epoch of unidirectional globalization and its economic tentacles, has paradoxically increased systemic inequalities and actually expanded the charted frontiers of pre-abolition forms of child labor. With child labor, human and sex trafficking, and modern slavery documented to be rife worldwide, the United Nations, governments, NGOs, etc. are making great efforts applying research, teaching, information dissemination, policing, and so on to end them. It is well to note that Lovejoy and his Harriet Tubman Institute are actively partnering organizations such as Alliance and UNESCO to cast light on and curb unfree labor worldwide

We invite you to come to this international interdisciplinary conference, contribute a paper, and engage in discussions with diverse scholars in honor of Professor Lovejoy’s prodigious contributions to research, teaching, and activism in the field. The proposed conference, among others, seeks to refurbish and rethink staple conclusions; provide syntheses of emergent historiographies; offer seamless refinements to extant theories and paradigms; furnish new empirical and theoretical perspectives on structures/features and agencies of slavery and debt-bondage, abolition and emancipation; and examine the political economy of contemporary child labor and modern slavery as well as proffering recommendations to curb them. Plenary speakers will include eminent scholars and peers of Professor Lovejoy.

Contact: kaparr@ship.edu
Announcement ID: 208402
FOR MORE INFORMATION:  http://www.h-net.org/announce/show.cgi?ID=208402

CFP – Special Issue: Global Childhood Studies

Bridging the divide: Researching Children/ Young People and Sexuality 

Guest Editors
Nelly Ali (Birkbeck)
Joe Hall (University of Hull)

After a great success of our paper and panel sessions at the RGS Annual
Conference, we are very pleased to share that we have secured a special
edition volume of the peer reviewed journal Global Childhood Studies.

The sub-fields of children’s and youth geographies and geographies of
sexualities often deal with intersecting themes that cross-cut the
(seemingly) mutually exclusive nature of these fields. In our proposed
sessions we aim to bring these themes to the forefront and bridge the divide
between these geographical sub-fields by prompting a stimulating discussion
between children’s and youth geographers (and scholars of childhood and
youth more broadly) and researchers of sexuality. We hope this long overdue
interaction will kick start a rich and rewarding dialogue that may continue
for years to
come.

We are seeking abstracts for a methodologically focused collected edition
that we hope will address the practical aspects of conducting research with
children/ young people around issues of sexuality. This may include papers
given by early career researchers who have, or are about to explore a topic
of sexuality with children/ young people in contrasting socio-cultural
contexts. It may also include papers by experienced researchers who may be
able to offer insight and practical advice for conducting ethically sound
research with various types of children/ young people. We also welcome
papers that explore innovative approaches to data collection and analysis.

Please submit proposed titles and abstracts of no more than 500 words to
Nelly Ali (nelly.ali@gmail.com) and Joe Hall (j.j.hall@2005.hull.ac.uk) by
29th December 2013.

Schedule:

Abstracts in: 29th December 2013
Acceptance communicated 15th January 2014
First Draft of Papers: 15th March 2014
Reviews Complete 15th May 2014
Modifications: 30th June 2014
Checks and Editorial: 1st August 2014
Final Version ready for submission 15th September 2014

013 Saharan and North African Toy and Play Cultures – Cultures Ludiques Sahariennes et Nord-Africaines

Saharan and North African Toy and Play Cultures

Cultures Ludiques Sahariennes et Nord-Africaines

Rossie, Jean-Pierre (2013). Saharan and North African Toy and Play Cultures. Technical activities in play, games and toys. Foreword by Sudarshan Khanna, Braga: Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic University of Portugal, 360 p. 350 ill.

A study in sociocultural anthropology study based on fieldwork, bibliographical information and museum documents about toy weapons for hunting and fighting games, toys for play related to transport and toys for play related to communication. There is also a chapter on using North African children’s play culture for pedagogical and sociocultural applications.

E-book available on <http://www.scribd.com/jean_pierre_rossie> and <http://www.sanatoyplay.org >

Rossie, Jean-Pierre (2013). Cultures Ludiques Sahariennes et Nord-Africaines. Les activités techniques dans les jeux et jouets. Préface de Sudarshan Khanna, Braga: Centre for Philosophical and Humanistic Studies, Faculty of Philosophy, Catholic University of Portugal, 364 p., 350 ill.

Une étude d’anthropologie socioculturelle basée sur le travail de terrain et l’information bibliographique et muséographique concernant les armes-jouets pour la chasse et le combat, les jouets pour des jeux liés au transport et les jouets pour des jeux liés à la communication. Il y a aussi un chapitre sur l’utilisation de la culture ludique des enfants d’Afrique du Nord pour des applications pédagogiques et socioculturelles.

Livre numérique disponible sur <http://www.scribd.com/jean_pierre_rossie> et <http://www.sanatoyplay.org>

 

 

REMINDER: Please join us for some important ACYIG Activities at the 2013 AAA Meeting

Just a reminder that the ACYIG ORGANIZATION MEETING AND BOOK FAIR/SOCIAL HOUR will be held on Saturday, November 23rd between 7 and 9:30 pm in Williford A at the Chicago Hilton. The two events will take place back-to-back. Free snacks and drinks are provided. A donation of $5 is appreciated! You may wish to grab an early dinner beforehand.We will appreciate your input on some questions of importance to the future of the interest group.

In addition, please don’t forget to attend the TWO ACYIG-ORGANIZED PANELS at the conference this year. They are:

1) PARENTAL AND YOUTH ENGAGEMENTS IN FUTURE NATIONALISMS
Thursday, November 21, 2013: 8:00 AM-9:45 AM 
Organized by Rachana S Agarwal (Brandeis University) and Anna Jaysane-Darr (Fitchburg State University)

2) RESEARCHER-PRACTITIONER COLLABORATIONS in PROJECTS CONCERNING CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Saturday, November 23, 2013: 1:45 PM-5:30 P
Organized by Louise Lamphere Beryl (Teachers College, Columbia University)

Finally, to learn more about the approximately thirty childhood- and youth-related panels at the upcoming AAA Meeting (the most ever!), please take a look at the scheduling list now posted at the ACYIG website: http://www.aaanet.org/sections/acyig/2013/11/10/some-childhood-and-youth-related-activities-at-the-2013-aaa-annual-meeting/

REMINDER: The Deadline for Submissions for the 2014 ACYIG Joint Conference is December 2nd

2014 ACYIG Conference Will be Held in Charleston, South Carolina, February 12th-15th

The ACYIG Board cordially invites ACYIG members to join scholars from the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), the Division of International Psychology (Division 52) of the American Psychological Association (APA), and the Society for Cross-Cultural Research (SCCR) at next year’s Fifth Annual Meeting of ACYIG.

The conference will be held from February 12 to February 15, 2014 at the historic Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, SC. Some may remember that ACYIG held its joint meetings with SCCR in Charleston in 2011—it was an extremely popular conference, and we look forward to returning to this wonderful venue.

Submitting Abstracts:

Anyone who would like to have work considered for inclusion within an ACYIG poster session, paper session, symposium, panel discussion, or conversation hour at the conference may submit an abstract of the work (200 words maximum) by Monday, December 2, 2013. Please note that if you wish to submit any abstracts for consideration by the SCCR, the deadline is earlier—November 11, 2013.

A link to descriptions of the five possible presentation formats as well as submission forms are available at the SCCR 2014 conference page: http://www.sccr.org/sccr2014/sccr_meeting-home-page.html

Registration Information
:

Conference registration rates are:

Members: $130 by 13 January 2014, $140 after 13 January 2014
Non-members: $140 by 13 January 2014, $150 after 13 January 2014
Retirees: $80 by 13 January 2014, $85 after 13 January 2014
Students: $50 by 13 January 2014, $60 after 13 January 2014

Banquet (all are invited): $55

The conference hotel, which is conveniently located within walking distance of boutiques, eateries, and historic landmarks, has a block of rooms for conference attendees at the rate of $154/night that you may access online via:

https://reservations.ihotelier.com/crs/g_reservation.cfm?groupID=1053287&hotelID=76320

You should not need a login code but may use “SCCR” without quotation marks if necessary. You may also call (843) 722-0600 or (877) 756-2121 and mention “SCCR” if you prefer.

Please feel free to share information about the 2014 conference with interested others and to contact Elisa Sobo (esobo@mail.sdsu.edu) or Rachael Stryker (rachael.stryker@csueastbay.edu) if you have any questions. You may also direct inquiries to SCCR2014@gmail.com.

We look forward to seeing many of you in Charleston!

EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST IN PhD STUDIES IN GEOGRAPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO

Applications are invited from potential applicants with an interest in the topic:  ‘Families’ sense of place and place attachment’ commencing in 2014.

Supervisors: Dr Christina Ergler & Associate Professor Claire Freeman (Department of Geography, University of Otago, New Zealand)

We are seeking a student willing to embark on a PhD and interested in working on a mixed-methods project on ‘Place attachment and social connection in urbanising societies’. Whilst place attachment is an area that is of established interest to geographers the role of children in forging place attachment for families is less well understood (Weller & Bruegel, 2009, Gordon, 2012).  The project seeks to critically explore broad questions around factors contributing to and hindering place attachment. In particular, the project is interested in how family members from different New Zealand communities develop or negotiate the complexity of place attachment through their social and physical mobilities (see also Freeman, 2010). In doing so, the research contributes to debates in geography, environmental psychology and planning with reference to multiplicities of place attachment.

Students with first class Honours or Master degrees and backgrounds in human geography, planning, child studies or sociology are encouraged to contact us. Knowledge of or interest in developing skills in a geographic information system as well as excellent oral and written communication skills are a requirement for this project.

The project is contingent on the applicant applying for and securing a University of Otago PhD Scholarship (international or domestic), satisfying University of Otago Ph.D. entry requirements and meeting New Zealand study visa requirements, if appropriate.

If you would like to discuss the project further please contact Christina Ergler via e-mail Christina.ergler@geography.otago.ac.nz or Claire Freemancf@geography.otago.ac.nz.  Please send a CV (including academic transcripts) and a one page covering letter outlining why you consider  that you are a suitable candidate (this should cover what skills/knowledge you bring to the project, what aspects you find particularly interesting and any ideas you may have on how the project could be developed).

Information on the Otago University Geography Department and the supervisors for this project is available on http://www.geography.otago.ac.nz/