Welcome to the official website of the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group. Check out our latest blog, catch up on announcements, peruse our various resources, and become a member!
Welcome!
Announcing ACYIG’s Inaugural book prize winner…
The Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) is delighted to announce our inaugural prize for best new book representing the anthropology of childhood or youth goes to… Camilla Morelli, for her book Children of the Rainforest: Shaping the Future in Amazonia (Rutgers 2023).
Morelli’s remarkable ethnography traces how Indigenous Matses children are actively driving cultural change in their communities in a globalising world, addressing old questions about children’s agentive roles in generational cultural shifts and suggesting provocative new questions about what anthropology may have been overlooking about the cultural and global significance of children’s imaginings, affective attachments, and aspirations. The prize committee agreed that Morelli’s monograph exemplified the criteria of originality, relevance to the anthropology of childhood and/or youth, potential for significant impact on the field, and readability. In addition, Morelli’s book is rich with ethnographic detail, children’s drawings and photographs, making this an engaging and accessible text for a wide readership. Morelli’s clear and compelling storytelling makes it appear as though ethnographic research with children in a remote forest setting is easy. To so effectively trace the processes of cultural change from local to global levels from children’s perspectives takes an ethnographer of impressive skill and demands tremendous emotional and physical labour. Congratulations, Camilla on your achievement.
Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Funk et al. on how sweet potatoes can replace teddy bears in child development
We are a team of six authors from Germany, the US, and India with backgrounds in socio-cultural anthropology and cultural psychology. Our book explores multifaceted linkages between culturally specific feeding practices and human bonding based on ethnographic case studies from Morocco, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, and Costa Rica.
A comparative analysis of our ethnographic research demonstrates that there are many culturally valued ways of feeding children, contradicting the idea of a single, universally best feeding standard. We show that in many parts of the world feeding plays a central role in human bonding and relationship formation, something largely overlooked by attachment theory and related approaches. Our analysis further demonstrates that feeding contributes to relationship formation through different socio-emotional dimensions, which we label proximal, transactional, and distal. Each of these relates to a specific aspect of the feeding relationship (e.g., physical intimacy, food as a life-sustaining gift, conviviality) and is experienced by qualitatively distinct emotions. Finally, we argue that feeding practices can lead to different forms of relationships. Through feeding and eating together, caregivers express core values about how different generations should relate to each other. In our research sites, intergenerational feeding relationships are either hierarchically organized, or characterized by a mix of egalitarian and hierarchical orientations.
Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Francesca Meloni’s Way’s of Belonging
In Canada, as in many other countries around the world, undocumented young people are struggling to access social rights such as education and healthcare. Their lives are shaped by chronic uncertainty and invisibility due to restrictive anti-migration policies, leaving thousands of young people caught between the movements of hiding and running for fear of being deported. How do these young people navigate everyday interactions when they have to hide themselves and their legal status? How do they relate to their social environment when they might be deported and separated from their friends at any moment?
Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Camilla Morelli on Imagination and Children Changing Cultures in Amazonia
Latest Spotlight on Scholarship: Guilherme Fians, “Are they just kidding? Taking children seriously as research participants”
Two PhD positions in social anthropology/anthropology of childhood
Applications are invited for two PhD positions at the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich. The positions are part of the SNSF Starting Grant “Saving Brains? Applying Ethnography to Early Childhood Interventions in the Global South.” The first position entails research in an East African setting, the second in a Latin American setting.
Please apply if you are interested in one of these regions, childhood studies, international development, global health, and in doing ethnographic research.
Job posting: Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Childhood and Critical Disability Studies
The Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University—Camden, New Jersey, invites applications for an Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Childhood and Critical Disability Studies expected to commence on September 1, 2024. To view the complete position description, including minimum qualifications required, and to apply, please visit https://jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/212911
The Department of Childhood Studies seeks an outstanding scholar whose research and teaching interests address topics and practices regarding childhood and disability with a focus on intersecting systems of oppression in either domestic and/or global contexts. We are particularly keen on receiving applications from those who center racial justice in their scholarship and teaching. We value research quality, the demonstrated appreciation for multidisciplinary approaches to the study of childhood and disabilities, and an eagerness to continue the department’s mission of expanding childhood studies at the BA, MA and PhD levels.
Applicants must have earned their Ph.D. in Disability Studies, Education, Childhood Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, African-American Studies, Gender Studies, Latinx Studies, Media Studies, or a related field, and have a demonstrated promise of research and teaching excellence. The duties of a tenure-track assistant professor include engaging in an active research program, teaching two courses per semester (four courses per academic year) in the area of Childhood Studies, supervising MA and Ph.D. students, contributing to our innovative graduate program, and generally participating fully in the life of the department.
Rutgers University and the Department of Childhood Studies is committed to fostering diversity within its community. We welcome applications from those who would contribute to the further diversification of our program including, but not limited to: Black, Indigenous and people of color, persons with disabilities and persons of any sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression.
Established in 2007 as the first doctoral program in childhood studies in the USA, the department graduated its first Ph.D. students in May 2013. Childhood Studies offers a robust, multidisciplinary curriculum for BA, MA, and Ph.D. degrees.
Candidates may learn about the campus and the Department of Childhood Studies at http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu and by contacting Dr. Susan Miller, department chair.
Applications must include: a cover letter indicating the ways in which the applicant’s research adds to the department’s strengths and focusing on how their teaching and research may enhance a multidisciplinary program, a current CV, a personal statement that speaks to the academic, professional, and/or institutional work the candidate has undertaken to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion, an example of published scholarship or a substantive writing sample, and have at least 3 letters of reference uploaded to the application portal. Applications received by December 1, 2023 will receive the fullest consideration.
2023 ACYIG Book Prize Call for Nominations
The Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) is pleased to announce our inaugural Book Prize competition. The ACYIG Book Prize Committee will award $300.00 to an anthropologically-focused book published in 2022-2023 that is cutting-edge, well-written, and contributes significantly to our understanding of children and youth.
Those nominated (self-nominations accepted) must be members of ACYIG. Nominations should be accompanied by four copies of the book, and a letter from the nominator (no longer than 500 words) addressing the book in terms of: (1) originality; (2) relevance to the anthropology of childhood and/or youth; (3) potential for significant impact on the field. No edited volumes or textbooks will be considered.
The awardee will be chosen in Fall 2023, and the Book Prize Committee review of the winning volume will be included in the Spring 2024 edition of NEOS, the flagship publication of ACYIG.
Nomination Letter Deadline: Monday, September 25, 2023
Committee confirmation email will be sent by: Monday October 9, 2023
Books must be sent to Prize Committee by: Monday, October 16, 2023
- Please send nomination letter by email to
Ida Fadzillah Leggett, AYCIG Book Committee Chair
Ida.Leggett@mtsu.edu
- Within the nomination confirmation email, nominators will receive instructions on where to send four copies of the book.
- The ACYIG Book Prize winner will be announced in Fall 2023.
Questions? Please email Ida Fadzillah Leggett at Ida.Leggett@mtsu.edu