All posts by ACYIG Web Manager

Open Positions for Grad Student Representatives on ACYIG Board

The Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group is recruiting two graduate student representatives to join the board for the 2022-2023 year.

Join a team of anthropologists who are passionate about supporting and promoting global anthropological perspectives on childhood and youth.

The two student representatives will work together and with the Board to create networks and opportunities for graduate students interested in the study of childhood and youth. Additionally, the two representatives will hold the following specific responsibilities:

Grad Student Representative for Media Content
Responsibilities: Attend all board meetings. Contribute to digital media content and marketing strategies–including website. Take control of social media digital content, posting and keeping things updated. Supervised by the Communications chair.

Grad Student Representative for Operations
Responsibilities: Attend all board meetings. Take meeting minutes, and send to Convenor. Organize the ACYIG invited session at the AAA meetings each year. Organize a graduate student event at the AAA meetings each year (mixer, meetup, mentoring session, etc.) Supervised by the Convenor.

If you are interested in either of these positions, please send your CV and a short paragraph detailing your interest, including which position you are interested in, and qualifications to the Convenor, Elise Berman, eberman@uncc.edu by Friday 28th January 2022.

ACYIG at the 2021 AAA

(1-0571) ACYIG Invited Session: Highlighting Language through Repair Practices in Children’s Interactions (Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group)

Executive Session – Roundtable / Townhall (Virtual)
Executive Program Committee
4:30 PM – 6:15 PM

Roundtable Participants:

Matthew Burdelski (Osaka University)
Aliyah Morgenstern (Sorbonne Nouvelle University)
Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel (Sorbonne University)
Alexander M. Thomson (UCLA)
Shannon Ward (UBC)
Lilit Ghazaryan (UCLA, organizer)
Jan David Hauck (London School of Economics and Political Science, organizer)
Candy Goodwin (UCLA, chair)

Discussant:

John Lucy (University of Chicago)

 

(5-3700) “You wouldn’t understand, you are white”: Racial Sincerity and ACT (Anti-racist Clinical Training) through Performance and Film

Late Breaking – Roundtable / Town Hall (Virtual)
Executive Program Committee
10:15 AM – 12:00 PM

Jasmine Blanks Jones
Noah Triplett
Maryann Dreas
Jai’Lysa Gamboa
Devin Kennedy
John Jackson

For access to the current draft of the program visit the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting Preliminary Program.

Call for Chapters for an Edited Volume: Kids in Cages: The History, Politics, and Lived Experiences of Child Migrant Detention

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit a chapter proposal for an edited volume tentatively titled Kids in Cages: The History, Politics, and Lived Experiences of Child Migrant Detention (see description below). Should you be interested in participating, please send a title, abstract, and author bio by August 1, 2021. Should the abstract be accepted, we would notify you by mid-August and would expecting to receive drafts for review by November 1, 2021 and finalized chapters byJanuary 15, 2022. The expectation is that the project will be published with NYU Press, who has shown considerable interest in the volume.

The detainment of migrant children has recently become well-documented in news media, with viral images of “kids in cages” being attributed to the Trump administration. However, the migration of children to the United States is not new, nor is their detainment. In this volume, we seek to provide greater context to the history and current realities of child migrant detention.

The “surge” of children migrating alone since 2012 became a reminder of our precarious understanding of this population in the social, legal, and political immigration discourse of the United States. It also became clear that our social, legal, and political remedies are vastly inadequate at best and cruel at worst. When and how did the detention of immigrant children become the norm? What has been the evolution of legal remedies and its connection to American politics? What has been the impact on immigrant families in the United States that endured the detention and forced separation from their children? Who profits and how much has the detention of children increased? What has been the response of the American public to the detention of immigrant children over the decades?

In this volume, we will bring together interdisciplinary work that explores the practice of detaining migrant children. We hope to address the longer history of child migration to the United States, with a particular focus on the government interventions throughout the decades. We would like to include insight into the political and activist battles surrounding child migrant detention. Finally, this volume seeks to provide accounts of the impact of detention on children, their families, and their communities.

Topics may include, but are not limited to: Child migration history, law, and policy; Emergence of the unaccompanied minor in American immigration; Historical accounts of child migrant detention; Psychological and developmental impacts of detention on children and families; Political battles over child migration detention; Ethnographic or narrative accounts of child migrant detention; Activism around child detention; Analysis of the Flores settlement and other policy; Detention as violence; Criminalization of migrant children in and through detention; Media representations of child migrant detention; Ethics of detention; Experience of practitioners working with detained children; Analysis of nonprofit and for-profit detention structures.

Manuscripts should not be previously published.

Please submit inquiries and abstracts for consideration to Emily Ruehs-Navarro, PhD (emily.navarro@elmhurst.edu) and Lina Munoz-Caswell (lcaswell@ccm.edu) by August 1, 2021.

Seeking Chapter Submissions for COVID Play Academic Volume

Two folklorists will be editing a multidisciplinary academic volume on COVID Play and are seeking submissions for chapters. We are particularly interested in a range of cultural voices that address the play of children, youth, or adults in a variety of countries during the pandemic. Topics of interest include: resilience, creativity, and resourcefulness in play during this time, COVID related themes in play, use of public playgrounds and public spaces during the pandemic, and creative uses of online play and techno mischief.  Send expressions of interest to Dr. Anna Beresin aberesin@uarts.edu, and Dr. Julia Bishop j.c.bishop@sheffield.ac.uk

Dr. Anna Beresin is professor of psychology and folklore in critical studies at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the US. She serves as co-editor of the International Journal of Play.

Dr. Julia Bishop is research associate in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield in the UK where she studies children’s folklore, past and present. She is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Play.

Upcoming talk by Dr. Amy Brainer April 23rd, 12pm (EST)

Intimate harm, intimate healing: Thinking more globally and intersectionally about queer youth and Covid-19

 

Impacts of Covid-19 on queer youth have been profound. We must think about these impacts in ways that are locally rooted and global in scope, as the pandemic itself has been. This talk will concentrate on three areas where harm has occurred: carceral and immigration systems; loss of basic material security; and the family as a site of care and oppression that is underserved by current models of activism. These are a small number of the many areas that require attention and healing. Thus, the talk will move quickly from presentation to dialogue so that other participants can share their work and insights.

 

Bio: Amy Brainer is associate professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and coordinator of LGBTQ+ Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is the author Queer Kinship and Family Change in Taiwan, for which she received the Ruth Benedict Book Prize from the Association for Queer Anthropology. Her current research follows queer and trans individuals and couples as they navigate marriage-based immigration to Taiwan and the United States.

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://umich.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAof-muqTovE9xaf1pxFDp3flhOtsiipOCP

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please feel free to share the talk
with others who may be interested.

New Book Announcement: Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Children, Peace Communication and Socialization

Dear Colleagues:

I’d like to share word of my new book: Warshel, Y. (2021). Experiencing the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Children, Peace Communication and Socialization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

You can find links below for book review copies, course inspection and purchase copies, and a description of the book below those.

The book is divided into 4 parts. If you are interested in adopting for a course, dependent on your focus, you can use one or all. The first part of the book describes the production of peacebuilding versions of Israeli and Palestinian Sesame Street; the second, the reception of it by Palestinian, Jewish Israeli and Arab/Palestinian Israeli citizens in-the-making; the third, an ethnography of violence of these young audience members conflict zones lives, illuminating why they interpreted the glocal hybrid television programs the way they did; and the fourth, offering recommendations to peace media practitioners interested in applying evidence to their practice. Part IV ties together the introduction, aimed at advancing a subdiscipline of peace communication, to provide scholars with methodological recommendations to critically and empirically determine the utility using media to build, make, and sustain peace in contexts of armed political conflicts.

While focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the book is framed both comparatively and globally so applicable to and includes recommendations for using communication to manage conflict worldwide and address debates surrounding structural discrimination and social justice.

A TEDx talk I gave summarizes the book and can be used together with chapters as a standalone course module for teaching (including for those in need of an asynchronous online module): https://www.ted.com/talks/yael_warshel_a_call_for_evidence_can_media_help_build_make_and_sustain_peace

purchase copies: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/experiencing-the-israelipalestinian-conflict/696329534C17D1B0BA9243FE02A7D0C8

review copies: https://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/request-review-copy

inspection copies: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/textbooks/inspection-copy-information

Book Description:

“Over the last eighty years there has been a global rise in ‘peace communication’ practice, the use of interpersonal and mass communication interventions to mediate between peoples engaged in political conflict. In this study, Yael Warshel analyses Israeli and Palestinian versions of Sesame Street which targeted negative inter-group attitudes and stereotypes. Merging communication, peace and conflict studies, social psychology, anthropology, political science, education, Middle Eastern and childhood studies, this book provides a template to think about how audiences receive, interpret, use and are influenced by peace communication. By picking apart the text and subtext of the kind of media these specific audiences of children consume, Warshel examines how they interpret ‘peace communication’ interventions, are socialised into Palestinians, Jewish Israelis and Arab/Palestinian Israelis, political opinions they express, and violence they reproduce. She questions whether peace communication practices have any relevant structural impact on their audiences, why such interventions fail, and offers recommendations for improving future communication interventions into political conflict worldwide.”

Best,

Yael Warshel
Pennsylvania State University

Children as Political Subjects in the Age of Uncertainty

by Seran Demiral (Boğaziçi University, Primary Education & at Kadir Has University, City and Children Studies)

In our contemporary world, certainty has left its place to flexibility, adaptability and willingness to change (Lee 2005:19). A new sociology of childhood addresses children’s agency to debate child ‘beings’ as both individuals for their own lives and social actors to affect the world. At that point, agency matter is discussed through other concepts, like subjectivity and/or competency. Bollig and Kelle (2016:37) claim that “the acting subject or the competent actor is replaced with a concept of participation in practices.” It is obvious that not only globalization but also digital technologies have changed our culture so that “from a global perspective childhood culture is becoming more homogenized” (Prout 2005:29). Besides, politics and childhood movements all over the world have become similar, especially during this decade.

Atlas Sarrafoğlu, Greta Thunberg, Selin Gören respectively[1]

 

Children can be aware of what happens in other places of the world and how their peers live. As it is known that Greta Thunberg has become an enormous inspiration for many children and young people from different countries, for instance, Atlas Sarrafoğlu gave a start for children’s climate activism in Turkey. Atlas was also honoured by the 2020 WWF International President’s Youth Award (BIA 2020), which is an indicator that childhood movements can be seen by institutions and authorities. After several months of children’s first universal school strike, Atlas and another young activist from Turkey, Selin Gören, attended the “Smile for Future summit” in Lausanne, Switzerland. Their meeting might have affected Greta’s sensitivity about ecologic resistance in Canakkale, so that she said, “Ida Mountains belong to us all” in Turkish (BIA 2019).

Trafalgar Square, London. Extinction Rebellion cover it with children’s shoes in protest against climate change – Copyright  Anthony Jarman[2]

 

In this age of uncertainty due to unexpected viruses to ecological issues, it is only possible to struggle against emerging crisis via extraordinary perspectives by new generations. Today’s children as “naturally adept users of technology” (Prout 2005, 119) are more competent to use ICT effectively to access and re-create knowledge. Despite arising inequalities between children with different experiences upon their socioeconomic background or the country they come from, they have power to be aware of all matters in the world by means of spending time online, and there is a potential for them to unite via online platforms. For example, there is an association for children: XR Kids, who are related to a universal activist group, Extinction Rebellion (XR) whose latest statement is “COVID today Climate tomorrow Act now” (Campbell 2020).

Furthermore, Atlas might have learned about the XR movement from Omer Madra, who has also been a part of this global movement. In a climate conference in Istanbul, Turkey, he was one of the speakers. There was also a section for children (The Green Thought Association 2019). It is quite important to influence children to start an action for the world they will survive. During the lockdown process and the beginning of online education, children’s digital activism and possibilities to develop new strategies for a childhood movement have also been argued through various writing and commentaries; for instance, I discussed children’s potentials to create organizations at the micro-level (Demiral 2020:65) by referring to Janusz Korczak’s heritage on children’s rights and participation.

Elsie Luna, the founder of XR Kids, said “I dream of a world free of racism, adultism, ageism, sexism, disablism, and classism” in her interview with Sarrafoğlu (2020). Besides, Elsie states that homeschooling gives her “more time to study activism-related things. In a way, it’s like striking every day!” which shows us children’s perspectives as flexible, willing to change the circumstances through digital activism. Therefore, the effects of coronavirus and online education/learning as mandatory may cause new opportunities for children and young people to develop. The disadvantages of homeschooling used to be seen as the insufficient socialization, whereas, it is quite possible to socialize and gathering through digital spaces in our contemporary world, which has already become a usual habit for youngers.

“Declaration of XR Kids[3]

 

As an inspiring example, a small-sized collective community, ‘Extinction Rebellion Kids’ is able to benefit from the aspects of the digital world. The manifesto by XR Kids (2020) demands change to handle the challenges their generation has faced and not to be underestimated because of their age, indicating, “We 8-12 year-olds are more than capable of creating mass systematic change.” In conclusion, children have awareness and feel competent to change the world. Therefore, we as researchers in childhood studies should remember to take children seriously and recognize children as political subjects.

 

References

Bollig, Sabine, and Helga Kelle

2016 Children as participants in practices: the challenges which practice theories pose to an actor-centred sociology of childhood.” In Routledge research in education: Vol. 161. Reconceptualising Agency and Childhood: New Perspectives in Childhood Studies, edited by Florian Esser, Meike S. Baader, Tanja Betzand Beatrice Hungerland, 34-47. London and New York: Routledge.

Demiral, Seran

2020 “Visible, more than Ever: Unequal Childhoods in Istanbul during COVID-19.” In WHAT WOULD KORCZAK DO? Reflections on Education, Well-being and Children’s Rights in the Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic, edited by Anna Odrowąż-Coates, 58-69. Warsaw: The Maria Grzegorzewska University.

Lee, Nick

2005 Childhood and Society: Growing up in an age of uncertainty. 3rd Edition. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University.

Prout, Alan

2005 The Future of Childhood: Towards the Interdisciplinary Study of Children. London and New York: Routledge Falmer.

Internet Sources

BIA News Desk

2019 “Message from Greta Thunberg: Ida Mountains Belong to us All.” Accessed August 21, 2020. http://bianet.org/english/environment/211516-message-from-greta-thunberg-ida-mountains-belong-to-us-all

BIA News Desk

2020 “Climate Activist Atlas Sarrafoğlu Wins WWF International Youth Award.” Accessed August 21, 2020 http://bianet.org/english/youth/224581-climate-activist-atlas-sarrafoglu-wins-wwf-international-youth-award

Campbell, Maeve

2020 “Thousands of Kids’ Shoes Appear in London Square as a Form of Protest.” Accessed August 21, 2020 https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/05/19/thousands-of-kids-shoes-appear-in-london-square-as-a-form-of-protest

Sarrafoğlu, Atlas

2020 “Elsie Luna: Ecological breakdown has already started [Climate Generation Talks-4]” Accessed August 21, 2020 https://yesilgazete.org/blog/2020/02/26/elsie-luna-ecological-breakdown-has-already-started-people-are-already-dying-climate-generation-talks-4/

The Green Thought Association [Yeşil Düşünce Derneği]

2019 “Climate Conference” http://yesildusunce.org/en/climate-conference/

XR Kids Instagram page: extinctionrebellionkids

2019 “Declaration of XR Kids” Accessed August 21, 2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/B3Ua_j7HIWb/

[1] The source: https://twitter.com/AtlasSarrafoglu/status/1159157981252075521?s=20 (from Atlas’s public account on Twitter)

[2] The source of the photograph: https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/05/19/thousands-of-kids-shoes-appear-in-london-square-as-a-form-of-protest

[3] The source: https://www.instagram.com/p/B3Ua_j7HIWb/  from the public account of XR Kids on Instagram.

For more information or discussion:

https://www.instagram.com/serandem/

https://www.facebook.com/serandem

https://twitter.com/serandemiral

https://mimarsinan.academia.edu/SeranDemiral

Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG) Statement of Solidarity and Action

The Anthropology of Childhood and Youth Interest Group, part of the American Anthropological Association, condemns the murders of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Tony McDade, and all of the many Black individuals violently killed. We stand with and point to the Association of Black Anthropologists’ statement against police violence and anti-Black racism.  As scholars of childhood and youth, we know that racism does untold violence to child and youth lives. As a predominantly white subdiscipline, in a discipline that has been shaped and intimately intertwined with whiteness and colonialism, we also acknowledge our current and historical complicity in Black oppression.

This statement is delayed because we have taken some time to think about what we can concretely do as an organization. We both call for comprehensive equity in the treatment of Black children and youth and commit ourselves to learn more about anti-Black racism and racial disparities in our discipline. Specifically, we commit to:

An Inclusive syllabus project and pedagogy.  Our hope is that through citing and deeply engaging with Black authors and Black communities who are too often silenced, we can help foster coalitional empathy among students and provide space in our classrooms for addressing oppression-based trauma (e.g., trauma from xenophobia, forced displacement, anti-Black racism, etc.) and combatting racial violence in all forms. We will compile suggestions of inclusive syllabi focused on the study of childhood and post these on our website.

A commitment to publishing from NEOS.  At NEOS, we stand in unequivocal solidarity with Black colleagues, students,  practitioners, and communities.  We commit to using NEOS as a platform to center issues of racial (in)justices in the lives of children and youth and to amplify the voices of scholars of color. In our commitment to equity in action, the October 2020 Issue of NEOS will be dedicated to exploring the intersections of childhood and health and we will prioritize submissions that attend to issues of racism and inequities in health, healthcare, and well-being. We also commit to the creation of a new standing column in NEOS dedicated to racial equity and the dismantling of white supremacy, which will be catalyzed by an April 2021 Special Issue on anti-Black racism, racial brutality, and the unapologetic pursuit of justice.

Recruitment and representation.  We will actively recruit BIPOC board members, as well as presenters in invited sessions and conferences. We are also planning on a number of keynote talks next year, and we are making a concerted effort to address some of the disparities in our field in these public gatherings.

Reflexive Introspection and Analysis. We will set up a committee to examine and report on equity and racism within the study of childhood itself, with suggestions for what we as an organization can do to address these issues.