Call for chapters on rural childhoods and the visual

We are developing an edited book with Rutgers University Press with the working title Visual Encounters in the Study of Rural Childhoods.The edited collection looks at rural childhoods from around the world with an emphasis on participatory and creative research practices. The development of the book comes out of a recognition that despite the growing interest in childhoods and spatiatality (including an interest in rurality), there is a paucity of critical (and practical) research that maps out both conceptually and methodologically the shifting influences on the lives of rural children, and that foregrounds the perspectives of children (present and past) themselves. This volume brings together two areas of study, children’s rural geographies, and visual studies (through for example, photographs, maps, picture books, films, art, and digital spaces), and in so doing considers questions such as the following: How does the visual romanticize, eroticize, or reflect rural childhoods? How are visual methodologies redefining rural childhoods and the associated social value systems (and vice versa)? We are particularly interested in work that takes up issues of rural childhood in diverse global contexts. 

Although the book includes perspectives on rural childhoods from around the world, we are currently seeking contributions specifically from the US, Mexico, South America, India, and the Middle East. Please send abstracts of approximately 200 words to aprilmandrona@gmail.com by October 15, 2015. The writing of full manuscripts will take place in early 2016.