Call for Panelists for ASA Meetings

The focus of this panel is on how children experience state presence in their everyday lives, the meaning they attribute to it, and how they respond to and navigate these experiences.

While the focus of the papers will be on young people (“children”, locally defined), the topic will be approached through research that situates children within the immediate setting of household and proximate social relations, as well as within the political economy. Preference will be given to papers that provide a generational and/or historical context for understanding both continuity and change in children’s experiences and responses.

Together, the papers in this panel will move beyond paradigms that problematize young people on one hand, or romanticize their agency on the other. Instead, the papers will contribute to our understanding of the different ways that young people from diverse material realities experience and engage with state presence, and they will explore the significance of young people’s everyday responses and actions.

Please email statement of interest by March 5, if possible. Email abstract by March 10 to Kirsten at  kirsten.pontalti@seh.ox.ac.uk