Erica Burman

The University of Manchester · Manchester Institute of Education

Child as method is a critical and interdisciplinary approach interrogating figurations of childhood that engage, organize, justify (and perhaps even resist) sociopolitical processes. In this article, we start by presenting Child as method as a conceptual and methodological tool for critical research in childhood, education, and psychological studie...

Child as method is an analytical approach addressing socio-political practices focusing on the positioning accorded the child/children that highlights the necessary intersections between political economies of childhood with geopolitical dynamics, while countering normalized and hegemonic functions (of abstraction and individualization) typically e...

In this article, I discuss the peculiar ‘agencies' attributed to the child/childhood under neoliberalism as a symptom of its crises and antagonisms, with a focus also on practical struggles and solidarities such analyses might promote/afford. Specifically, the theme of this Special Issue aligns with an approach I have named ‘Child as method', which...

Neste artigo, discuto as "agências" peculiares atribuídas à criança/infância sob o neoliberalismo como um sintoma de suas crises e antagonismos, com foco também nas lutas práticas e solidariedades que tais análises podem promover e oferecer. Especificamente, o tema deste dossiê se alinha com uma abordagem que denominei "Criança como método", que an...

This article considers the related projects of child as method and childism, as two critical childhood projects attempting to re‐engage childhood studies with wider geopolitical arenas. Firstly, each model's origins in their respective subject discipline are discussed, to, secondly, highlight how this shapes convergences as well as divergences in p...

This article engages continuing discussions in childhood studies on (re)inserting the study of childhood into wider socio‐political matrices of power and practices. We present as a potent analytical strategy to do this work ‘child as method’, developed by one of the authors. After describing ‘child as method’, we draw on the Recollect/Reconnect pro...

This chapter outlines a feminist antipsychological approach to analyzing childhoods. Taking up Squire’s (1990) characterisation of feminism as antipsychology, this paper analyses child development as text. Examples drawn from a range of institutional practices and genres are juxtaposed, to highlight some newly emerging twists of contemporary tropes...

This article presents the rationale for ‘found childhood’, a crossdisciplinary project mobilising the art practice of ‘found objects’ to attend specifically to found objects concerning childhood. Found childhood reflects an emerging approach, child as method [Burman, E. 2019. Fanon, Education, Action: Child as Method. Abingdon: BrunnerRoutledge], t...

Globally, the purpose of education is becoming increasingly narrowly defined. In this context, this article proposes that supplementary schooling offers a resource for re-thinking the epistemologies and processes of schooling. Drawing on Derrida’s notion of “the supplement”, the nature and status of this under-researched and marginal sector is inte...

This article offers a critical discursive reading of the 2014 Character and Resilience Manifesto (hereafter the Manifesto), focusing on the sources and legitimation strategies supporting its claims. As an All Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility document, the Manifesto traces both old and new discursive tropes framing policy strategy on edu...

This paper advances an approach, ‘child as method’, as a resource for interrogating models of development in childhood and education. Kuan-Hsing Chen’s (2010) book Asia as method has generated interest across childhood and educational studies. Here ‘child as method’ is presented as a related intervention. Just as Asia as method (re)considers the st...

This chapter evaluates what a Foucauldian discursive approach brings to analysis of educational policy-related material. It focuses on a specific textual example from a local, UK-based study of educational impacts of welfare reforms. The statement, ‘Tell your professor we are good mothers’, is discussed in relation to four features: (1) the range o...

This paper draws on material generated from a qualitative study of educational impacts of a British welfare reform affecting housing rent subsidy, size and location commonly known as ?the bedroom tax? (Bragg et al., 2015), which was partly taken as a topic for study specifically because of its iconic status as a controversial and unpopular welfare...

This article explores how the Removal of the Spare Room Subsidy policy, commonly known as the Bedroom Tax, works materially and discursively to create certain types of individuals and families as valued and deserving, while portraying others as excessive, wasteful or discretionary. The paper draws on a qualitative study project (Bragg et al., 2015)...

In this completely revised and updated edition, Deconstructing Developmental Psychology interrogates the assumptions and practices surrounding the psychology of child development, providing a critical evaluation of the role and contribution of developmental psychology within social practice. Since the second edition was published, there have been m...

In this article I juxtapose three critical resources for theoretical psychology: Fanon, Foucault, and feminisms. While the primary focus is on Fanon, some shared methodological assumptions—arising from the influence of Marxism and psychoanalysis on all three—are noted, albeit giving rise to mutual tensions. I then apply this critical frame to a clo...

Frantz Fanon's analysis of colonial experience has widely influenced educational theory and practice. Yet, despite much focus on the gendered and sexed dynamics of racialization processes, and their applications to the dynamics in particular of teaching and learning, surprisingly little attention has been given to how these intersect both with gene...

There are established links between education and well-being, and between poverty and education. This article draws on interviews with parents of school-aged children impacted by a policy in the UK commonly referred to as the ‘bedroom tax’. A critical psychology perspective to education is put forward, acknowledging the complex interrelationships b...

Discussions of the writings of theorist, psychiatrist and revolutionary, Frantz Fanon, in the fields of education and childhood typically focus on his account of a traumatic encounter with a white child, whose fear at the sight of a black man is said to create a vilified, racialised identity and installs an irreversible social and corporeal alienat...

This paper addresses embodiment and emotion in early educational contexts, even as they are currently being screened out as too risky to acknowledge and are only allowed in as emotional literacy or resilience, both responsibilising and individualising moves that abstract from classrooms and relationships. I take as the analytic focus two accounts o...

This paper revisits Fanon’s relationship with psychoanalysis, specifically Lacanian psychoanalysis, via a close reading of his rhetorics of childhood – primarily as mobilized by the ‘Look, a Negro!’ scenario from Black Skin, White Masks, the traumatogenic scene which installs the black man’s sense of alienation from his own body and his inferiority...

This article evaluates the continuing contemporary relevance of Foucauldian analyses for critical educational and social research practice. Framed around examples drawn from everyday cultural and educational practices, I argue that current intensifications of psychologisation under neoliberal capitalism not only produce and constrain increasingly a...

In this paper I discuss the genre and framing of student practical reports to illustrate methodological and moral-political tensions in the move towards qualitative research in psychology. Using these 'apprenticeship accounts' as indicative of prevailing disciplinary discourses of research practice, and after framing my own account of these account...

This paper critically evaluates the ways we look to children to educate us and explores how we might depart from that dynamic, exploring how a range of conceptual frameworks from historical and cultural studies and psychoanalysis might contribute to understanding the problematic of childhood, its problems and its limitations. While ‘child as educat...

This article analyses child development as text to highlight newly emerging contemporary tropes of northern, normalized childhoods in relation to gender, racialization and familial organization. A recent UK marketing campaign for the washing powder Persil is analysed for the ways it mobilizes discourses of childhood and child rights. This indicates...

Deconstructing developmental psychology in English-speaking countries This paper reviews critical approaches in and about developmental psychology as they have arisen over the past forty years or so in English-language contexts. While the primary focus of this paper is on the trajectory of such debates within the British context, which is the conte...

This article explores political ambiguities surrounding the mutual implication between technology and subjectivity, through the analysis of recent cultural texts about childhood. These ambiguities are shown to rely upon the mobilisation of memory and assume specific gendered forms. The appeal to the past figured by the child is also shown to instal...

This paper evaluates the scope and functions of interdisciplinary connections for psychologists in dealing with its conceptual and methodological and sometimes political difficulties. Developing examples from my own context and practice, I indicate how feminist research has engaged with and addressed such questions. Brief consideration of three key...

This paper explores how psychoanalytic ideas might support a project of critiquing the developmental paradigm as it influences, and links, models of economic and individual development on which educational policy and practice rely. After outlining the conceptual domain and questions at issue, the paper rereads some key claims about Enlightenment an...

This chapter situates feminist psychology in Britain and the psychology of women of the past 25 years within feminist activity in and around psychology. Initially presented in 1995 to commemorate more than a decade of feminists organizing around institutional representation in British psychology, it also highlights then-current discussions about th...

This chapter addresses political ambiguities surrounding recent reconfigurations of gendered childhood, both as markers of ‘old’ and ‘new’, and as key effects of a contemporary political economy that is increasingly governed by modes of psychologization and feminization. While also central to prevailing modes of affect and subjectivity, the motif o...

This article explores the politics and practices of qualitative research, in particular by interrogating the “gap” between qualitative and quantitative approaches to research. Two main claims are elaborated: first, that despite being recommended on grounds of ethical superiority (such as of nonmanipulation and instrumentality), qualitative research...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published following peer-review in Group Analysis, published by and copyright SAGE Publications.

This metadata relates to an electronic version of an article published in British educational research journal, 2008, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 137-155. British educational research journal is available online at informaworldTM at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a902053000 Educational research has a long history of engagement with...

Resumo: Este trabalho aborda como as ideias da psicanálise poderiam apoiar um projeto de crítica ao paradigma de desenvolvimento, enquanto influenciador de modelos de desenvolvimento econômico e individual. Após apresentar o domínio conceitual e as questões em discussão, este trabalho faz uma releitura de algumas reivindicações fundamentais sobre o...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published following peer-review in Psychoanalysis, culture & society, published by and copyright Palgrave Macmillan. This commentary offers some cultural and historical contextualization of the account of psychosocial studies offered by Frosh and Barait...

Western images of the child in modern thought set up an opposition between innocence and experience which is supplemented by discourses of child care and child protection, and reflected in international policies and legislation for children. This article traces idealised conceptions of children of the North and South and unravels dichotomies betwee...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published following peer-review in The International Journal of Children's Rights, published by and copyright Martinus Nijhoff. The child rights movement has typically fallen foul of both feminists and antifeminists in its renderings of the relations be...

How does developmental psychology connect with the developing world? What do cultural representations tell us about the contemporary politics of childhood? What is the political economy of childhood? This companion volume to Burman's Deconstructing Developmental Psychology helps us to explain why questions around children and childhood - their safe...

Cross-cultural research performs a vital role within the confirmation of psychological "truths." Its differentiations work simultaneously to establish their general applicability and the superiority of Anglo-U.S. ways of living and relating. Taking three examples of how "Japan" figures within English language psychological accounts (i.e., group/ind...

ABSTRACT In this paper I have sought to shift the focus on the construction of memory within psychotherapeutic practice in a number of different directions to draw some more general lessons for the process and status of therapeutic accounts. The precipitating context for the current scrutiny of memory-making within therapy may have limited its scop...

ABSTRACT This paper describes an individual psychotherapy conducted in Urdu by a psychoanalytic psychotherapist in training, using Hobson's Conversational Model of therapy. This integrational approach draws upon an eclectic range of thought including psychoanalysis, philosophy, cognitive therapy, systems theory, particular schools of philosophy and...

Sally Swartz’s impassioned and poetic rendering of the possibilities of psychotherapy case-note writing as a forum in which to reflect and generate new interpretations on her therapeutic encounters inspired in me a sense of simultaneous exhilaration and envy. Her juxtaposition of Ogden’s (1994) notion of the ‘analytic third’ and other intersubjecti...

The paper addresses contemporary relations between emotions, gender and feminist action research. Starting from analysis of the increasing emotionalisation of everyday life, it explores the quasi‐feminist—or what the author calls ‘feminised’—forms of incitement to reflexive confession that are increasingly gaining favour within professional and hig...

In this article I address when and why it is useful to focus on gender in the design and conceptualisation of developmental psychological research. Since methodological debates treated in the abstract tend to lack both the specificity and rigour that application to a particular context or topic imports, I take a particular focus for my discussion:...

This paper brings together analyses from childhood and gender studies with macro‐economic analysis to offer new perspectives on current educational debates, including the current role of education within broader discussions. Girls’ recent (supposed) educational success is situated within economic and cultural contexts to explore how discussions of...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published [following peer-review] in Theory & Psychology, published by and copyright Sage. This paper explores the politics of gender circulating within the discourse of culture in psychology. Two complementary conceptualizations of culture are consider...

This paper reviews current feminist debates around gender and sexuality in relation to their relevance for group-analytic theory and practice. The long and contested engagement between feminists and (varieties of forms of) psychoanalysis highlights major areas of convergence of theoretical and practical concern: in particular around the attention t...

This article on service responses to women of African, African-Caribbean, Irish, Jewish and South Asian backgrounds facing domestic violence draws on our recently completed study based in Manchester, UK (Batsleer et al., 2002) [Batsteeler, J., Burman, E., Chantler, K., McIntosh, S.H., Pantling, K., Smailes, S., Warner, S., et al. 2002. Domestic vio...

This paper is the record of a symposium at the 'Geist Gegen Genes' conference in July 2001 in Berlin. The conference was linked to the fifth Russell Tribunal on Human Rights in Psychiatry. Over the two days of hearings, witnesses testified to the abuse they had suffered at the hands of the psychiatric system and expert witnesses described how peopl...

In this article we draw on feminist and psychodynamic theory to discuss processes of researching service provision for minoritised women escaping domestic violence. Our aim is to take seriously the ways particular contexts, in this case as produced by the process of researching this topic, elicit specific responses. In particular we offer some conc...

This paper explores possible connections between recent developments in social theory and group analysis, which could also have consequences for the conceptualization of group-analytic practice. Drawing on discussions from the sociology of scientific knowledge, specifically studies in sciences and technology, I offer an account and partial appropri...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published [following peer-review] in Critical Social Policy, published by and copyright Sage. This paper addresses how domestic violence services to women of African, African-Caribbean, South Asian, Jewish and Irish backgrounds are structured by assumpt...

Drawing on my experience of managing a research project on domestic violence service provision to women from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, I elaborate three examples to illustrate the relevance and application of group-analytic concepts and interpretations. First, I outline some striking resonances between the research topic and process wi...

I begin this paper by reviewing some key shifts in feminist theoretical and political preoccupations, and social theory more generally, to juxtapose these with current debates and concerns for feminists in and around psychology. Drawing on these resources, but also noting some areas of occlusion, I move on to discuss what I see as urgent tasks for...

Connecting the debates in social theory with examples from recent advertising that draw on meanings and images of children, this chapter shows how some recent representations of childhood that engage explicitly with new information technologies are forms of economically invested socialization, precisely through their subscription to changing discou...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published [following peer-review] in Narrative Inquiry, published by and copyright John Benjamins Publishing. This article explores the relevance to teaching and learning practices of recent methodological and interpretive shifts within qualitative and...

In this paper I take up the theme of enabling difference in terms of the challenges and resources posed by taking the intersectional character of differences seriously. Drawing in particular on feminist debates, current discourses that address questions of structural, especially racialized, inequalities through notions of difference are critically...

We want to reflect on several issues arising from our recent collaborative research on service responses to South Asian women attempting suicide or self-harm (Chantler et al., 2001). Our partnership then (and it has continued into other projects) arose in the context of a piece of practice-based fieldwork in which our political agenda was to highli...

In this paper we reflect upon processes involved in setting up a development project challenging black people's linguistic and cultural exclusion from psychotherapeutic services. Firstly we situate the project within broader debates about issues of culture and (other forms of) identity in therapy, highlighting implications for therapy arising from...

This paper draws on a ten month British study completed in April 2001 investigating service responses to women of South Asian background who had attempted suicide or who self-harmed. The scope of the study is briefly outlined and an analysis of perspectives documented in the study is presented, drawing on research interviews with 18 staff from a va...

This paper addresses the challenge of sustaining critical and committed research within individualist academic research practices by highlighting key features of the storied character of research accounts. Three issues that are negotiated within any research project are explored: firstly, received understandings of the possibilities of theory as a...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published [following peer-review] in European Journal of Social Work, published by and copyright Routledge. This paper reports on a 10 month British study completed in April 2001 investigating service responses to women of South Asian background who hav...

In this paper I draw on issues posed by an experiential women's group, first, to explore relations between women in groups and, second, to highlight how gendered institutional dynamics enter into relations of desire and authority between women. Reviewing current literature on women, gender and groups, I discuss the absence of discussion of the erot...

Full-text of this article is not available in this e-prints service. This article was originally published [following peer-review] in Critical Social Policy, published by and copyright Sage Publishing. This article draws on an investigation of service responses to women of South Asian background who have attempted suicide or self-harm within northw...

The present paper reports an investigation of the self-reported needs of South Asian women suffering distress and mental health problems which may lead to self-harm and suicide, and uses the data to define indicators of good practice for primary care. The design was a qualitative study using focus group discussion. Four focus groups of South Asian...

In this paper we draw on feminist and post-colonial theory to situate an account of a six-month therapy between a black, Asian woman therapist and a woman patient of mixed parentage, within contemporary Britain. We draw on this analysis to further the debates between psychotherapeutics and social theory, challenging each in three ways. First, in re...

This article contextualizes some of the more specifically focused articles in this Special Issue of 'Women and Mental Health' by reviewing general historical and political currents structuring contemporary discussions around questions of models, treatment and provision for women within British mental health services. Wehighlight some particularitie...