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Conclusion
Abstract
This volume set out to achieve two specific aims. Firstly, it sought to explore the efforts that have been made to export, or transport, to other societies around the world particular notions of childhood and child development which are intricately bound to historical developments that have taken place in Western Europe and North America in the last 300 years or so. These efforts became particularly apparent during the colonial period when various European governments sought to impose their own conceptions of childhood on ‘uncivilized’ others in the name of science, civilization, modernity and morality.
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The universality versus relativity debate has dominated the children's rights discourse from its earliest days. It has particularly intensified since the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the UN General Assembly in 1989. While acknowledging the validity of both arguments the key point underpinning this article is that the universality–relativity dichotomy does not help us to achieve children's rights or protect children on the ground. The reality of children's lives, in fact, illustrates that there is, indeed, a middle ground in which people live their lives, which needs to be better reflected in the discourse on children's rights. While discussions have started to move in this direction, these have been held at a rather abstract and theoretical level. Therefore, there is a need for more empirical data to demonstrate the various ways in which a middle ground can be identified in children's lives. Hence, this article aims to contribute to the current discourse by using empirical evidence, collected from two local communities in Ghana, to explore the concrete ways we can move beyond the debate relating to the universality and relativity of children's rights and to engage with children's local realities within the context of their families and communities. It is hoped that this will enable us to identify a middle ground that may facilitate dialogue on children's rights with local communities particularly within an African context.
Like the majority of children living in the global South today, a large number of Vietnamese youths work to help support their families. International human rights organizations have focused on these children, seeking to bring their lives into line with an understanding of childhood that is generally accepted in the developed world. In this ethnographic study, Rachel Burr draws on her daily observations of working children in Hanoi and argues that these youngsters are misunderstood by the majority of agencies that seek to help them. Most aid programs embrace a model of childhood that is based on Western notions of individualism and bountiful resources. They further assume that this model is universally applicable even in cultures that advocate a collective sense of self and in countries that do not share the same economic advantages. Burr presents the voices and experiences of Vietnamese children in the streets, in a reform school, and in an orphanage to show that workable solutions have become lost within the rhetoric propagated by aid organizations. The reality of providing primary education or adequate healthcare for all children, for instance, does not stand a chance of being achieved until adequate resources are put in place. Yet, organizations preoccupied with the child rights agenda are failing to acknowledge the distorted global distribution of wealth in favor of Western nations. Offering a unique, firsthand look at the experiences of children in contemporary Vietnam, this book also provides a broad analysis of how internationally led human rights agendas are often received at the local level.
Preface (1994)AcknowledgmentsIntroduction31From Mobs to Memorials: The Sacralization of Child Life222From Useful to Useless: Moral Conflict Over Child Labor563From Child Labor to Child Work: Redefining the Economic World of Children734From a Proper Burial to a Proper Education: The Case of Children's Insurance1135From Wrongful Death to Wrongful Birth: The Changing Legal Evaluation of Children1386From Baby Farms to Black-Market Babies: The Changing Market for Children1697From Useful to Useless and Back to Useful? Emerging Patterns in the Valuation of Children208Notes229Index267
This article explores the World Bank's view of early childhood as an example of the globalization of childhood. It argues that the Bank pursues neoliberal economic policies that exacerbate the gap between rich and poor nations and between the rich and poor within countries. These policies affect children's lives adversely, but they are legitimized by the Bank in a variety of ways. The Bank claims to have children's interests at heart, and identifies early childhood as a fruitful site for interventions. It draws on traditional Anglo-American notions of family, community and childhood in its justification for these interventions. The article explores the inherent contradictions in these policies towards young children.
This article is based on a web-search commissioned by an international charity to review the work of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) and charities which promote and support early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the global South. The article examines examples of such initiatives. It is suggested that there is considerable commonality of view and overlap of activities between INGOs and charities whatever their origin in the global North, and whichever countries they are operating in, in the global South. These findings are analysed in the light of theories of knowledge transfer in the field of international development.
This article elaborates a conceptual framework for examining international child rights legislation and the concept of childhood that underlies it. The distinctions between local, global and globalized conceptions of childhood are analysed as central to consideration of the success, and limitations, of international policies and programmes. Drawing on analyses of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, conceptual limitations of a shift from generalization to naturalization are identified. These culminate in a globalization of childhood that is particularly evident in models of psychological development. The article outlines how assumptions about the separation of individual and society, and development from culture, play a key role in this process. At the level of practice, therefore, the article argues for the need to maintain a critical vigilance on the adequacy of the conceptual resources that inform policy and programmes for children. The article concludes by suggesting that, in seeking to promote children's well-being and welfare across the world, there is no escape from treading the difficult path between the globalizations of cultural imperialism and the cultural relativism of localized conceptions. While important and necessary, rights legislation on its own can work to obscure the inevitability and pervasiveness of such issues.
There has been exhaustive scrutiny of the policies of the Bretton Woods institutions and the United Nations Population Fund. UNICEF, despite a prominent role in agenda setting for children's welfare in developing countries, has not been subject to comparable scrutiny. This paper argues that the Country Programmes promulgated by UNICEF to improve children's welfare reflect ethnocentric conceptualisations of the family. As a case study, Ghana's Country Programme 2001–2005 is considered in detail. Anthropological studies are adduced to highlight underlying ethnocentric assumptions around social organisation. The ramifications of these assumptions are then considered.
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