Decolonizing Childhoods

Author(s):  
Manfred Liebel

This book addresses key aspects of the post- and decolonial analysis of childhood, such as the scope and limitations of Eurocentric concepts of childhood and the impact of social inequality aggravated by capitalist globalization on children's life prospects. In this context, it discusses the specific modes of agency emerging in children of the Global South. It reconstructs the way in which the colonialization process and the ideologies that supported it have used the metaphor of childhood, and investigates the extent to which they are reproduced in processes of colonizing childhoods. The book presents some colonial and postcolonial policy approaches to modelling childhood in different regions of the world, and asks how, within the postcolonial constellation, children's rights are to be understood and how to deal with them to overcome postcolonial paternalism. Particularly, it discusses various forms of paternalism and asks how they can be overcome in the field of rights-based children’s protection and participation and how child-led movements in the Global South can be understood as a form of citizenship from below. The book explains theoretical and conceptional reflections by case studies from Africa, Latin America and Asia. Finally, the book portrays efforts directed against the invisibilization, marginalization and social exclusion of childhoods and the recuperation of a dignified life of children.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1-1
Author(s):  
Vânia Lúcia Costa Alves Souza ◽  
Maria Rosicleide Martins Matos

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The links between art and cartography are deep, and integrate the knowledge generated by the combination of elements that involve the concepts of territory, culture, history, geography and power. The approximation of art and cartography occurs in the aesthetic and visual sense and invites us to unravel and reflect on its role in the spectrum of spatial representations. In schools, the artworks that involve cartographic representations offer us an opportunity to understand young people's relationships with local and global spaces, and the meaning of those relationship in their lives. The interpretation of these representations directs to the question: What does this image reveal in terms of the students identity construction related with the place of residence and the world? Since 2017, the Project “WHAT CONNECTS US TO THE WORLD?” is part of the list of Pedagogical Projects developed at the Educational Center 310 of Santa Maria in the Federal District, Brasília, Brazil. This is an interdisciplinary project with activities developed in the classes of Geography and Art during the academic year with the participation of students between the ages of 15 and 19. The main objective of the project is to encourage students to design artistic cartographic representations that express their connection with local and global spaces. The development of the project involves the cartographic and geography literacy activities in Geography classes and the development of artistic representations in art classes. There are six stages of development:</p><ol><li>Presentation of the project and generating ideas.</li><li>Deepening spatial concepts of place and territory. Identification of the elements that connect young people to local and global space.</li><li>Study of the various spatial representations (for example the map of Santa Maria, DF, map of Brazil and map mundi).</li><li>Selection of topics by students. Choice of spatial representation and artistic expression.</li><li>Oral presentation of the final paper.</li></ol><p>The results of the project were the various drawings that express topics of interest to the students such as: Corruption in Latin America, Internet, violence against women, destruction of nature, deforestation in Brazil and Latin America, social inequality, freedom and peace, social inequality in the world, patriotism.</p><p>The four best drawings in the year of 2017 were sent to the Children's Cartography Contest Professor Livia de Oliveira.One first year student made her drawing with the theme Corruption in Latin America that question the lateness of the arrest of corrupt politicians, the increase of gasoline and the homicide of young people in Brazil. This result was widely reported by local newspaper and television because it was selected nationally as one of the winners in her category. The impact of this selection on the contest is reflected in the appreciation of the visual language to express the perceptions of young people and reveal their critical view in the interpretation of everyday facts. In 2018, 16 drawings were sent to the Children's Cartography Contest again e we are still waiting for the final classification.</p><p>We considerably learned about our students when interpreting their drawings created for this project. Artistic cartographic representations shows the imagery of our students at that particular moment and help us to understand their social and spatial context.</p>


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 93-100
Author(s):  
Gisa Jähnichen

The Sri Lankan Ministry of National Coexistence, Dialogue, and Official Languages published the work “People of Sri Lanka” in 2017. In this comprehensive publication, 21 invited Sri Lankan scholars introduced 19 different people’s groups to public readers in English, mainly targeted at a growing number of foreign visitors in need of understanding the cultural diversity Sri Lanka has to offer. This paper will observe the presentation of these different groups of people, the role music and allied arts play in this context. Considering the non-scholarly design of the publication, a discussion of the role of music and allied arts has to be supplemented through additional analyses based on sources mentioned by the 21 participating scholars and their fragmented application of available knowledge. In result, this paper might help improve the way facts about groups of people, the way of grouping people, and the way of presenting these groupings are displayed to the world beyond South Asia. This fieldwork and literature guided investigation should also lead to suggestions for ethical principles in teaching and presenting of culturally different music practices within Sri Lanka, thus adding an example for other case studies.


Author(s):  
Sara M.T. Polo

AbstractThis article examines the impact and repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on patterns of armed conflict around the world. It argues that there are two main ways in which the pandemic is likely to fuel, rather than mitigate, conflict and engender further violence in conflict-prone countries: (1) the exacerbating effect of COVID-19 on the underlying root causes of conflict and (2) the exploitation of the crisis by governments and non-state actors who have used the coronavirus to gain political advantage and territorial control. The article uses data collected in real-time by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) and the Johns Hopkins University to illustrate the unfolding and spatial distribution of conflict events before and during the pandemic and combine this with three brief case studies of Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Libya. Descriptive evidence shows how levels of violence have remained unabated or even escalated during the first five months of the pandemic and how COVID-19-related social unrest has spread beyond conflict-affected countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Atkinson ◽  
Firdoze Bulbulia

As a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic and resulting lockdowns across the world, digital access has become paramount, as most aspects of education have moved online. Drawing together five case studies located in South Africa, Argentina, the Netherlands, India and Ethiopia, this article assesses the role of film education during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a specific focus on the impacts of digital access. We examine multimodal forms of film education, and how these were used to inform, entertain and educate children during the crisis by the varying work undertaken by the organizations. Applying theories of intersectionality, we address the need for context-specific approaches to film education, focusing upon the impact that the societal and individual contexts had on the dissemination of film education in each country.


Author(s):  
Vanessa Barolsky ◽  
Suren Pillay

This article argues for the importance of an international comparative perspective in terms of our analysis and response to violent crime. This is particularly important in the light of the fact that while an increasing number of countries in the global Southhave achieved formal democracy, they continue to be plagued by high levels of violent crime. In fact, transitions from authoritarian to democratic governance around the world, from Eastern Europe to Latin America and Africa, have been accompanied by escalating violent crime rates. In this context, we have much to learn from an international comparative approach in terms of understanding why democratic transitions are so often accompanied by increases in violence, what the impact of this violence is on the ability of these societies to deepen democracy, and what the most appropriate interventions are in relatively new and often resource poor democracies.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Shaw ◽  
Katelyn Davis

Where do women fit into the automotive industry? In every possible space-including those they have yet to invent! As Katelyn Shelby Davis and Kristin Shaw demonstrate in Women Driven Mobility, women are in leadership roles in all aspects of the industry. Davis and Shaw seek bring awareness and reroute this through a series of case studies that feature women working in 11 vital pillars of the mobility industry: Awareness and community advocacy Design and engineering Funding Infrastructure Marketing and communications Mobility on demand Placemaking Policy and legislation Sustainability Talent and education Technology and innovation Foreword by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, State of Michigan


E-Justice ◽  
2010 ◽  
pp. 165-185
Author(s):  
Sandra Potter ◽  
Phil Farrelly ◽  
Derek Begg

This chapter tracks the response of Australian courts to rapid advances in ICT. It shows how, despite early resistance and a reactive approach to technology, Australian courts have been transformed by the challenges of implementing ICT. It illustrates with case studies the way Australian courts have drawn on each experience to improve their processes, and have come to lead the world in using practice notes and protocols as a control measure for procedural change. It reviews current experiences in Australian jurisdictions, presenting courts who now see ICT as a tool for managing workflows throughout their organisation. The authors foresee the challenge for Australian courts will be keeping this control, and contend that courts who achieve this are more likely to have ICT as the servant, not the master, of the justice process. They anticipate that Australia’s success can be seen as a paradigm for other courts facing similar challenges


Through case studies of incidents around the world where the social media platforms have been used and abused for ulterior purposes, Chapter 6 highlights the lessons that can be learned. For good or for ill, the author elaborates on the way social media has been used as an arbiter to inflict various forms of political influence and how we may have become desensitized due to the popularity of the social media platforms themselves. A searching view is provided that there is now a propensity by foreign states to use social media to influence the user base of sovereign countries during key political events. This type of activity now justifies a paradigm shift in relation to our perception and utilization of computerized devices for the future.


Author(s):  
Michael Bruter ◽  
Sarah Harrison

This chapter focuses on electoral ergonomics, defined as the interface between every aspect of electoral organization and the psychology of the voters. It argues that every small detail in the organization of the vote (electoral ergonomics) matters not only mechanically, but also because of the way it may trigger different psychological mechanisms and emotional reactions, and that as a result, the ergonomic interface will have different effects on different types of voter, such as ‘referees’ or ‘supporters’. Indeed, electoral ergonomics affects the way citizens experience the vote, their attitudes, their likeliness to vote in elections, and their actual electoral choice. The chapter then unpacks the theoretical and empirical logic behind the influence of electoral ergonomics, both in general and through specific case studies. These case studies include the impact of the use of remote voting on electoral experience in the general population, its influence on the electoral choice of young voters, and the effect of ballot-paper design (including paper vs electronic ballots) on the electoral experience.


Author(s):  
Stephen M. Downes

Originally proposed by sociologists of science, constructivism or social constructivism is a view about the nature of scientific knowledge held by many philosophers of science. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is made by scientists and not determined by the world. This makes constructivists antirealists. Constructivism here should not be confused with constructivism in mathematics or logic, although there are some similarities. Constructivism is more aptly compared with Berkeley’s idealism. Most constructivist research involves empirical study of a historical or a contemporary episode in science, with the aim of learning how scientists experiment and theorize. Constructivists try not to bias their case studies with presuppositions about how scientific research is directed. Thus their approach contrasts with approaches in philosophy of science that assume scientists are guided by a particular method. From their case studies, constructivists have concluded that scientific practice is not guided by any one set of methods. Thus constructivism is relativist or antirationalist. There are two familiar (and related) criticisms of constructivism. First, since constructivists are self-avowed relativists, some philosophers argue that constructivism fails for the same reasons that relativism fails. But many philosophers of science note that relativism can be characterized in various ways and that versions of relativism can be useful in the interpretation of science. Therefore, constructivism’s relativism does not by itself render it unacceptable. Second, constructivists are accused of believing that scientists literally ‘make the world’, in the way some make houses or cars. This is probably not the best way to understand constructivism. Rather, constructivism requires only the weaker thesis that scientific knowledge is ‘produced’ primarily by scientists and only to a lesser extent determined by fixed structures in the world. This interprets constructivism as a thesis about our access to the world via scientific representations. For example, constructivists claim that the way we represent the structure of DNA is a result of many interrelated scientific practices and is not dictated by some ultimate underlying structure of reality. Constructivist research provides important tools for epistemologists specializing in the study of scientific knowledge.


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