Abstract
This special volume of Childhood seeks to move beyond stereotypical images of African children to reveal the diversity of experiences of growing up and theorizes the complex ways in which contemporary realities and processes of social change shape and are shaped by children’s lives.
There is a permeating sense of ambivalence when one takes a critical look at African childhood. Children are variously cherished and adored and given their rightful place, yet exigencies of their society often generate a palpable sense of vulnerability. Consequently, a dismal picture that emerges in the global conception of African childhood is one steeped in negativities, exemplified by high infant and child mortality, victimhood in war and epidemics, physical and psychological abuse, detrimental work, exploitation, etc. The preoccupation with problems and constraints fits into the discourse of Afro-pessimism routinely portrayed in the global media. The impact of this portrayal is so pervasive that even research and scholarship on African children routinely tends towards a uniform childhood defined by existential challenges.
However, childhood situated only in dimensions of vulnerability while realistic is just a partial account that fails to acknowledge the fact that Zelizer’s prized childhood, valuable more in emotional than economic terms, is also characteristic of the lives of many African children. Indeed, just as there are hardships and deprivation so are there opportunities and privileges, especially when the complex social, cultural, economic and political realities, in their multifarious and dynamic forms, are taken into consideration. Even within the dominant conception of vulnerability, there is the less-recognized but fascinating fortitude, resilience, creativity, thriving, adventurism, encapsulated in agency that many children marshal to overcome everyday challenges.
It is with this in mind that a special issue of Childhood that focuses exclusively on the multiple faces of childhood in Africa is being envisaged. The objective is to unearth and shift some of the attention of research, and discourse to the less-known but positive accounts of African children; to pluralize African childhoods, by showing that there is another side to the negativity and dysfunctional imagery. This is premised on a realization that knowledge and research on the other forms of childhoods, defined by economic and social class, geography, agency, gender, capacity of children etc., is either hidden, invisible, unacknowledged or simply non-existent.
Possible themes include how children in Africa thrive despite difficulties; the experiences of childhood and agents of social change (media, schools etc.); children and intergenerational dynamics; the role and place of children in family and community life; local conceptions, ideas and values of childhood; gendered childhoods; children’s environments; childhood, mobility and aspirations; etc.
Further information about Childhood: http://chd.sagepub.com/
Anticipated publication date for the Special Issue: August 2016