Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Children and International Relations: A New Site of Knowledge? Despite a burgeoning literature in other social sciences, such as sociology and social anthropology, a casual glance at the indexes of the most widely used texts in international relations reveals an interesting fact: there are very references to the child or to children. Those that there are emphasize the role of children as victims: as labourers, soldiers, refugees and slaves. To acknowledge and then to contest this lack of reference is concomitant with the realisation that children may actually be a significant 'site of knowledge' in international relations. This paper argues that the fact that children are largely ignored in the mainstream literature is not because their contribution would be insignificant, but rather because the dominant system of knowledge is inadequate in being able to articulate the contribution that children may make. The inadequacy of many of the traditional themes and constructs, in the practice of international relations, is therefore highlighted. Section one examines the many roles of the child in international relations and in its sub-fields, including those in international political economy, in development studies, in questions of globalisation and integration, in conflict and its resolution, and in traditional notions of rights, citizenship, power and representation. Such an examination demonstrates that children appear 'in invisible ink' throughout international relations. Section two of the paper examines the reasons for the lack of insight on children in the mainstream literature. This lack of insight reflects the reliance of traditional IR approaches on a top-down as opposed to a bottom-up approach. As Schram notes: 'Knowing how it is that some come to be seen as being on the margin or on the bottom can tell us much about how the discursive constitution of social relations contributes to deciding meaning and value, identity and other, inclusion and exclusion, 'us' and 'them'.' Thus, our view of the child, children and/or childhood forms our ideas regarding the nature and validity of knowledge. Feminist analysis has often critiqued traditional theoretical constructs from the point of view of the inherent masculinity of their standpoint. This paper criticises the traditional theoretical constructs from the point of view of the inherent adult-centred focus of their perspective. However, we only see events in one way (e.g. adult, male, Western, affluent) simply because we do not choose to look at them from another. If we invert IR, we gain an entirely different perspective: the subject becomes the object, the agent becomes the structure, the other becomes the self. The third section examines how taking account of the child would change the focus of the discipline. In particular it emphasises the conference theme by examining whether IR is indeed open to difference or whether the practice of international relations as a discipline itself reinforces the child's inequality in world politics. This is not a call to have children at the conference table, but rather a plea to take account of a group of people who provide the international system with its continuity and as such are central to the development of the discourse as opposed to marginal to it. Children are present in other social sciences – why not ours?