301. Contested futures: The ‘humanitarian value’ of childhood in rural Sierra Leone
- Author
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Giuseppe Bolotta and Dympna Devine
- Subjects
Economic growth ,Sociology and Political Science ,western humanitarianism ,Child labour ,Sierra Leone ,Sierra leone ,West africa ,050906 social work ,Extension (metaphysics) ,Child labour, education, Sierra Leone, value of children, West Africa, western humanitarianism ,West Africa ,Settore M-STO/04 - Storia Contemporanea ,0601 history and archaeology ,Settore M-DEA/01 - Discipline Demoetnoantropologiche ,Sociology ,education ,060101 anthropology ,05 social sciences ,value of children ,06 humanities and the arts ,Social constructionism ,Rural village ,Value (economics) ,0509 other social sciences ,Futures contract - Abstract
This article explores contrasting social constructions of the ‘value of children’ in a rural village in Northern Sierra Leone. It investigates how the meanings of childhood, its temporal extension and children’s (present and future) roles are differently interpreted in the context of humanitarian intervention. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and participatory research with children, it explores how child work and education are conceptualised by a range of different actors (local authorities, families and international NGOs). The analysis sheds light on the tensions which arise between children’s ‘present usefulness’ to family livelihoods through their work at home and their potential future utility through their ‘work’ at school. Taking two case study exemplars, it shows how international NGOs’ humanitarian constructions of African children as innocent victims, ‘emotionally priceless’ and rights bearing can be locally reconfigured and appropriated for economic gain. The article demonstrates marginalised children’s active role in blurring boundaries between emotional, monetary, global and local valuations of what children ‘should’ do and be. It also highlights how the ‘humanitarian value’ of childhood constitutes the bedrock upon which Sierra Leone’s alternative futures are being actively imagined and contested along ‘North–South’ transactions.
- Published
- 2021
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