Who Counts as Child? Using Child as Method and Fanon to Challenge Figurations of Childhood

Bibliographic Data

ID2409293
AuthorsLuan Carpes Barros Cassal (0000-0003-4237-3270, University of Manchester), Artemis Christinaki (0000-0002-9704-8531, University of Manchester), E Burman (0000-0002-2504-5120, University of Manchester)
Year2025
Volume25
Issue1
Pages35-43
Publication date2025-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCulture Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-7086 • E-ISSN: 1552-356X
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/15327086241272015
OpenAlexW4402964923
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited41

Child as method is a critical and interdisciplinary approach interrogating figurations of childhood that engage, organize, justify (and perhaps even resist) sociopolitical processes. In this article, we start by presenting Child as method as a conceptual and methodological tool for critical research in childhood, education, and psychological studies and then show how it informed discussions of and about childhood in two different projects. The first concerns Legal Gender Recognition in the United Kingdom where a Child as method perspective highlights how the idea of developmentalism is embedded in figurations of childhood. This aligns with age conformities of 'being more like adults than children,' while also showing how gender recognition and childhood have been built in opposition to each other. The second project mobilizes Child as method as a conceptual and methodological orientation to critically reflect on the role-played by age assessment practices in migration control in Greece. This highlights how 'the child' becomes a trope within forced migration policies and practices, and how 'childhood' performs a social condition in which children are represented as victims in state and humanitarian discourse. In doing so, this not only creates a 'universalised' notion of childhood but also enacts epistemic violence. Indeed, these discourses mobilize action in the form of age assessment for those young people who do not look or perform like 'real children,' establishing, in essence, who is and is not welcomed in the Western territory. The article ends by discussing Frantz Fanon as a critical childhood theorist. It depicts how Fanon's contribution informs, conceptually and methodologically, the research analytic of Child as method. Together with Child as method, we put forward Fanon's contribution to critical childhood studies while highlighting Fanon's call for action from everyone, including children

Developmental psychology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Psychology