The state of play: securities of childhood – insecurities of children

Abstract

This article is broadly concerned with the positioning of children, both within and outside the subject area of International Relations. It considers the costs of an adult-centric standpoint in security studies and contrasts this with investments made seemingly on behalf of children and their security. It begins by looking at how children and childhoods are constructed and contained – yet also defy categorization – at some cost to their protection. The many competing children and childhoods that are invoked in security discourses and partially sustain their victimcy are then illustrated. It is argued that at their entry point into academia they are essentialized and sentimentalized. Power relations which subvert, yet also rely on children and childhoods can only be disrupted through a reconfiguration of politics and agency which includes an engagement with political literacy on a societal level and acknowledgement of the ubiquitous presence of war in all our lives.

Keywords:

• children
• childhood
• security studies
• militarization
• academia

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Brocklehurst

Dr. Helen Brocklehurst has been a full-time lecturer at Swansea University since 2005. She is the author of Who’s Afraid of Children: Children Conflict and International Relations (Ashgate 2006). She has recently been a consultant for the new International Baccalaureate course on Global Politics and has established a children’s book archive on terrorism and war.