Opening The Pandora's Box: A Study Of The Emergent Bulgarian Child Maltreatment Discourses Submitted by Todor Iantchev Proykov to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Advanced Social Work and Probation Studies, June 6, 2008 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotations from this may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis, which is not my own work has been identified and that no material is included for which a degree has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. ..................................................... Todor Proykov, June 6, 2008 Abstract The current study explores the emerging child maltreatment discourses in the Bulgarian public domain and demonstrates how these discourses have evolved, how they relate to certain social practices and how they maintain certain power relations. To achieve this goal, a sample of newspaper articles covering child maltreatment occurrences are studied, using discourse analysis. In addition to those, folklore, literary and autobiographical resources are examined to trace back the origins of the child maltreatment discourses and the overall social construction of `childhood' and `parenting' in Bulgaria. Furthermore, interview fragments with parents and literature resources are used to support and expand the argument. It is claimed that a number of rooted into the culture and maintained by certain institutions discourses pre-determine how the notion of child maltreatment is con- structed in Bulgaria, singling out certain aspects of child maltreatment as dominant and `silencing' others. Three main discourses of public constructing and speaking of child maltreatment are defined: familial, medical and racist discourses. Those are explored in detail in terms of their origins and pragmatic impact on practice and parallels are drawn to similar discourses in the UK context. It is claimed that the way in which the concept of the `child maltreatment family' is constructed, contributes to fundamental premises laying the grounds of the way that child protection practice is designed and to some pitfalls to that design. Chapter 1 examines the research interest of the author and the initial steps in the research design|the research aims and the research questions are explored. Chapter 2 expands on the design of the study, examining the theoretical and methodological background of of the current endeavour|social constructionism| and discourse analysis is discussed and considered as a research method of choice. A range of methodological decisions are laid out and justified, including the ones related to the research ethics, the data sampling process and the validity of the current study. Initial appraisal of the data sets collected is provided. Chapter 3 represents a self-contained genealogical exploration into the occur- rences and fragmentations of the Bulgarian childhood and parenting discourses, focusing on particular sets of literary, folklore and autobiographical documents. As- pects of these discourses on parenting and childhood are compared historically to similar discourses from other countries and cultures. Chapter 4 is dedicated to the sample texts' discourse analysis per s´e. A de- tailed account is given to examining the mass-media materials closely and eliciting a number of elements, organised around three distinctive dominant discourses: the familial, the racist and the medical. It is claimed that these three discourses organise the public speaking and the construction of the child abuse narratives. Chapter 5 pulls together the findings from the study of the media stories and the historical/literary documents and expands the argument further, providing also illustrations form a number of research interviews. The three defined as above discourses are explored further. Chapter 6 summarises the key findings and draws conclusions based on them, and gives the author's perspective about their implication for the child protection practice. Further areas of study are suggested and some limitation of the discourse analysis / social constructionist approach are described. 2 Contents Definitions 8 1 Introduction and Research Questions 10 1.1 Research Interest Source and Research Values . 13 1.2 The Research Goal . 18 1.3 The Research Questions . 20 1.4 Research Tasks . 21 2 Theoretical Framework and Methodology 23 2.1 The Social Constructionist Approach . 23 2.2 The Research Data Pools . 30 2.2.1 What is the public/media discourse of child maltreatment and how is it constructed? ...................... 30 2.2.2 How has the child maltreatment discourse emerged and what is its internal structure; what is its relation to other processes in Bulgarian culture and history? ................ 31 2.2.3 What is its fragmentation and what are the unspoken|silenced| aspects of that discourse? .................... 32 2.2.4 What is the link between the child maltreatment discourse as it emerges in Bulgaria and the historical evidence of this process in other countries|particularly the UK? ........... 32 2.2.5 How do the family narratives relate to the public/media dis- course on child maltreatment? ................. 33 2.3 Data Sampling . 35 1 2.3.1 Newspaper articles . 35 2.3.2 Historical, folklore, literature and biography accounts . 36 2.3.3 Parental interviews . 37 2.4 Description of the Data Samples collected . 37 2.4.1 Newspaper articles covering child maltreatment ........ 37 2.4.2 Parental interviews . 38 2.4.3 Historical and literary documents . 41 2.5 The Methods of Data Analysis . 41 2.5.1 Structuralism. Vladimir Propp . 43 2.5.2 Deconstruction theory and Jacques Derrida . 44 2.5.3 Michael Foucault . 46 2.5.4 Ian Parker . 48 2.5.5 Potter and Wetherel . 51 2.5.6 Feminist Discourse analysis . 52 2.5.7 Norman Fairclough and the media discourse . 54 2.5.8 Discourse analysis studies in the child maltreatment and child welfare area . 56 2.5.9 Which Discourse Analysis? . 58 2.6 The Question of Validity and Reliability of the current study . 59 2.7 The Research Ethics . 60 3 History Of Childhood and Parenting | The Bulgarian Tales 62 3.1 The Method used in this Chapter . 64 3.2 Early documents on childhood and parenting . 67 3.2.1 The foundational myth . 67 3.2.2 Early Slavic folklore . 70 3.2.3 Adopting the Christian ethos|early Christian documents and parenting . 75 3.2.4 Bulgarian fairy tales and spoken folklore . 80 3.3 The Roma Gypsies|the birth of the `Alien' . 85 3.4 Communism, childcare and parenting . 89 2 3.5 Summary . 95 4 Findings and Analysis 98 4.1 Description of the sample data . 98 4.1.1 The nature of the child maltreatment covered in the stories . 99 4.1.2 The unusual archaic and fictional style of the stories . 103 4.2 Preparing the sample texts for the analysis . 106 4.2.1 Analysis of the whole narratives vs. analysis of the articles' titles . 106 4.2.2 Multiple narratives vs. Master narrative . 107 4.2.3 Use of the original Bulgarian texts vs. English translations . 108 4.3 The Discourse Objects . 110 4.3.1 The Protagonists . 111 4.3.2 The Family Home . 116 4.3.3 The Neighbourhood . 117 4.3.4 Psychological Aspects . 119 4.3.5 The Professionals . 120 4.3.6 The Institutions . 122 4.3.7 The Proceedings . 123 4.3.8 Other . 125 4.3.9 Initial comments on the discursive objects . 127 4.4 The Discourse Subjects . 128 4.4.1 `The Public' . 133 4.4.2 `The Neighbours' . 134 4.4.3 `The Mother' . 135 4.4.4 `The Father' . 136 4.4.5 `The Victim' . 137 4.4.6 `The Relatives' . 138 4.4.7 `The Judicial System' . 139 4.4.8 `The Experts' . 139 4.4.9 `The Child Welfare Professionals' . 140 3 4.4.10 `The Local Authorities' . 140 4.4.11 `The Politicians' . 141 4.4.12 `The Reading Audience' . 141 4.4.13 `The Narrator' . 142 4.5 The Dominant Discourses as main versions of the world of child mal- treatment . 143 5 Discussion 145 5.1 The three child maltreatment discourses|origins and operation . 146 5.1.1 The Familial Discourse . 146 5.1.2 The Racist Discourse . 151 5.1.3 The Medical Discourse . 157 5.2 The newspaper narratives as horror stories: the style of the Bulgarian child maltreatment stories . 160 5.3 The marginal child maltreatment discourses . 162 5.3.1 The voice of the child . 162 5.3.2 The voice of the parents . 163 6 Conclusions 164 A Maps of Bulgaria and Europe 167 B Scans of some articles from the data sample 170 C Sample newspaper articles, translated in English 173 C.1 Case One . 173 C.2 Case Two . 174 C.3 Case Three . 175 C.4 Case Four . 176 C.5 Case Five . 177 C.6 Case Six . 178 C.7 Case Seven . 179 C.8 Case Eight . 179 4 C.9 Case Nine . 180 C.10 Case Ten . 181 C.11 Case Eleven . 182 D Sample interview schedules translated in English 184 D.1 Case One . 184 D.2 Case Two . 193 Bibliography 198 Index 206 5 List of Figures 2.1 A father who had beaten his daughter black and blue was arrested . 39 2.2 Uncle takes the virginity of a seven-year old girl . 40 A.1 Map of Bulgaria . 168 A.2 Map of Europe . 169 B.1 Father burns a child, they send her to an orphanage . 170 B.2 Stepdaughter beaten and raped . 171 B.3 A man from Radomir rapes his stepdaughter . 171 B.4 A collage of some other article scans . 172 6 List of Tables 2.1 Sample of Newspaper Articles .