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Classic and Emerging Themes in the Anthropology of Children and Youth

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Classic and Emerging Themes in the Anthropology of Children and Youth Classic and Emerging Themes in the Anthropology of Children and Youth Rachael Stryker, California State University, East Bay Although anthropologists have been motherhood, and parenting around the studying children and youth around the world. As Heather Montgomery (2009) world for over one hundred years, within the notes, children held a paramount position in last decade, many have been working early anthropology. Before the rise of especially hard to conduct research and to fieldwork, they were “the only observable communicate results with one another others” (in Sobo 2015, 3). Once fieldwork across the four fields of anthropology. As became the norm, children were practical such, it is often necessary to update helpers in the field, often working as anthropologists across the discipline on assistants and providing information that some key moments and texts in the field. wary adults were not so willing to share. But, What follows is an overview of the of course, they also remained subject to increasingly vibrant intellectual project that study. For example, Boas and his colleagues is the Anthropology of Children and Youth. (1912) worked with children and parents to I outline some of the important roots of this gather anthropometric data to disprove the project, highlight current themes in the near theory that there were stable racial types. history of the field, and offer brief examples Soon after, Margaret Mead (1932) of anthropological analyses of children and challenged G. Stanley Hall’s formulation of youth that are currently informing male adolescence as a time of internal anthropological theory and method more turbulence. Ruth Benedict (1938) argued broadly. Such a survey necessarily relies on that when expectations for children and Elisa Sobo’s recent article, “Anthropological adults are discontinuous, turbulence Contributions and Challenges to the Study becomes greater for youth. of Children and Childhoods” (2015), which Boas, Benedict, and Mead’s is the most up-to-date review of the field. contributions are mentioned because their work created a foundation for later The Importance of Studying Children and anthropological studies in which it became Youth in Anthropology central to study children and youth anthropologically, in situ, or within specific The contemporary anthropological environments, as opposed to within study of children and youth has a rich laboratories or contrived scenarios, as child th th history, with roots in 19 and 20 century developmentalists were doing. In addition, comparative ethnographic research on child as Levine and New (2008) have care strategies; behavioral development; and demonstrated, there are problems with the definitions and expressions of childhood, 2 Teaching Anthropology: Proceedings of the 2015 AAA Meeting Vol. 21, No. 1 ways in which developmental psychology in feminist anthropology or critical race studies particular conceptualized childhood, basing ask us to start with gendered or racialized generalizations mostly on the study of subjectivities in our theory and method, Western children despite the fact that 90 respectively. Laura Nader (1980) also percent of all children live in Asia, Latin influenced this movement by challenging America, the Pacific, and Africa. anthropologists to understand childhoods as products of political environments The Near History of the Anthropology of specifically by asking us to make vertical Children and Youth linkages between nodes of power and the ways in which children and youth are Since the 1960s, we have seen the permitted—or limited—to live, work, play, legacies of the important contributions of and grow up. some of our other anthropological ancestors such as John and Beatrice Whiting, who Themes in the Anthropology of Children conducted The Six Cultures Study. These and Youth: Looking Ahead anthropologists were particularly focused on comparative field studies of infant care, the In 2007, in what has now proven to be a social and cultural ecology of children’s very influential article titled, “Challenges activities, and language socialization and Opportunities in the Anthropology of (Whiting et al. 1966; Whiting and Whiting Childhoods,” Myra Bluebond-Langner and 1975). Around the same time, Mary Ellen Jill Korbin called for several developments in Goodman ([1952]1964, 1970), influenced by the field, including: 1) updates and Bronislaw Malinowski, introduced the innovations in cross-cultural studies of the notion of the “child’s eye view” in definition and expression of children, youth, ethnography, marking one of the first and childhood; 2) an expansion of robust anthropological efforts to treat children and research, theory, and method that explores youth as ethnographic subjects with their the child as a vulnerable and/or agentive own worldviews rather than childhood or subject; and 3) better communication of the psychology as the object within the successes and challenges of the real-life discipline. Goodman’s assertion that application of anthropological research on children and youth are not just passive children and youth. One might consider this receivers of cultural transmission, but also article the first rally of anthropologists to active producers of knowledge and culture coordinate intellectual and practical efforts profoundly influenced the Sociology of to advocate for the anthropological study of Childhood movement in the United children and youth. In tandem with, and/or Kingdom during the 1990s, in which as a result of this call and other efforts to colleagues such as Berry Mayall (2002) underline the importance of the demanded child-centered ethnography and anthropological study of children and youth Allison James, Alan Prout, and Chris Jenks by Robert Levine (2007), David Lancy (1998) turned our attention to theorizing (2008), Heather Montgomery (2009), and children and youth much in the ways that others, anthropologists of children and Stryker Classic and Emerging Themes in the Anthropology of Children and Youth 3 youth around the world have been making Conclusion: Contemporary Themes and unprecedented efforts in the last decade to Projects in the Anthropology of Children conduct, publicize, and share efforts across and Youth the four fields of anthropology. Due to these efforts, studying children Contemporary themes and projects in and youth within anthropology has been the anthropology of children and youth are professionalized to the extent that it is now informed by all of the work and colleagues recognized within the American mentioned so far. The following are just Anthropological Association (AAA). In some of the most recent emerging themes 2008, due to the hard work of colleagues that may be of particular interest to such as Myra Bluebond-Langner, Kristen anthropologists and practitioners through- Cheney, Jill Korbin, Helen Schwartzmann, out the discipline. Susan Shepler, and Thomas Weisner, the Anthropology of Children and Youth Theories of Interdependence Interest Group (ACYIG) was formed. What started as a group of about twenty-five One current theme among those who colleagues in a conference room at the 2008 study children and youth is advancing AAA meeting in San Francisco has now theories of interdependence within cultures. grown to over 1,200 members across the In the past twenty years, many four fields. The ACYIG has held annual ethnographies have examined the effects of conferences since 2008, partnering with a the Declaration of the Rights of the Child on wide variety of organizations such as the children around the world. These studies Society for Cross Cultural Research and the highlight both the benefits and the Society for Psychological Anthropology. disadvantages of tethering children to an And the ACYIG held its first solo conference Enlightenment-inspired understanding of in 2015 in Long Beach, California, with over human rights through their categorization as 125 attendees from over ten countries and a special “vulnerable” subjects in law and dozen disciplines. It is important to politics. Anthropologists such as Heather underline that the ACYIG is deeply Montgomery (2010), Jo Boyden (2003), Kristen Cheney (2010) and others working committed to promoting the anthropological study of children and youth with African cultures and communities not as a specific subfield per say, but as a provide excellent examples of this work. robust and innovative strategy that They each identify ways in which children anthropologists, archaeologists, linguists, and youth exemplify the “vulnerable” legal and biological anthropologists might subject in the face of globalization; however, consider employing to provide a historical, they also demonstrate that children and contemporary, and longue durée perspective youth contribute to economic and cultural on the human condition. To learn more, production pathways in ways that challenge please visit the ACYIG website at: notions of the vulnerable child. Such studies http://acyig.americananthro.org/ have moved anthropologists from considering social relations between the 4 Teaching Anthropology: Proceedings of the 2015 AAA Meeting Vol. 21, No. 1 “powerful” and the “powerless,” to more Theories of Becoming considered formulations of interdependence within communities, of which children, A third and related emerging theme has youth, and other typically silenced pivoted on notions of fixity and fluidity participants are a part. across the life span. One of the underlying tenets of the anthropological study of Theories of Age as an Ontological Category children
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