CALL FOR PAPERS – due 30 September 2017
Of all centuries, the twentieth is perhaps the one which most deserves to qualify as the ‘children’s century’ for the way in which the focus of social and political concern increasingly alighted on the figure of the child.
The period from the end of the 19th century witnessed a series of international developments affecting the discourses articulated around children’s rights to physical protection, health and well-being: from the multiplication of laws to protect them in the public and private spheres, to the rise of non-governmental organisations and associations to bring them relief from trauma, insecurity and maltreatment. At the same time, the twentieth century has gone hand-in-hand with increasing opportunities for children to experience such tragedies; and in both domestic settings (abuse or neglect) as well as wider geopolitical manifestations of violence (war and genocide) such anxieties have influenced the form and nature of the above responses.
