Book chapter
OA Policy
English

Children’s Representation in the Transnational Mirror Maze

ContributorsHanson, Karl
Published inBengt Sandin, Jonathan Josefsson, Karl Hanson, Sarada Balagopalan (Ed.), The Politics of Children's Rights and Representation, p. 181-201
PublisherCham : Palgrave MacMillan
Collection
  • Studies in Childhood and Youth
Publication date2023
First online date2023-03-12
Abstract

The chapter critically analyses the performances of children’s representation in the transnational political arena and engages with the questions: Who is representing children? Where are such representations enacted? It investigates two largely advertised transnational advocacy campaigns in favour of children’s human rights. The first concerns international advocacy around minimum age legislation for child soldiering, a campaign led by transnational advocacy networks that claim to represent children and young people’s rights and interests but in which children are hardly present. The second is about children and young people who have taken the lead to fight climate change via international legal procedures and who are backed up by large children’s rights entities. Both cases illustrate the tension between transnational approaches that favour a ‘global childhood’ and national and other interests at stake in childhood politics. Given their close connection with international policy making on children, childhood and children’s rights, transnational campaigns and entities exert a significant part of the transnational public power against they are struggling. This makes it important to critically assess who is speaking on behalf of children and where their representation is being performed. To strengthen children’s representation in transnational matters it is important to investigate its complex and often confusing workings and extend internal democratic processes within transnational actors.

Keywords
  • Global children’s rights
  • Children’s representation
  • Transnational advocacy
  • Child soldiering
  • International judicial procedures
Citation (ISO format)
HANSON, Karl. Children’s Representation in the Transnational Mirror Maze. In: The Politics of Children’s Rights and Representation. Bengt Sandin, Jonathan Josefsson, Karl Hanson, Sarada Balagopalan (Ed.). Cham : Palgrave MacMillan, 2023. p. 181–201. (Studies in Childhood and Youth) doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-04480-9_8
Main files (1)
Book chapter (Published version)
Identifiers
ISBN978-3-031-04479-3
106views
129downloads

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Creation24/07/2023 22:35:01
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