全学自由研究ゼミナール(PEAK)(Anthropological perspectives on children and childhood)

【Course block 1: Anthropology and the study of children and childhood】 Week 1, 5/10 Growing up and learning to classify: A multitude of childhoods Week 2, 12/10 Early child anthropologists: From Boas and Mead to La Fontaine Week 3, 19/10 Convention on the Rights of the Child in a global perspective Week 4, 26/10 Saving children? 【Course block 2: Anthropological methods: Understanding children’s worlds】 Week 5, 2/11 Critical perspectives of doing ethnographic fieldwork: What is a child perspective? Week 6, 9/11 Video observations, video diaries and elicitation interviews: Examples of young people getting braces or participating in psycho-education. Week 7, 16/11 Ethical considerations of getting consent and doing fieldwork among children 【Course block 3: A multitude of childhoods: Children’s play and work】 Week 8, 30/11 Happiness or distress among children and youth. Examples from Japan. Week 9, 7/12 Street childhood. An example from India. Week 10, 14/12 Migrant childhood. Examples from China and Bangladesh. Week 11, 21/12 Children’s work. Examples from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Sweden. Week 12, 4/1 Children’s everyday mobility. Examples from sub-Saharan Africa and Denmark. Week 13, 11/1 Wrapping up and evaluating the course.

Each class will consist of a lecture and a classroom, group, or pair discussion. Students are expected to prepare the classes by reading the literature and come up with discussion questions. Course assignments consist of two short essays relating to the course topics. Students will also, in pairs, prepare and show a short (5 min.) power point presentation about one specific case of childhood of choice, in class, and view and listen to their fellow students’ presentations and contribute to the discussions.

The grade will be based on students’ attendance, preparation for and contributions to class discussion, submission of two short essays and presentation of a power point.

The course will be taught entirely in English. There will be a guidance to the course on the first day of the class and the literature will be distributed on-line. If the teacher finds it necessary to make changes to the course, an announcement will be given in advance. References: Ben-Ari, Eyal (2017) Tanoshikatta ne? Learning to be happy in Japanese preschools. In Holthaus, Barbara & Manzenreiter, Wolfram (eds.) Life course, happiness and well-being in Japan. Chapter 1, pp. 31-44. Abingdon: Routledge. Christensen, Pia & Mikkelsen, Miguel Romero (2013) ‘There is Nothing Here for Us..!’ How Girls Create Meaningful Places of Their Own Through Movement. Children & Society 27(3): 197-207. Heissler, Karen (2010) Migrating with honor. Sites of agency and power in child labor migration in Bangladesh. In Ensor, Marisa O. & Gozdziak, E. (eds.) Children and Migration : At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hendry, Joy (2008) An introduction to social anthropology: Sharing our worlds. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Introduction, chapter 1 and 2, pp. 1-45. Other editions may work as well. Horiguchi, Sachiko (2017) “Unhappy” and isolated youth in the midst of social change. Representations and subjective experiences of hikikomori in contemporary Japan. In Holthaus, Barbara & Manzenreiter, Wolfram (eds.) Life course, happiness and well-being in Japan. Chapter 3, pp. 57-71. Abingdon: Routledge. James, Allison (2007) Giving Voice to Children’s Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials. American Anthropologist 109(2): 261–272. Klocker, Natascha (2007) An example of ‘thin’ agency; Child domestic workers in Tanzania. In Eds. Panelli, R., Punch, S. and Robson, E.: Global Perspectives on Rural Childhood and Youth. Chapter 7, pp. 83-94. London: Routledge. LeVine, Robert A. and New, Rebecca S. (Eds.) (2008) Anthropology and Child Development: A Cross-Cultural Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Pp. 1-7 and 11-16. Liu, Zhijun & Zhu, Fangsheng (2011) China's Returned Migrant Children: Experiences of Separation and Adaptation. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 12(5): 445-461. Porter et al. (2010) Where dogs, ghosts and lions roam: learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school. Children’s Geographies 8(2): 91-105. Samuelsson, Tobias (2012) Not All About the Money: Children, Work, and Consumption. In Eds. Sparrman, A., Sandin, B. and Sjöberg, J.: Situating child consumption: Rethinking values and notions of children, childhood and consumption. Pp. 81-96. Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Sweis, Rania Kassab (2021). Paradoxes of care: children and global medical aid in Egypt. Chapter 4, pp. 93-123, Do muslim village girls need saving? Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. Twum-Danso, Afua (2016) From the singular to the plural: Exploring diversities in contemporary childhoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Childhood 23(3): 455-468. Warming, Hanne (2011) Getting under their skins? Accessing young children’s perspectives through ethnographic fieldwork. Childhood 18(1): 39-53. Webster, Rachel (2011) The Street Belongs to Us! — The Autonomous Worlds of Street Children in the Suburb of Colaba, Mumbai, India. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 12(5): 426-444. Wickström, Anette (2017) “One step at a time”: Analyzing young patients’ video diaries in an ethnographic tracing of fixed appliances. Children & Society 31(3):183-193. Wickström, Anette (2013) From individual to relational strategies; transforming a manual-based psycho-educational course at school. Childhood 20(2):215-228.