hacia una antropologÍa feminista de la infancia

8/13/2019 HACIA UNA ANTROPOLOGA FEMINISTA DE LA INFANCIA

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Towarda FeministAnthropologyofChildhoodJaneHelleiner

B S T R C TBeginningwiththe author's experienceo fjoiningaChildandYouthStudies department asafeminist anthropologist, the paper reviewsthe historically weak linksbetweenfeminism, anthropology andchildresearch. It then draws attention to a newer sociology andanthropologyo fchildhood that is more closely engaged with feminism. Exampleso fanthropological work that foreground genderedchildren are used to prompt a re-visitingoftheauthors'own anthropological work on IrishTravellingPeople, and to demonstrate thepossibilities ofafeminist anthropology ofchildhood.

R E S U M EEn debutant par 1'cxpcrience que I'auteure a eu en se joignant a un departcment d'Etudes de I'enfant et de lajeunesseen tantqu'anthropologue teministe, I'aiticle revoit les points faibles quiexistenthistoriquement entre le feminisme, l'anthropologie, et larecherche surI'enfant.Cela,alors attire I.'attention sur unenouvelle sociologie et anthropologic de1'enfance,quis'engageencore plusetroitement avec l'anthropologie feministe de I'enfance. Des examples detravailanthropologique qui met en premierplanlesenfantsqui sontclassespars x et quisont utilisespour pousser a revoir l'oeuvre anthropologique de I'auteur sur lesgensdu voyage deI'lrlande.

INTRODUCTION

This paper arises out of an i n t e n s i v eperiod of e f l e c t i o n on the relationshipbetweenfeminism, anthropology,andchildresearch, whichwas prompted by my decision as a self-identifiedfeminist anthropologist to enteramultidisciplinaryChild(nowChildand Youth) Studies department.I entered the Child Studies Department withreservations that stemmedinpartfromthe fact thatmy anthropological training had not included anysystematic discussion of childhood and hadeschewedanengagement with psychology, the"master discipline" in thearea.Alongwith qualmsabout my own training, I wasalsoapprehensiveabout a new academic positioning within aninterdisciplinary field focused uponchildren,awarethatthetopicofstudy was academicallysuspect(atleast outside of psychology). I was evenmorepreoccupied,however, by the possibility that alocation within Child Studies might be (or beconstrued to be) antithetical to feminism.

Thislatter preoccupation arose out of anengagement with feminism that had beenintensifying in the years following my doctoralfieldwork.Duringtheseyears initialforays intoscholarly presenting, writing, and teachingwere

combined with the onset of childbearing andrearingand I hadderivedagreat dealofsupport formy endeavors, both scholarly and maternal,fromfeminist scholarshipandfromnetworkso ffeministwomen.Fromthis vantage point I was concernedthat a position in a Child Studies Departmentrepresented the epitomeo f atraditional location fora female academicand myfearswerereinforcedbythe feminized faculty and student body in thisDepartment.

consultation of "child development"texts, written from within the discipline ofpsychology, quickly convinced me that mybackgroundas a feminist anthropologist did havesomething to contribute to the field of childresearch, but a search for relevant scholarshipwithin feminist anthropology, or indeedanthropology as a whole, yielded very little. Irapidly broadened my purview to include childresearch in other disciplines such as sociology,history,culturalstudiesandeducationandbegan tothink of my contribution to the Child StudiesDepartmentl ssin terms of "anthropology" andmore in terms of "everything but psychology" InspiteofthisIcontinue to be interested inthe weaklinksbetweenfeminism, anthropology andchildresearch, and this paper reviews some of the


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with the B l a c k feminists an explicit concern withchildren,andspecifically withchildren's liberation.Her chapter Down with Childhood in theDialectic of Sex (1970) discussed the work ofhistorian Philippe Aries whose Centuries ofChildhood (1962) had argued thatchildhood wasan historically invented socialcategory. Adoptingthis perspective, Firestone went on toarguethatthis invention was characterised by the oppressiono f children within the institutions of the nuclearfamily and the school. Because women andchildren were subordinated in similar ways, sheargued, feministswouldhave to beinvolved in thestruggle to liberate children from childhood (byfacilitating their economic and sexual freedom)(1970, 104).'

Despite the child-centred actions of theB l a c kfeminists discussed byPolatnick,and the callforchildren's liberation in thewritingof Firestone,anexplicitfocus upon children has remained weakin feminism even as it has shifted toward moreconsistently positiveassessmentso fvariousfamilyforms and mothering practices (Ross 1995;Umansky 1996). Children characteristicallycontinue to be discussed as passive objects ofdiverse forms of mothering, ratherthan as activeparticipants in family (or other) social relations(Alanen 1994, 33).

Inan influential paper titled The Fantasyo f the Perfect Mother, Chodorow and Contratto(1992, 209-10) noted thatfeminist discussions ofmothering have tended to reproduce dominantwestern (since the late nineteenth century at least)cultural assumptions about the passivity anddependence of children vis-a-vis omnipotentmothers. The result has beenthatsuch discussionscontribute to, rather than challenge, bothessentialist claims about children's need formothering and various forms o f mother-blaming.They point out that feminist discussions ofmotherhood and mothering would benefit fromgreatercriticalattention to perspectives thatgrantchildrengreateragency and intentionality (211).

A n emerging interdisciplinary body ofworkon children's perceptions and experiences offamily life (e. g. Brannen and O'Brien 1996;Moore, Sixsmith and Knowles 1996; Valentine

1997) offers a necessary broadeningo f perspectiveson the family, and a potential challenge toconservative invocations of children's needswithin this sphere (Cohen and Katzenstein 1988,33-37). While this work is important in itsinsistence on the generationed relations of familylife, however, it could benefit from a moreconsistently feminist analysisthatwould examinethe articulations of both generation andgender forboth adult and c h i l d family members. It is alsoimportantthata feminist ch i ldresearch go beyonddiscussionoffamily lifeand especially mothering.

FEMINISMANDT H E S O C I O L O G YOFC H I L D H O O D

Theparametersof a broaderengagementbetween feminism andchildhoodstudies have beenexplicitly addressed by a number of sociologists.Starting from the premise that childhood likewomanhood is a cultural invention, Thorne(1987), Oakley (1994) and Alanen (1994)demonstrate how the feminist rethinking of theprivate/public dichotomy bringsnotonly women

but also children out of the private and into thepublic sphere. L i k e women and womanhood,childrenand childhood can bethusunderstood asbeing shaped by social, economic and politicalrelations far beyond theparent(especiallymother-ch i ldrelationship.

The de-naturalising and de-privatising ofchildhood,it is suggested, can simultaneously leadto agreaterfeminist appreciation o fthe articulationo fgender and age/generation in different historicaland cultural contexts. A feminist sociology ofchildhood,then, focuses attention on thedegreetowhich age relations, likegender relations, are builtintovaried institutions and social circumstances(Thorne 1987, 99), i.e., howsocialphenomena areboth gendered anci generationed (Alanen 1994,37).

In their respective discussions Thorne,OakleyandAlanenall emphasize the significanceo f adultism for social relations, culture andscholarshipitself(Thorne 1987, 86; Oakley 1994,23;Alanen1994,27). How adultism intersectswithgender asw e l las other hierarchies ofclass, race,


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sexuality, disability and nationality is also noted.Thome, for example, points out the articulation ofadult/child hierarchies with other forms ofoppression and/or exclusion through theconstruction of women, colonized populations,minorities, and those with disabilities, as being

l ike children (1987, 96). An interest in powerleads these writers to a concern not only withchildren's subordination but with their forms ofresistance to adultism : i.e., how despite theconstraints of gender and generation, children areactive creators and reproducers of dynamicsocialrelations and culture (Thome 1987, 101).

The issues raised by the adult study ofchildren parallel those raised by other researchacross lines of difference and inequality, but asThorne argues, age or generationally-based socialinequalities have a dynamic qualitythatmay resultin the adult researchersexperiencing insights ofmemory and/or obstacles to seeing childrenclearly as a result of having once been childrenthemselves (Thorne 1987, 102). She and theothersca l l for greater reflexivity amongst researchersabout their own positioning within f lu idconstructions o fchildhoodand adulthood asw e l lasthoseof gender, class, race , etc. The interest inseeing gendered children as creators rather thansimply passive learners of society and culture isalsolinkedtoa llthreetheorists callingfor the needto recognize and analyze the standpoints ofchildrenor children's wayso fseeing (e.g. Oakley1994, 29).

A sOakley(1994,20) points out, the studyo f children (unlike women's studies) did notdevelop out of apoliticalmovement for children'sliberation, but she draws upon the model offeminism and women's studies to cal l for thedevelopment of children's studies for children.

Such a children's studies would amongst otherthings, seek to involve children fully in theresearch process (1994, 26). Thome and Alanenalso address the role of children in child-relatedresearch but are more cautious about thepossibilities of their involvement. Thornecomments, for example, thatwhile children mayhelp with research they wi l l never be in centralpositions of knowledge-creation (1987, 102), and

Alanen adds that existing adultist instituticonstraints mean that children are unlikelyarticulate their achievement, experiences, knowledge. For this they obviously need [adallies (1994,41). These comments raise imporquestions about the politics of child-research more specifically, the question of childrparticipation, including their possible rolesgeneratorsand consumers of such research.

Although many of the arguments mabove are nowwel lestablishedtenetsofagrowsociology o fchildhood,the role offeminismasinspiration for much of this theorizing is odownplayed in the emerging canon sociological childhood studies (e.g. Cosaro 1Jenks 1996). Thelinksare, however, acknowledin some of the recent anthropologicalwritinghas drawn inspiration from thesamesource.

T H E N T H R O P O L O G YOF C H I L D H OAND FEMINISM

Although there is a well-develotradition of cross-cultural studies of cdevelopment within psychological anthropolstudies of childhood have not been part ofmainstream o fthediscipline.W i t h i npsychologanthropology moreover, the retention ofdevelopmental ist paradigm has resulted instudchildhoodas a permanentstateo fbecomingrathan a legitimate state of being-in-and-for-world (Scheper-Hughes & Sargent 1998, 13has also largely eschewed an engagementfeminist or gendered analyses.2

The marginality of the anthropologychildhoodis surprising when one reflects uponpreoccupationwithchildren in many societies

the impact this has on broader social relati(Caputo 1995,27).G i v e nthe demographics o fmfieldwork sites, many anthropologists engfrequently with children during fieldwork indeed the presence of children is oacknowledged in ethnographic texts, a factmakes theiranalyticalabsencea llthe morestrikThere are a number of possible explanationsthis, but at least one is suggested by recent workthe erasureof women's writing in anthropol


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ThepapersinWomen Writing Culture(Behar andGordon 1995) reveal that several womenanthropologists who did work on children andchildhood(e. g. MargaretMead,Ruth Benedict andE l l aDeloria) saw their achievements downplayedor unrecognized within the emerging male-dominated anthropological canon.

A t the same time, anthropology hasimpl ic i t ly orexplicitlyadopted thehistoricallyandculturally-boundmodel of children as pre-social,passive,dependentand partof a private naturaldomestic sphere beyond the realm of social orcultural analysis. The older metaphor of thefieldworkinganthropologist as being likeac h i l d(Cl i f fo rd 1997, 201) for example, relied upon theconstruction of both children and fieldworkers asthosewho were engaged in the process of learningadult culture through socialization. 5Accordingtothisview,children were of only marginal interestbecausethey were learners, not creators, o fculture.

With in feminist anthropology (as withinfeminist scholarship as a whole) a seriousengagement with children and childhood occursmost frequently in the context of a primary focusonmotherhood. For example, inGendered Fields( Bel l , Caplan and K a r i m 1993) and FeministDilemmas in Fieldwork ( W o l f 1996), twocollectionsdevoted to the examination of feministethnography, children arepresentbut are discussedprimarily within the context of the adult femaleanthropologists' own (usually problematicallyprivatised) mothering or non-mothering.

A n example of this may be seen in thewriting of Caplan (1993) who refers to herchanging views of Tanzanian women, andespeciallymothers, over the course ofalong-termresearch involvement. She describes how shei n i t i a l l ysaw women in the field as very differentfrom herselfbecauseas wives and mothers theywere...the antithesis of what I wanted to be: anautonomous professional (173). She describeshow later as a mother of two children herself, shebecame more interested in ,and appreciative of, theways in which Tanzanian mothers managed tocombine childrearing and other forms of workwithout being accused o fneglecting and damagingtheir children (176). She adds that her newly

positiveevaluations of Tanzanian motherhood hadto be revised again when her later research at aMotherandC h i l d c l i n i crevealed age-based as wel las gender-based inequities and conflicts in theareaso f family planning, as w e l l as access to food andhealthcare (177-78).

Interestingly,thereis asimilar motheristemphasis in Cassell'sChildren in the Field(1987),one of few examples ofavolume devoted to issueso f children and anthropological fieldwork. Thecollection centers primarily on the experience ofbeing a parenting (and especially mothering)anthropologist in the f ie ld. Various first handaccounts, mostly from the parental perspective, areincludedandthesereveal (often through contrastswiththe morecollectivized ch i ldcare experiencedin the field) agreat deal about the gendered andprivatised parenting characteristic of thepopulations from which the western-trainedanthropologists emerge. They also uncoverasharedand largely unproblematised cultural constructiono fthe anthropologists' own children as physicallyvulnerable learners of culture.

O f epistemological interest is the way inwhich some of the papers attempt to directlyincorporate the voice of the children ofanthropologists, through the inclusionof their ownfieldnotes, diaries and letters. These textsreveal

children's own reflections on the fieldworkexperiencewhich diverge in fascinating and oftenpainful ways from those of their anthropologistparent/s. Scheper-Hughes (1987) for example,includes passages from the journals of her threechildrenkept during her fieldwork inB r a z i l . A l lofthe children found their required participation intheir mother'sfieldworkoppressive to some degree,but they varied in terms of what aspects of theexperience were particularly traumatic (e. g. loss ofprivacy, death of pets), or enjoyable (e. g. soccerand the ready availability of different kinds ofcandy).

Scheper-Hughes' innovative article and thelargercollectiondirects attention to thepossibilitieso f a more sustained analytical focus on genderedchildren's participation in the anthropologicalenterprise. Schrijvers (1993) for instance,describing her fieldwork in Sri Lanka, briefly


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alludes to how her own children were: visitingaround, playingwiththeir new friends, and 'doingresearch' as they say. Sometimes they really comehome with very useful information (1993, 149).Herambivalence regarding the roleo fherchildrenin the fieldwork enterprise is apparent in thesimultaneous t r iv ia lizationandvindication o ftheiractivities.

That parenting and especially motheringforms the primary context for much feministanthropological discussion of children isperhapsnot surprising given asimilarpattern inthe broaderfeminist literature, but this narrow approach isl i m i t i n g inpart because itthreatensto reproducenaturalized constructions of women (especiallymothers) and children.

A smentioned earlier, however, feministssuchas Thorne, Oakley andAlanenhave sketchedout the possibilities of a broader engagementbetween feminism and ch i ld research and thisdiscussion has been influential in propelling thereinvigorated and broadened anthropology ofchildhoodpioneered in the two edited collectionsChildren and the Politics of Culture (Stephens1995) and Small Wars, The Cultural Politics ofChildhood (Scheper-Hughes and Sargent 1998). Ineach o fthe latter volumes the editors acknowledgefeminismas inspiration for their work when they 1)draw attention to parallels between the experienceso fwomenandchildren,2) emphasize how feministtheorizing can provide an analytical model forsimilar work in ch i ld research, and 3) includegender as a crucial variable in the creation ofdiverse and unequal childhoods.

In her introductory essay Stephens, forexample, draws aparallelbetween the dichotomieso f female/male and child/adult suggestingthatthehardening of both was central to the developmento f modern capitalism and modern nation-states.Shegoeson tonotehow the gendered dynamics ofpolitical and economic processes are increasinglywell-researched butthatanalyses o fthe role of thec h i l d in such processes are s t i l l relativelyundeveloped (1995, 6). In a later piece onchildhoodand nationalism she arguesthat ch i ld-centred studies (surely as much as research focusedonwomen and gender) representa promising new

area for rethinking the nation (Stephens 1997, and in both cases emphasizes the importanceincludinggender as one o fmany variables shapchildhoodalongwithclass, race, ethnicity,religand geographical location.

In Small Wars(1998), Scheper-Hugand Sargent make an even closer l in k betwwomenand children in their discussion of ho

newworldorder has disadvantaged both categorLik e Stephens they also, however, draw paralbetween male/ female and adult/child hierarchA n analogy between earlier views of womenbeing poor anthropological informants and currentabsenceo fchildren'svoices in ethnograisalso made, andfollowing Stephens, they invfeminism when making their claim for possibilitieso fchild-focusedresearch, arguinga child-centred anthropology contains all elements for a radical paradigm shift,similartosalutary effects resulting from the feminist critiqo fthe discipline (1998, 15).

The argument that feminist researchwomen and gender has paved the way for anthropology of childhood is found again Gottlieb's (1998) recent article on Beng infawhere she claimsthat feminist anthropology,bringing women's natural tasks of childrearinto the cultural, has created a space for anthropology of infancy. She writes: nowwomen are at last accepted as propanthropologicalsubjects, it is theoretically possthatwomen's inevitable involvementswith childincludinginfants,thoseseemingly humblest ohumans, may be the next source of ethnograpinspiration (Gottlieb 1998, 131).

The repeated references to a clrelationship between feminism and ch i ld researepresents an important break with an oanthropologyo fchildhoodthatdid notengagewfeminism to any significant degree. The repeainvocation o fwomen's/gender/feminist studies model for ch i ld research, however, may haveparadoxicaleffect o fjuxtaposing feminist reseaand childresearch as mutually exclusive bodiescholarshipwith the resultthatthe potential ffeministanthropology ofchildhood is obscur

There is some indication of such


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juxtaposition in the newer work. For example,although both Stephens (1995) and Scheper-Hughes and Sargent (1998) listgender as acrucialvariableofchildhooddifference and inequality, itisnoticeable that although several articleswithintheir respective volumes reveal the significance ofgendered categories o fgirlhoodand boyhood, onlyone articleo fthe two collections refers to genderedchildren in its title (Sargent and Harris 1998). Thelackof salience of gendered childhoods is in sharpcontrast to the focus placed on the practices andmeanings of gendered parenting (especiallymothering).4

S i m i l a r l y , Gottlieb (1998), despiteacknowledging the importance of feminism inbringinginfancy into the realm of the social,doesnot develop her passing references to the ways inwhich Beng infancy isitselfgendered. In the newanthropology ofchildhood, itappearsfeminism isheralded as a model but a gendered analysis ofchildren's lives may not always be sustained.Insofar as this is true, itsuggeststhatit remains achallenge for many anthropologists ofchildhood,includingfeminists, to produce analysesthatfocusonboth the gendered socialrelations of adulthood(especiallymothering)thatsurroundchildren,andthe gendered lives ofchildren themselves.

Inreflecting on my ownwritingtodate,Isee thissame tendency. My anthropological fieldresearch has focused on a minority population inIreland - theTravellingPeople. I have written on avariety of topics includingthose of gender andchildhood.What is striking in retrospect, however,ishow I have conceptually separated theseissues(e.g. Helleiner 1997, 1998a, 1998b). In thecaseofan article focusing on gender and anti-Travellerracism, I focus almost exclusively on theconstructions and l ived experiences of genderedadults, with a primary focus on women andespeciallymothers. In contrast, in the two articlesfocusingon the politics of childhood and anti-Travellerracism, acknowledge a conceptualdebtto feminist research, but with the exception of adiscussion of children's gendered work (aparticularly w e l l developed sub-area withinchildhood studies), do not pursue in a systematicwaya gendered analysiso fthepoliticso fTraveller

childhood.What might a feminist anthropology of

childhood look like? What movements are theretowards analysesthattake up the gendered lives ofchildren?

T O W R DAFEMINIST N T H R O P O L O G YO F C H I L D H O O D

WhileOakleysuggests(making a parallelwith women's studies) that the early stages ofchildren's studies may require an emphasis uponchildren'sstatusas a homogeneous group in order

to make them visible at al l (Oakley 1994, 22),James, Jenks and Prout (1998) criticize thetendency of childhood studies to play downvariables such as gender and age that separatechildren from one another (1998, 186). Certainlyfeminism has long since relinquished models ofhomogenous womanhood, and an anthropologicaltreatmento fchildhoodpremised on the recognitiono f diversity should be able to develop a moresustained feminist anthropology ofchildhood.

A nexample ofanthropologicalworkthatdoesforeground gendered childhoods isChildren sLifeworlds (1994) by Olga Nieuwenhuys. Thisstudy of children's lives in Kerala, India, payscareful attention to the articulation of age andgender. In her discussion of the culturalconstruction of childhood, for example,Nieuwenhuys notes how girls reached socialadulthood (i. e. marriageability) earlier than boys.She uses this example to remind the reader thatage hierarchies, as a rule, are only v a l i d for

specificgender roles (Nieuwenhuys 1994, 24).The focus of the study is on children's

workand Nieuwenhuys examines the differentialpositioningof girls and boys in various forms ofpaid and unpaid labour. She draws inpart uponfeministliterature to understand the significance ofchildren's gendered work for positions in theirhouseholds, the education system, and the widerregional and global economy. She demonstrateshow the low paid or unpaid work of male andfemale children in fact maintains the viab i l i ty oftheir households and the competitiveness of loca lindustries in the global market.


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Nieuwenhuyssuggeststhatfeminist workinspiredher commitment to emphasizing the activeroles of children and her desire to capturechildren's subjective views of the world around

them (Nieuwenhuys 1994, 7). She emphasizeshowchildren reflect (in gendered ways) upon theirlivesand specifically upon their work obligationsto their families; noting, for example,thatchildrenoften place a higher value on their work than do theadults around them.

Nieuwenhuys includes a useful reflectiveaccount of the significance of adultism in thef ie ld ,but unfortunately doesnot combine thiswitha discussion of gender (Nieuwenhuys 1994, 4-6).In a more recent article, however, she takes adifferent tack, claiming that women, becauseoftheir experience ofdiscrimination in the arena ofwork are l ike ly to be girls' foremost allies incontesting modern childhood's ideal of economicuselessness (Nieuwenhuys 1996, 247). Thisstatement about the potential of a gender-basedcommonality transcending age/generation is aprovocative one for a feminist anthropology ofchildhood and in need of more discussion andinvestigation.5

Anothermonographthatcan be seen as apioneer of feminist ethnography of childhood isBarrieThome'sGender Play (\993). This study ofchildren's lives in the playgrounds and classroomso ftwoAmericanschools successfully achieves itsgoal of helping bring children from the marginsand into the center of sociological and feministthought (1993,4).

Thorne focuses on children as activecreators rather than passive learners of genderidentities and roles. Her observations are aimed atdemonstrating how the categories and identities ofage and generation (e.g. adult and child ) asw e l lasthoseof gender (e.g. boy and girl ) areheightened within the school setting throughspecific socialrelations andsocialpractices such asgendered P.A. announcements, teacher-initiatedgender-segregated seating plans and lines, as wel las child-initiated chasing games and lunchroomgeography (Thorne 1993, 27).

To a greater extent than Nieuwenhuys,Thorne combines detailed ethnographic

documentation of children's liveswitha refleaccount of the research process. She equateadult study of children with other formstudying down (i. e. research on the relati

powerless) and describes how her attempapproachchildren inspirito f respectful discovin order to uncover and document kids'poinview and meanings (Thorne 1993, 13) constrained by her more powerful and gendadultstatus(Thorne 1993, 16-20).

The significanceo fagendered adultisthe research setting is explored through reflectupon how her own experiences of girlhoodmotherhood influenced her interactions withresponses to children in the f ie ld. Thcomments, for example, that her emotattachmentto girlhoodmeantthatshe experiemore detachment and clarity when analyzing bsocial relations and activities although she nthat this may also reflect the fact thatcategories for understanding have been develomore outo ftheliveso fboys and men than girlwomen (Thorne 1993,26). She describes also her adult experience o fmothering manifestedthrough occasional feelings of maternalism towsome children. In her conclusion, Thome revherexplicitengagementwiththe feminist projereducing gendered inequalities in schools, throaltering adult practices.

A n example of a less ethnographicnonetheless anthropological feminist approacchildhood can be found in Purnima Manke(1997) work onchildhoodand nationalism in IInher analysis of the competing Indian disco(including feminist ones) surrounding a yM u s l i m girl allegedly sold into marriage byfamilyto an elderlyArabman, genderedchild(inthis case, girlhood), is foregrounded in suwaythatfeminist theorizing can bedirectlybroto bear on the research ratherthan being invsimply as a model for such theorizing. conclusion that the case of the M u s l i mAmeena drew widespread attention, commen

and various forms of intervention becauseconstructed synecdochic relationship betweenpurity of girl children (as representedAmeena) and the purity of the Indian nati


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provides an important gendered lens on widerdiscussionofchildhoodand nationalism.

In focusingexplicitlyon the positioningand politics of girl children, Mankekar's paperreveals the possibilities for linkages between afeminist anthropology of childhood and the sub-field of gir l studies that has drawn much of itsimpetus from a feminist cultural youth studies(especiallythe worko fAngela McRobbie1991). Incontrast to the sociology or anthropology ofchildhood, gir lstudies appearsto have emergedmore organically from, and been embraced lessproblematically by, feminist scholarship. Gir lstudies, while characterized by a focus on westernfemale youth, has recently been expanding tomore global scholarship (e.g.Inness 1998) as wel las the lives of younger girls (e.g. Walkerdine1997).

This literature with its explicit focus ongendered childhood and its comfortable positionwithin feminism can provide inspiration for afeminist anthropology of childhood whileanthropologicalperspectives can in turn contributemore global perspectives and theoretical analyseso f the relationship between girlhood and thepoliticso fculture, racism, nationalism and, indeed,research andwriting.

Inspired bytheseexamples, amrevisitingmyown fieldresearch amongst Irish Travellers inorder to examine morecloselythe genderedpoliticso f childhood and my own gendered and adultistpositioning in the f ie ld vis-a-vis genderedchildren.

In my present writing I am trying toaddresshow astatesettlement policyand programforTravellersthathas often been legitimated as aform of ungendered ch i ld saving, has in factportrayed Traveller girls more frequently thanboys as victims of an itinerant lifestyle.

Likewise I am interested in how anti-Travellerracist discourse that involved claims of savingnon-Travellerchildren from Travellers has moreoften invoked the need to protect non-Travellergirls than boys.

Whenit comes to livedexperience, I amalso paying more attention to how Traveller girlsand boys have been targeted by the state and

other agencies in distinctive ways: for example,through gender-segregated educational programsand youth training programs. I am interested in theimplicationso fthesefor gendered trajectories o fanexpanding period of youth.

A t the same time, I am discussing howreforms introduced by theCatholicChurch for thisminority population (e.g. attempts to discourageyoung, arranged and close-kin marriages), haveintersectedwithexisting cultural practices tocreatedivergently gendered challenges and opportunitiesforTraveller female and male youth in theareaso f sexuality, courtship and household formation.Thisk in do fanalysis shouldilluminatemore clearlythe location of female and male Traveller childrenand youth vis-a-vis an increasingly politicizedcultural identity politics in Ireland.

In re-examining my own genderedadultismas a fieldworker, I am reflecting on howinthe Traveller camp where Iwas l i v i n g ,both boysand girls visited my trailer several times daily tochat or to simply sit silently and watch myactivities.I am retrospectively aware of thedegreetowhich, whileactivelyfostering relationshipswithchildren(and including information gleaned frommy conversations with them in my fieldnotes), 1was nonetheless uneasy about the cultural andethicalpropriety of using children asrespondentsand was skeptical about the accuracy of theinformation thatI gathered from them.

L o o k i n gback, my own gendered adultismis evident. Despite my relatively easy access tochildren,I was more interested in what adults hadto say about children,and what children had to sayabout adults, than what children had to say aboutthemselves. The result was little appreciation o ftheopportunityprovidedto explore gendered children'sactive participation in and shaping of socialrelations and culture and to reflect more deeplyupon their interactions with me. By payingparticular attention to the ways inwhichgirls andboys actively interacted in gendered wayswithmeas a married, childless non-Traveller adult woman,Iam trying toaddressthe significance of genderedadult-childinteractions in the f ie ld.


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CONCLUSION

A callfor feminists to pay more attentionto the c h i l d and ch i ld researchers to pay moreattention to feminism, may be received withambivalence by thosewho see feminism as moreproperlyfocused on women, and ch i ld research asrequiringa downplaying of gendered differences.I have suggested, however, that feminism andfeminist anthropology in particular, can benefitfromgreaterattention to children'slivesbeyond themother-child relationship, recognition of thediversityof childhoods, and acknowledgement ofchildren'sagency and subjectivity.A l lofthesedestabilizehegemonic constructions ofchildrenandchildhood that have and continue to impingedisproportionately on constructions of andexperiences of women. While this requires asuspension of the problematic (albeit sometimesstrategicallyuseful) assumptions about the sharedinterests of women (especially mothers) andchildren, it promises a surer footing for researchand practice.

A t thesametime, childhood studies, andthe anthropology of childhood in particular, canbenefit by not onlyinvokingfeminism as a modelfor a child-centred anthropology, but throughusingfeminist theory as a tool for the analysis ofgendered childhoods themselves. Grappling in amore sustained waywiththe gendered categories ofgirlhood and boyhood, for example, allows

ch i ld researchers to develop more sophisticatedanalyses of thesociallyconstructednatureof

childhoodasw e l las the diversities and inequalithat it subsumes. It also wi l l assist in developgreater reflexivity about the significance gendered adultism in research practice andwriti

F i n a l l y , to return to my origipreoccupation regarding my own academlocation, one of the benefits of a femianthropology o fchildhood isthe opportunitythapresents for introducing feminist thinking toverwhelmingly female student population whave chosen to major in C h i l d Studies. In experience this population is more w i l l i n gembrace feminist gir l studies than the mmotherist feminist literature - a phenomenont

reveals something of the relations of gender ageneration in the academy itself.

C K N O W L E D G M E N T SVersionso fthis paper were presented to a WomeStudies class atBrock UniversityJanuary 31, 19the Canadian Anthropology Meetings atMemoUniversityJune 13, 1997, and at a SymposiumC h i l d Research organized by V i r g i n i a CaputoCarletonUniversityMarch26, 1999.1 am gratto June Corman, Judith B l a c k w e l l , BohdSzuchewycz, Rae Bridgman, Sa l l y C o l e ,Heather Bobiwash for their encouragement ainput at various points in the development of tpaper. They are, of course, in no way responsiforits remaining shortcomings.

ENDNOTES1. Firestone's discussion of the history ofchildhood includes some reference to the complications of class and gender. She argforexample,thatchildren o fthe upper class formed a lower class, by virtueo ftheir age andthat: childhooddid not apply to womThe female c h i l dwent from swaddlingclothes right into adult female dress (1970, 80-1).Whiletheseinsights are not developed anticipate more recent discussion about thefluidity o fchild/adultcategories and their relationship to other forms o fsocial inequa2.A nexample o frecent work in the anthropology o fchildhoodthatpays little attention to gender isBriggs(1998)InuitMoralityAlthoughthe innovative and r ichethnography focuses on athreeyear old Inuit girl's emotional education, the study keeps the fon ungendered Inuit childhood ratherthan girlhood .3. C l i f fo r d in discuss ing what he sees as an earlier distinction between travel writers and anthropological fieldworkers makprovocative contrast between the perceived promiscuity o ftravelwriters and the familyvalues claimedby anthropologists w

he writes, have tended to describe their fieldwork as a process of getting alongwithothers, of adoption, initiat ion, learning lnorms-much as a c h i l d learns ( C l i f fo r d 1997, 201).Coleaddsto this the observationthatwomen anthropologists: instead of b


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trained or even eneouraged to develop a sell'-eonccpt as an adult anthropologist...have been socialized to position themselves asdaughtersin the field and as 'daughterly ethnographers'in theirtexts (Cole 1995, 178-9). Hercommentsreveal how constructionso f lieldworking anthropologists are bothgenerationedandgendered.4. InSmallWars (Scheper-I lughes and Sargent 1998) in particular, several of the papers are as much (ormore) about the culturalpolitics of mothering than childhood itself.

5. Inanother intriguing comment Nieuwenhuys notesthat following her post-fieldwork transition into motherhood, she began toendorse increasingly adultist [motherist?] views of children's lives (Nieuwenhuys 1994. 6-7). Clearl y there is much more to beexplored in the areaofgenderedadultism, including malcmalism and its significance for c h i l d research.

R E F E R E N C E SAlanen, Leena. Gender and Generation: Feminism and the ' C h i l d Question' ,ChildhoodMatters.Jens Qvortrup, Marjatta Bardy,Giovanni Sgritta and Helmut Wintersberger, eds. Aldershot: Avebury, 1994, pp. 27-42.

A r i e s ,Phil]ipe.CenturiesofChildhood. London:Jonathan Cape, 1962.Behar, Ruth and Deborah Gordon, eds. WomenWriting Culture.Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1995.B e l l , Diane, Pat Caplan and WazirJahan K a r i m , eds. GenderedFields:Women. Men andEthnography. London: Routledge, 1993.Brannen, Julia and Margaret O'Brien, eds.ChildreninFamilies:ResearchandPolicy. London: Falmer Press, 1996.Briggs,Jean.InuitMoralityPlay: TheEmotional Educationof aThree-Year-Old.New Haven: Y a l e University Press, 1998.Brush, L i s a D. L o v e , T o i l , and Trouble: Motherhood and Feminist Politics ,Signs 21:2 (1996): 429-54.Caplan. Pat. Learning Gender: Fieldwork in a Tanzanian Coastal V i l l a g e 1965-85 ,GenderedFields:Women.Men andEthnographyDiane B e l l , Pat Caplan and WazirJahan K a r i m ,eds. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 168-81.Caputo, V i r g i n i a . Anthropology's Silent 'Others': A Consideration of Some Conceptual and MethodologicalIssuesFor the Study o fYouthand Children's Cultures . YouthCultures:ACrossCulturalPerspective. Vered A m i t - T a l a i and Helena W u l f f , eds. LondonRoutledge, 1995, p 42.

Cassell, Joan, ed.Childrenin theField: Anthropological Experiences. Philadephia: Temple Universi ty Press, 1987.Chodorow, Nancy and Susan Contratto. The Fantasy of the Perfect Mother ,RethinkingtheFamily:Some FeministQuestion(Revised Edition). Barrie Thorne with M a r i l y n Y a l o m , eds. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992, pp. 191-214.C l i f f o r d ,James. Spatial Practices: Fieldwork, Travel, and the D i s c i p liningo fAnthropology AnthropologicalLocations.A k h i l GuptaandJamesFerguson, eds. 1997, pp. 185-222.Cohen, Susan and Mary Fainsod Katzenstein. The War Over the Family Is Not Over the Family ,Feminism. Childrenand the NewFamilies. Sanford M . Dornbusch and M y r aH. Strober, eds. New Y o r k : G u i l f o r d Press, 1988, pp. 25-46.C o l e ,S a l l y . Ruth Landes and the Early Ethnography of Race and Gender ,WomenWriting Culture.Ruth Behar and Deborah Gordon,eds. Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 1995, pp. 166-85.

Cosaro, W i l l i a m A .TheSociologyofChildhood. Thousand Oaks, C a l i f : Pine Forge Press, 1997.Firestone, Shulamith. TheDialecticof Sex.N ew Y o r k : Bantam Books, 1970.Gordon, L i n d a . FamilyViolence,Feminism, andSoc ia lControl ,RethinkingtheFamily:SomeFeministQuestions(Revised EditionBarrie Thorne with M a r i l y n Y a l o m , eds. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992, pp. 191-214.

PitiedBut NotEntitled. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994.Gottlieb, A l m a . DoInfantsHave Rel igion?: The Spiritual Lives of Beng Babies ,AmericanAnthropologist. 100.1 (1998): 122-35.


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Helleiner,Jane. 'Womenofthe ItinerantClass':Gender andAnti-TravellerRacism in Ireland ,Women'sStudiesInternation20.2(1997): 275-87.

' For the ProtectionoftheChildren':The Politicso f M i n o r i t yChildhood in Ireland ,AnthropologicalQuarterly.11.2 (51-62.

Contested C hildhoods: The Discourse and Poli tics of Traveller Childhood in Ireland , Childhood. 5.3 (1998b): 303-Inness, Sherrie ed.MillenniumGirls:Today'sGirls Aroundthe World.Lanham, M D : Rowman and L i t t l e f i e l d , 1998.James, A l l i s o n , Chris Jenks, and A l a n Prout. TheorizingChildhood.N ew Y o r k :Teacher's College Press, 1998.Jcnks, Chris.Childhood. London: Routledge, 1996.Mahoney, Maureen A. and Barbara Yngvesson. The Construction of Subjectivity and the Paradox of Resistance: ReintegrFeminist Anthropology and Psychology ,Signs 18.1 (1992): 44-73.Mankekar, Purnima. To Whom Does AmeenaBelong?':Toward a FeministAnalysiso fChildhoodand Nationhood in ContempIndia ,Feminist eview56 (1997): 26-60.McRobbie, Angela.Feminismand YouthCulture. Boston: U n w i n Hyman, 1991.Moore, M i c h a e l , Judith Sixsmith and Kath Knowles.Children'sReflectionsonFamilyLife. London: Falmer Press, 1996.Nieuwenhuys, Olga.Children's Lifeworlds. London: Routledge, 1994.

The Paradox ofC h i l dLabor and Anthropology ,Annual eviewofAnthropology. 25 (1996): 237-51.Oakley, A nn . Women and Children First and Last: Parallels and Differences Between Children 's and Women's Studies ,ChildChildhoods:Observedand Experienced. Berry M a y a l l . ed. London: Falmer Press, 1994, pp. 13-32.Polatnick, M . R i v k a . Diversity in Women's Liberation Ideology: How aB l a c kand White Groupofthe 1960sViewed MotherhSigns21.3 (1996): 679-706.Ross, E l l e n . New Thought on 'the Oldest Vocat ion' : Mothers and Motherhood in Recent Feminist Scholarship ,Signs20.2 (1397-413.Scheper-Hughes, Nancy. Children's Diary in the Strict Sense of the Term: Managing Culture-Shocked Children in the F iChildrenin theField: AnthropologicalExperiences.Joan Cassell, ed. Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1987, pp. 217

and CarolynSargent.SmallWars: TheCulturalPoliticsofChildhood.Berkeley: University ofCalifornia Press, 19Schrijvers, Joke. Motherhood Experienced and Conceptualized: Changing Images in Sri Lanka and the Netherlands ,GendFields:Women.Men andEthnography. Diane B e l l , Pat Caplan and WazirJahan K a r i m ,eds. London: Routledge, 1993, pp. Stephens,Sharon. Childrenand thePoliticsofCulture. Princeton: Princeton Universi ty Press, 1995.Thome, Barrie. Re-vi sioning Women and Social Change: Where are the Children? GenderandSociety 1.1 (1987): 85-109

Gender Play.New Brunswick,N . J . : Rutgers University Press, 1993.Umansky, L a u r i .MotherhoodReconceived.New Y o r k :N ew Y o r k University Press, 1996.Valentine, G i l l . ' Oh Yes Can.' 'Oh No Y ou Can't:' Children andParents'Understandings of K i d s ' Competence to Negotiate PSpace Safely ,Antipode 29.1 (1997): 65-89.Walkerdine, Valerie.Daddy'sGirl:YoungGirlsandPopular Culture. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.W o l f ,Diane, ed.Feminist DilemmasinFieldwork. Boulder: Westview Press, 1996.

hacia una antropologÍa feminista de la infancia

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