Reimagining Childhood Studies: Childhood’s Refusals?

Webinar organized by University College London

In this webinar, (see video below) the notion of ‘refusal’ is taken up to explore its value and utility for Childhood Studies. Refusal, in the work of political anthropologist and Indigenous Studies scholar Audra Simpson, is both a research sensibility and decolonial act that presses the limits of a liberal politics of recognition. With the help of three distinguished scholars, in this webinar the following is considered: What does refusal mean in the context of critical childhood studies, given the thorny problem of power-laden generational relations and oppressive infrastructures of listening? In taking up refusal’s challenge to shift our unit of analysis away from marginalized peoples and pain narratives, what are the institutions, modes of power, and mutating forms of capitalist realism that demand exploration, interrogation, and reimagining in childhood studies?