A Child in a World of Agents and Structures: On the Antinomies of Childhood Studies

Abstract

The article analyzes conceptual positions and disagreements among theorists of interdisciplinary childhood studies - a field of knowledge that emerged on the basis of the new sociology of childhood. This movement positioned itself as a paradigm shift in the understanding of childhood, revealing it as a conceptually autonomous area where the active role of children in constructing their own experiences and social relationships should be recognized. The widespread acceptance of the language for talking about childhood proposed by the new paradigm has led to its jargonization, circulation of uncritically repeated banalities, and the lowering of the theoretical stakes. To counter this trend, researchers are trying to reconsider the approaches that dominate their field. At the same time, a careful examination of the theoretical postulates and conceptual apparatus of childhood studies researchers reveals a fundamental divergence that cannot be reduced to methodological or stylistic preferences. In the article, this discrepancy is examined as an antinomy between agency and structure, as well as between an absolutization of the subjective or objective poles of understanding. Using program statements as an example, it is shown how the agent approach in the context of childhood studies differs from the structural approach, as well as what epistemological and political consequences both positions imply. The stake on the agency and autonomy of childhood turns into a fetishization of the ever-elusive authenticity of a child's voice; in its turn, the structural approach to childhood appears to be trivializing and dogmatic. At the end of the article, an assessment is provided of some attempts to get out of the described theoretical conundrum by the means, on the one hand, of the radical decentralization of childhood, and on the other hand, of a more nuanced description of the interactions between children and social structures.