Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality.
Log in
- Convenors:
-
Jan David Hauck
(London School of Economics)
Francesca Mezzenzana (University of Kent)
Send message to Convenors
- Discussant:
-
Catherine Allerton
(London School of Economics)
- Stream:
- Identities and Subjectivities
- Location:
- Julian Study Centre 2.03
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 3 September, -, -, Wednesday 4 September, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel discusses indigenous children's engagement with the environment in which they grow up. We explore children's trajectories through different spaces, interactions with humans and nonhumans, how children acquire different sets of knowledge and skills, and the futures they build together.
Long Abstract:
This panel discusses indigenous children's understandings of and engagement with the environment in which they grow up, alongside its human and nonhuman inhabitants. The relationships of indigenous peoples to the environment have become an increasingly visible area of study, owing to an interest in human-nonhuman entanglements and indigenous ways of knowing on the one hand, and to major transformations that communities are undergoing on the other. However, the perspectives and experiences of children have largely been absent from these discussions. During childhood we are socialized into becoming culturally competent members of our communities as well as into navigating the physical environment in which we grow up. And as children we are most affected by changes of this environment. Building on socialization research that views children as active participants who shape their own futures and those of their communities, in this panel, we explore ethnographically how indigenous children attend to and interact with the environment in which they grow up, how they cope with transformations thereof, and what their trajectories through multiple spaces are. How do they interact with peers, with caregivers, and with the human and nonhuman others that they encounter on their paths? Different and changing environments may afford and entail different knowledge, skills, patterns of interaction, cooperation, and relations between social actors. How do children acquire different bodies of knowledge, how do they develop different abilities and skills? We invite papers that discuss these and related questions drawing on ethnographies of indigenous childhoods from across continents.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 3 September, 2019, -Constanza Ocampo-Raeder (Carleton College)
Paper short abstract:
The Ese eja people of the Peruvian Amazon have addressed the monitoring of resources in an increasingly smaller territorial area by enlisting the aid of children. I present ethnographic evidence for an informal monitoring system that contradicts mechanisms described in common-property literature.
Paper long abstract:
As indigenous people become circumscribed by new land tenure arrangements, property regimes may shift to adapt to new social and environmental contexts. In these situations, as in the case of the Ese eja people of the Peruvian Amazon, people have to carry out resource management activities in much closer proximity to others. One outcome is that overlapping property regimes may emerge, complicating the institutional arrangements designed to govern these resources. In particular, monitoring mechanisms are affected, as people need to scrutinize a wide range of resource management activities taking place simultaneously within communal lands. The Ese eja have addressed these challenges by enlisting the aid of an unexpected group of people: children. Using ethnographic research, I present evidence for an informal monitoring system that contradicts monitoring mechanisms described in the common-property literature. Ese eja children are "invisible" and non-accountable monitors that actively collect information about the activities of others and relay information to female kin. Women then sort through the information and decide what course of action to take in a process that depicts how informal arrangements can influence outcomes taking place in formal realms. This case also illustrates how ethnographic methods have the potential of uncovering varied and complex local-level arrangements that merit examination.
Carmen Sanchez Caro (Université Paris 13)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses indigenous children's early education in urban Bogota. By presenting three cases of Casas de Pensamiento Indigena, we reflect on the notion of being an indigenous children in Bogota.
Paper long abstract:
This proposal aims to present a few tensions and contradictions when it comes to question global policies and local interpretations related to indigenous children and ECEC services. What it means to attend to young children from indigenous communities in Bogota. Could early childhood education and care (ECEC) services be reduced to ethnic backgrounds, as is the case of Casas de Pensamiento Indígena (CPI)—indigenous childcare services. Considering all this, it was decided to do fieldwork to understand the daily life of the children attending these services in Bogota and what this means for them. Through an exploration of policy documents and a multimodal methodology (video-observation, focused observation and interviews) in three of Bogota's CPI, we attempt to understand what it means to educate and care for young children from minority groups. The central question lies in a phenomenological critique of the permorming of an institutional indigenism, or how caregivers and indigenous children face an institutional script that asks them to interpret an institutionalized indigenism.
Francesca Mezzenzana (University of Kent)
Paper short abstract:
This paper investigates how a change in the ecological context - and more specifically, a change from a rural, community-based lifestyle in the forest to an urban setting - has an effect on the ways in which indigenous Runa children develop responsibility and autonomy.
Paper long abstract:
This paper investigates how a change in the ecological context - and more specifically, a change from a rural, community-based lifestyle in the forest to an urban setting - has an effect on the ways in which indigenous Runa children develop responsibility and autonomy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork among the Runa of the Ecuadorian Amazon in two different settings - an urban indigenous community and a forest village - in this paper I will explore 1) caretakers' explicit and implicit ideas about children's responsibility and autonomy; 2) patterns of child-to-child behaviour during play and work; 3) child-caretaker interactions in every day life. I will conclude by reflecting on the influence that different environmental affordances (Gibson 1966) exert upon children's everyday manifestations of autonomy and responsibility.
Jan David Hauck (London School of Economics)
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses how different environments, the forest and the village, relate to different moral understandings and modes of interaction and cooperation among children in the indigenous Aché communities in eastern Paraguay.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I discuss how different environments relate to different moral understandings and modes of interaction and cooperation among children in the indigenous Aché communities in eastern Paraguay. The Aché used to live as nomadic hunter-gatherers in the subtropical rainforests; since the 1960s they have been settled on reservations after years of persecutions, disease, and deforestation. Settlement entailed dramatic sociocultural and economic transformations. Today, they live in villages and subsist by horticulture, but families continue to go on hunting treks regularly in the few stretches of forest that remain. The different subsistence styles on these treks and in the village utilize different forms of social cooperation that might entail and be entailed by different moral frameworks. Children learn these through keen observation and participation as they transit between the spaces. Analyzing everyday conversations and interactions in the peer group, with caregivers, and elders, I discuss here how Aché children develop an understanding of, respond to, and contest community norms of sharing, reciprocity, and cooperation, as they are socialized into navigating these two environments.
Gabriela Piña (London School of Economics)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will discuss the importance of seasonal migration to understand Mapuche relationships with the environment, focusing on the ways in which sensorial experience, storytelling and enskillment contribute to acknowledging non-human entities and establishing a relationship of mutual respect.
Paper long abstract:
The proposed paper is a product of long-term ethnographic fieldwork in a Pehuenche community in southern Chile. The Pehuenche are a sub-group of the Mapuche people who have a tradition of seasonal migration between small valleys at the foothills of the Andes, known as invernadas (sp. winter lands), and the forests located higher up in the hills, called veranadas (sp. summer lands). In this paper I will discuss the importance of the trips to the veranada to understanding Mapuche relationships with the environment. I will do so by looking into the ways sensorial experience, storytelling and skill development work towards acknowledging non-human entities as existent and establishing a relationship of mutual respect. The tradition of seasonal migration allows my informants to complement the experiences, learning and relationships acquired both in the invernada and the veranada. I will analyse the way in which the visits to the veranada present an exceptional time of the year in which children learn particular mode of sociality, a mode that very much includes non-humans as well as humans and that gives them a strong sense of place and attachment to the landscape. This contact with non-humans can be either beneficial or harmful for both parties. Therefore, it is important for children to learn about this and for adults to keep the relationship on good terms the way they do with family and friends in the invernada through intense visiting and hosting.
Leberecht Funk (Free University of Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
Tao children's lifes can only be understood when considering their society's processual dynamics and animist beliefs. From 3,5 years onward, they spend most of their time together with peers. There are different modes of learning among age mates than within hierachically organized kinship groups.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I present answers to the questions asked in this panel by refering to my long-term dissertational fieldwork among the indigenous Tao people on Lanyu island (Taiwan). In order to understand local children's lifes, it is neccessary to obtain some basic knowledge about their society's processual dynamics and the animist belief system in which Tao culture is embedded. The Tao perceive the montainous forests and coastal areas of their island as mostly "dangerous" (ikeynanawa). There is a strong need to protect young children from the evil influences of malicious Anito spirts who linger around in many parts of the island and try to steal human souls. During infancy and toddlerhood, caregivers will always stay in the vicinity of their children, not leaving them alone under circumstances whatsoever. However, interactional patterns will change when children reach the age of 3,5 years. From this developmental stage onwards, they will spend most time of the day roaming around the village and its adjacent areas together with their peers. Since there is not much interaction with adults, children will "collectively explore the environment and learn from each other" (miyahahap). Their caregivers, in contrast, "instruct" (nanaon) them by using "language" (ciring) and thus making reference to "ancestral taboos" (makanyo). Many bodies of cultural "knowledge" (katentengan) can only be learned by observation. By taking a psychological-anthropological perspective, I can show that the patterns of "socio"-spatial interactions correspond with feeling states of "anxiety" (maniahey) and "shame" (masnek).
Anne-Marie Turcotte (Concordia University)
Paper short abstract:
In Nunavik, children break close to 2000 windows every year by throwing rocks at them. Looking at breaking windows as an affective practice (Wetherell) the present collaborative art-based research seeks to explore what this can reveal about youth's experiences in relation to the built environment.
Paper long abstract:
The government of Quebec spends 10 million dollars annually to repair damages caused by vandalism in Nunavik and children break close to 2000 windows every year by throwing rocks at them. Clearly, the breaking of windows is a problem in Nunavik. But could this act mean something? Using Wetherell's concept of affective practice, the present research seeks to take a closer look at this act of property destruction to see what it could reveal about Nunavimmiut youth's experiences in relation to the built environment.
Despite the wide recognition of the challenges they are confronted with, there are too few studies that actually address first-hand the experiences of Inuit youth themselves in Nunavik. Using an arts-based approach, my project engages youth aged 6 to 35 in doing activities such as storytelling, social media creation and community tours. My research is conducted in close collaboration with the Nunavik Youth Houses Association (NYHA), an organisation I have been involved in for the past 16 years, which is entirely led by Inuit youth and dedicated to inspiring a new generation of young leaders. Through this explorative research, I not only want to listen to children but work with them so others can hear what they have to say.
Courtney Stafford-Walter (University of Edinburgh )
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines how institutionalized schooling and shifts in environmental patterns are impacting relationships between Amerindian youth and non-human actors in the savannahs of Southern Guyana.
Paper long abstract:
In Southern Guyana, Amerindian young people learn and grow in relation to their surroundings and in relationships with the spirits of the environment. Equipped with embodied knowledge they acquire through observing their parents, other kin and neighbours, they learn how to survive and thrive in the farm and forest and how to foster relationships with these non-human actors that are a central feature of this environment. However, due to the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns in the savannah, elders are finding it difficult to maintain these relationships in the ways they and their ancestors always have. All Amerindians, young and old, are increasingly concerned by these alarming shifts and changes. To further complicate the situation, after they reach the age of 13, almost all Amerindian youth leave their home communities to attend regional boarding schools, isolating them from crucial social relationships with humans and non-humans alike. Through the lens of spiritual relations in particular, I will focus on narratives about interactions with spirits on the farm and in the forest, and put these in dialogue with a phenomenon called the sickness, a form of spiritual crisis that primarily affects young women in boarding school dormitories. Using the sickness as an analytical lens, I will trace the myriad of ways that relationships between Amerindian youth and spirits throughout the savannah are changing in light of rapid environmental and social change.