At the Horizons of the Subject: Neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism and the rights of the child Part Two: Parent, caregiver, state

Abstract

This paper is the second of two that examine the paradoxical relationship of the child to the liberal notion of the subject. Together they explore the range of contexts in which children's relationship to parents and other caregivers raise questions about the nature of the subject qua individual, and highlight the potential for a ventriloquist discourse around the child in which political projects are mobilized by neo-liberal and neo-conservative groups that purport to speak for the child. The first paper examined the emergence of two contradictory images: the ‘knowing’ fetal subject and the confused child; the second paper explores particular forms of presencing and absencing of the child in relation to parental rights and questions of social entitlements. Both papers speak to the contorted somatography and topography of the child-as-subject that is emerging at an historical juncture when children's rights are being mobilized to undermine the gains made by a range of heterodox subjects. They point to the limits of liberal constructions of the subject in struggles for emancipation.