Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies by Spyros Spyrou (review)

Abstract

Book Review: Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production… 139 Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies Spyros Spyrou (2018) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 241 pages $99.99 (hardcover; ISBN: 978-1137479037 Disclosing Childhoods by professor Spyros Spyrou from the European University of Cyprus is published as part of the Studies in Childhood and Youth series, which embraces global and multi-disciplinary scholarship on childhood and youth as social, historical, cultural and material phenomena. This important book offers a critical reflection on knowledge production in childhood studies and is extremely relevant to students and scholars across a range of disciplines, including childhood studies, anthropology, geography, sociology, psychology, politics, social work, and international development studies. The book is pertinently named Disclosing Childhoods, as Spyrou describes the power of researchers to disclose particular childhoods through knowledge practices that reflect both the material and discursive conditions of their being. Syprou calls for a more “critical childhood studies” encouraging researchers to be mindful and reflexive about the processes through which they produce knowledge, and to be ethically and politically committed to disclosing knowledge that matters, that is, knowledge with preferred material consequences on children’s lives. Disclosing childhoods builds upon an analysis of the strengths and limitations of childhood studies, an interdisciplinary field of study, which has emerged and expanded in the past 30 years. Spyrou draws upon seminal work such as James and Prout (1990), Qvortrup (1994), Alanen (2001; 2009), and Mayall (2002), as well as work from a wide range of other scholars. Spyrou draws upon poststructuralist and posthumanist critiques, as well as feminist approaches, to inform his focus on relational ontologies and their potential for rethinking knowledge production in childhood studies. Applying a relational ontological framework to knowledge production has crucial implications for epistemological, methodological, ethical, and political considerations. It necessitates increased transparency from researchers regarding their ontological positions, and how such positions influence their epistemological approach. It also encourages increased attention to broader socio-economic, political, historical, and institutional forces that shape both knowledge production and its application. Spyrou suggests the “limited theoretical innovation in childhood studies may be partly attributed to the preoccupation and reproduction of foundational concepts and ideas such as those of social construction, agency, voice, and participation” (p. 27). Spyrou develops his critique in separate chapters dedicated to voice, agency, and children’s participation in research. He draws upon empirical research and theoretical insights, both from his own research, and from other scholars. In doing Book Review: Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production… 140 so, Spyrou offers theoretical, methodological and ethical directions to support more critical approaches to knowledge production, including application of critical reflexivity. Applying a critical reflexive approach, Spyrou questions unexamined assumptions about the authenticity of children’s voices and issues of representation. The relevance of attending to silences and non-verbal forms of communication are also explored. Spyrou emphasizes the importance of analyzing “the interactional contexts in which children’s voices emerge, the institutional contexts in which they are embedded, and the discursive contexts which inform them” (p. 86). Spyrou also critiques the way that childhood researchers tend to emphasize children's agency, without adequate attention to structural factors, contexts, and power relations that shape children’s lives and opportunities to exercise their agency. In many socio-cultural, economic, and political contexts, generational inequalities limit children's agency. Drawing upon the work of other critical scholars (such as Beauvais, forthcoming; Bordonaro & Payne, 2012; Cook, 2011; Leonard, 2016; Mayall, 2002; Mizen & Ofosu-Kusi, 2013; Oswell, 2013; 2016; Whyness, 2006; Valentine, 2011), Spyrou encourages more grounded and critical understandings of children's agency, exploring how agency is socially and relationally produced, rather than focusing on agency as a property of the self. Recognizing that contextual and relational factors shape children's agency has implications for the way research knowledge is produced through children's participation in research. Increased transparency is needed about the respective roles of adult and child researchers; about who has power to make decisions about research topics, methods, analysis; and what gets included in reports. Acknowledging the heterogeneity of children's experiences means that questions concerning representation should be raised to determine which views are being heard, and which are being left...