Power, agency and children’s time use in rural Sierra Leone

Abstract

ABSTRACT Children’s time allocation plays an important role in their well-being, education and future chances in life. This paper examines children’s time use in rural Sierra Leone in the context of dynamics of power. It analyses the ways in which children co-construct their patterns of time use and create their own temporal spaces within the boundaries of existing expectations and norms. Drawing on rich qualitative data we argue that children’s routines are shaped by an interplay of various dimensions and expressions of power that create and re-create gender, generation and other social orders in a particular society. This power interplay creates polyphonic temporal spaces where school, work and play time overlap each other.The analysis of this polyphony of time use has demonstrated that children’s time allocation goes beyond simple one dimensional task distribution and includes a complex network of activities that may take place simultaneously.