The Discursive Construction of Childhood in Three Turkish Children’s Books about the Cyprus Problem

Abstract

This research analyses the construction of childhood in three children’s books related to the Cyprus Problem through the lens of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The discourse on childhood, deployed in books whose narratives are related to an armed conflict, is seen to have four nodal points: innocence, citizenship, savagery, and otherness. Our discourse-theoretical analysis, which uses a retroductive approach (Glynos and Howarth), demonstrates that in these three children’s books, the nodal points of innocence and citizenship are particularly strong, but all four nodal points are present. The analysis also shows how these nodal points intersect with the discourses of victimhood and militarism, which alter the articulation of the childhood discourse itself and produce significant internal tensions. These alterations and tensions demonstrate the deeply political nature of the childhood discourse at times of war.