The Gap between Rhetoric and Practice: Critical Perspectives on Children's Participation- Editors' Introduction

Abstract

Children, Youth and Environments 17(3), 2007 The Gap between Rhetoric and Practice: Critical Perspectives on Children’s Participation Dipak Naker Raising Voices, Uganda Gillian Mann Department of Anthropology London School of Economics Rakesh Rajani HakiElimu, Tanzania Citation: Naker, Dipak, Gillian Mann, and Rakesh Rajani (2007). “The Gap between Rhetoric and Practice: Critical Perspectives on Children’s Participation.” Children, Youth and Environments 17(3): 99-103. . Child rights advocates have embraced the idea of children's participation and have called for it to be “mainstreamed” in development and everyday life. The idea has become quite common following the near-universal ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Yet, the practice of children's participation is fraught with challenges and contradictions. This collection of papers explores perspectives from several experiences in Africa and seeks to elucidate key insights and lessons and raise further questions for debate. Many have sought to resist the marginalization of children into traditional “domestic” domains by placing their participation at the heart of legislative and policy processes. Two papers in this collection discuss this challenge directly. First, Caroline Fanelli and colleagues examine children’s role in Zimbabwe’s National Action Plan for Orphans and Other Vulnerable Children. In their paper, these authors explore the progress being made and the challenges being faced by local policy committees with child representatives. Based on these reflections, the paper makes several recommendations for increasing not only the effectiveness of children’s participation in this policy implementation process, but also making the experience of child-adult collaboration more meaningful for both parties. Second, Mniki and Rosa analyze boys’ and girls’ participation in the development of the new Children’s Bill in South Africa. Through the case study of Dikwankwetla, a children’s advocacy group, they raise important conceptual issues about the extent© 2007 Children, Youth and Environments The Gap between Rhetoric and Practice: Critical Perspectives... 100 to which children can effectively participate in legislative processes, especially in those societies where the social, economic and cultural contexts pose unique challenges to such efforts. In so doing, Mniki and Rosa interrogate notions of childhood more generally, and children’s agency more specifically. Ultimately, they argue for a shift in adult-child relationships and a reconceptualization of children as political actors with power, rights and responsibilities. Recognition of the need to reconfigure intergenerational relationships is a theme also explored by Julie Guyot in this issue. The context for her analysis is refugee life in Africa, and she reviews a large body of literature to support her assertion that children’s participation in community decision-making in situations of encampment can improve the quality of life for people of all ages. She argues that recognizing the ways in which young people already share family burdens and serve a vital role in information transfer between their homes and NGO activities may help to bring about social stability in camp settings. Further, the fractured traditional roles and channels of authority that characterize refugee camp life may provide new openings for children to engage in promoting social cohesion. A similar assertion regarding the centrality of children’s agency in a refugee setting is the focus of Elizabeth Cooper’s paper, which describes research undertaken with young Somali refugees in northeastern Kenya. Cooper problematizes assumed benefits of participatory research with children, in particular its effects on their “empowerment.” She takes a self-critical stance of such processes by contextualizing initiatives within the larger socio-political context of children’s lives. While recognizing that children’s involvement in research design and implementation can help them to develop new skills and to feel more confident about their abilities, she observes that, particularly in a refugee camp setting, this sense of self-efficacy is tempered by disempowering circumstances, such as the lack of paid work, absence of opportunities for further education and other desired social steps forward for young people. How research methods can promote skill development among children living in difficult circumstances is also explored by Caroline Keenan in her paper about street children and urban agriculture in Dar es Salaam. She describes the various methods that she used to better understand the circumstances in which children...