| Publication |
2012.
|
| Summary/Abstract |
Modern conceptions of politics are intrinsically related to theories of subjectivity shaped by a teleological narrative expressing claims about instrumental rationality, moral and psychological autonomy, and individualized selfhood. Consequently, children have been considered to be lacking both the credentials necessary to act and participate in politics and the subjective dispositions of proper political subjects. This overwhelming conception of subjectivity as a purposefully and rationally oriented individual produced by a sovereign politics may be contested. Empirical data deriving from recent research on children's and youth's participation in schools are presented to show how children and youth effectively manage "to speak" and build a different point of view from those of adults about their school experience. Such research provokes analysis of insidious but unpublicized forms of domination and resistance. The inclusion of children in politics seems to depend on our capacity to overcome taken-for-granted truths about adult-centered society.
|