Childism and Child as Method: Questinoning the Positions of Child and Adult

Abstract

This article focuses on childism and child as method approaches. Childism is a critical lens developed to empower children by changing adultist norms. Child as method is a critical approach that analyses socio-political practices through the positions attributed to child(ren). These approaches offer new ways of thinking about child(ren) in childhood studies, which have developed out of the sociology of childhood's theorisation of children and childhood. In doing so, they especially draw on feminist and postcolonial studies. Moreover, they not only contribute to childhood studies but also invite social sciences to include child(ren) more in their analyses and question adultist ways of producing knowledge. This study highlights these approaches' critiques of adultist knowledge production and their thinking practices beyond the child-adult dichotomy. Thus, it tries to open up space for these approaches in the limited Turkish literature on childhood studies; and hopes to make visible the theoretical and methodological suggestions that these approaches can offer to future debates.