CFP due 31 January 2023

Special Issue of Settler Colonial Studies on Children and Institutions

by Rebecca Swartz

Children and institutions in settler colonial contexts

This special issue of Settler Colonial Studies examines children’s interactions with and experiences of institutions in settler colonial contexts globally and within different empires. Papers will introduce institutions that shaped children’s lives in these spaces, and then focus on specific case studies within particular settler colonies. We aim to bring together a diverse range of scholars working on different settler colonial settings. We are interested in the ways that children have shaped and been shaped by institutions both secular and religious. Across the range of articles we wish to provide a broad understanding of how conceptualisations of children were mobilised to further settler colonial ideologies and aims. We seek contributions that focus on children of both ‘colonised’ and ‘coloniser’ populations to understand the wide range of experiences that children had in these contexts. We encourage authors to use a variety of sources including those that represent children’s voices, institutional documentation and reports, photographs, popular media and governmental archives, amongst others.  Some institutions and practices that could be examined by authors include, but are not limited to:

• Orphanages
• Adoptions
• Education (day schools, boarding schools etc)
• Juvenile delinquency
• Mental health, hospitals and healing
• Unaccompanied Migration/Emigration (govt/institutionalised)
• Labour programs

Taken together, these papers will enhance our understanding of how institutions aimed to fulfil settler colonial expectations through the shaping of children. A focus on age will illustrate how settler colonialism was experienced differently within societies and was seen as a tool for the management of particular populations. Up to seven articles will be published in a special issue of Settler Colonial Studies, edited by Felicity Jensz and Rebecca Swartz. Please send abstracts to both  felicity.jensz@uni-muenster.de and SwartzR@ufs.ac.za and include ‘Settler Colonial Studies abstract’ in the subject line of the email.

200-250 word abstracts and a short bio due: 31 Jan 2023

Full papers due: 30 June 2023

Expected publication date: End 2023