3 Review(s)

Description Children of South Asia, who form about a quarter of the world's total number of children, have been the subject of several scholarly studies and policy formulations. However, there is a pervasive tendency in contemporary literature on children to treat them as a homogenous category, decontextualized and isolated from their cultures, locales and livelihoods. Fragmentary studies, dealing with the universal child and focusing on specific issues such as child labour, child rights, and education, construct the predominant perspective on children and childhoods today. There is, therefore, a need for a realistic and situated mapping of childhoods. This unique, two-part volume focuses on extensive ethnographic examination of the lived experiences of children in the political, cultural and economic contexts of the countries in South Asia. Part I presents ethnographic studies of childhood experiences from different regions across South Asia. The studies include issues such as the impact of new market opportunities on the gender identity and social-status constructs of children in a village in the Himalayas; a psycho-social and politico-economic exploration of the making of female child soldiers in the LTTE in Sri Lanka; the identity of children in a state of temporary pollution in Orissa; everyday lives of children and their mothers from a scavenging-caste background in Pakistan; and the role of the girls' dormitory in the age-and-status system of the Dongria Kond tribe in Orissa. Most of these essays closely examine children's roles and their capability to negotiate and actively participate in their environments instead of looking at them as mere recipients of adult care. Part II offers critique, analysis, and insight with regard to vulnerable children and youth, and deals with conditions that become critically consequential in their lives. It discusses issues such as the devastating impact of the armed conflict in Nepal on children, the experience of child workers, voices of slum children on their everyday experiences in a Delhi slum, the drought in Kalahandi and its impact on children, overburdened school-going children in a small town in Orissa, children's experience of parental physical punishment in Sri Lanka, and the experiences of expatriate children living in South Asia.