8 - Implications of the Pluralities of Childhood Conceptualizations and Lived Experiences in the Global South for Studies of Children’s Rights

Summary

Countering the portrayal of the South as the problem location for children's rights

The preceding chapters, which were centred around Ghana as a case study, have foregrounded two subject areas. The first relates to the evolution of children's rights discourses and their attendant laws and policies in Ghana. The second focuses on an exploration of the pluralities of childhood conceptualization and children's lived experiences in Ghana, especially in relation to transitions from childhood to adulthood, understandings of family life and implications for child- rearing practices, and, finally, the notion of children having responsibilities within the household, manifested through the work they undertake both within and outside the home. In discussing these issues, the chapters also considered their implications for children's experiences of the principles underpinning dominant and global discourses relating to children's rights. The question this leads me to now pose is: what insights does this Ghana example offer to the broader study of children's rights, not only in contexts in the South, but also more generally?

Over the years the implications of this plurality of childhood understandings and experiences in a given context in Ghana – even in quite sparsely populated communities – has led me to ask questions about the bulk of the literature that focuses on the intersections between Southern childhoods and dominant children's rights discourses as these have overwhelmingly sought to illuminate the tensions, resistance and inapplicability of dominant discourses of rights and their principles within these contexts. A notable example of such a focus in the literature is evident in Hanson and Nieuwenhuys’ (2012) edited collection centred around the framework of ‘living rights’ with a focus on reconceptualizing children's rights with particular regards to international development. In justifying their focus, the editors explain that most of the case studies illuminated in their edited volume are drawn from contexts in the South: ‘Because, as we explain below, it is there that the contrast between legal principles and daily practices makes it dramatically clear that an alternative conceptualization of children's rights, that goes beyond issues of implementation, is necessary’ (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys, 2013: 3–4).