Negotiating Childhood
French Colonialism and African Children in Senegal, 1848–1940
Seiten
2026
University of Massachusetts Press (Verlag)
978-1-62534-922-4 (ISBN)
University of Massachusetts Press (Verlag)
978-1-62534-922-4 (ISBN)
- Noch nicht erschienen (ca. Februar 2026)
- Versandkostenfrei
- Auch auf Rechnung
- Artikel merken
A groundbreaking study of the meaning of childhood in French colonial Senegal
Negotiating Childhood explores how colonial child protection policies and African children’s responses to them produced new ways of defining, measuring, documenting, and experiencing childhood in the French colony of Senegal from 1848 to 1940. In this groundbreaking book, Kelly M. Duke Bryant takes the scholarship in new directions, offering to a literature dominated by studies of British colonies in the twentieth century a study of childhood in a French colony from the immediate post-emancipation period through the 1930s. This focus allows her to complicate the generally accepted timeline of child protection in colonial Africa and question other assumptions about children’s history on the continent.
This deeply researched work uses a wide range of sources to examine children’s experiences in spaces where they encountered French discipline and surveillance, such as wardship courts, public streets, schools, juvenile reformatories, and vaccine clinics. The book shows not only how these spaces re-ordered African childhood, but also how children themselves shaped and limited French efforts to impose order, especially when the state depended on African children’s cooperation to make good on rhetoric about child “protection.” It also charts the rise of documentation in children’s lives, as colonial representatives recorded names, ages, and other details about the African children with whom they interacted. Tracing the “documented” child back to the early colonial period, Negotiating Childhood historicizes the emergence of identity documentation—so crucial to our contemporary world—and questions the naturalness of the very idea of the “child.”
Negotiating Childhood explores how colonial child protection policies and African children’s responses to them produced new ways of defining, measuring, documenting, and experiencing childhood in the French colony of Senegal from 1848 to 1940. In this groundbreaking book, Kelly M. Duke Bryant takes the scholarship in new directions, offering to a literature dominated by studies of British colonies in the twentieth century a study of childhood in a French colony from the immediate post-emancipation period through the 1930s. This focus allows her to complicate the generally accepted timeline of child protection in colonial Africa and question other assumptions about children’s history on the continent.
This deeply researched work uses a wide range of sources to examine children’s experiences in spaces where they encountered French discipline and surveillance, such as wardship courts, public streets, schools, juvenile reformatories, and vaccine clinics. The book shows not only how these spaces re-ordered African childhood, but also how children themselves shaped and limited French efforts to impose order, especially when the state depended on African children’s cooperation to make good on rhetoric about child “protection.” It also charts the rise of documentation in children’s lives, as colonial representatives recorded names, ages, and other details about the African children with whom they interacted. Tracing the “documented” child back to the early colonial period, Negotiating Childhood historicizes the emergence of identity documentation—so crucial to our contemporary world—and questions the naturalness of the very idea of the “child.”
Kelly M. Duke Bryant is associate professor of history at Rowan University. She is author of Education as Politics: Colonial Schooling and Political Debate in Senegal, 1850s–1914, and her articles have appeared in such publications as Journal of African History, International Journal of African Historical Studies, and French Colonial History.
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 24.2.2026 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Childhoods: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Children and Youth |
| Zusatzinfo | 8 images |
| Verlagsort | Massachusetts |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 152 x 229 mm |
| Gewicht | 454 g |
| Themenwelt | Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte |
| Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Wirtschaftsgeschichte | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-62534-922-X / 162534922X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-62534-922-4 / 9781625349224 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
Mehr entdecken
aus dem Bereich
aus dem Bereich
wie Tech-Konzerne und Großmächte die Welt unter sich aufteilen
Buch | Hardcover (2025)
C.H.Beck (Verlag)
CHF 39,20
Aufstieg und Fall der Deutschland AG
Buch | Hardcover (2025)
Suhrkamp (Verlag)
CHF 41,95
