CONCEPT NOTE
Borders, boundaries and frontiers comprise a range of concerns which affects nation states and its citizenry and on which micro and macro studies have been conducted in many parts of the world. Being a relatively new discipline, Border Studies offer a wide variety of exciting entry points to understand and negotiate with notions of citizenship, unequal childhood, identity, belonging, race, class and ethnicity among others. However, one of the issues which have not been touched upon in detail has been children and borders. The current issue of RWO is an attempt by research scholars to approach the issue of children of refugees and borders from different vantage points and disciplinary perspective to interject, investigate, analyse and grapple with the complexities, nuances, relationship and influences that they have on each other.
Children and borders form a ‘contact zone’ between Border Studies and Childhood Studies and include a host of sensitive topics like ‘unaccompanied children’, trafficking and socialisation, affect and effect, and the constitutive role of children in the social life of borders. Many anxieties and curiosities crop up when one starts thinking about the relationship and entanglement of children and borders. Can the innocence and playfulness of children act as a subterfuge / subversion of the cold institutional powers of the borders? Can children alter the notion of borders and how do borders shape / alter personalities of children especially in sensitive / disputed territories? Studies especially from the US-Mexico border have shown that children have the ability to impact borders through their activity and agency.
Socialisation and ‘growing-up years’ are affected by borders in myriad ways which more often than not has to do with transgression, violence and othering.
Border citizens including children form an intrinsic part of the illicit border economy. This issue will deal with the organization of everyday lives of children, their involvement with the parapolitical system of the border economy and the interplay of cultural repertoire, skill sets and habitus to negotiate with the state and its ‘total institutions’ like the penal and corrective homes. This edition intends to take up issues of experience and memory of living in militarized border regions. Further, it will also dwell upon how talent or ‘concerted cultivation’ nurtured on the borders and how it enables children to circumvent the
monstrosity and boredom of borders. Today, we see counselling agencies that deal with child protection cases. This issue will try to delve into the nature of guidance, counselling and practical support offered on a range of complex international child protection issues on the border regions.
Last Date for Submission: 05.08.2015 Word Limit: 1000 Words
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