Séances de la conférence

Academic discussions of cosmopolitanism have been reinvigorated in the context of contemporary processes of globalization, transnational mobilities, and multicultural urbanism. Cosmopolitanism can be understood as both: 1) a philosophy and political project of world citizenship; as well as 2) an intellectual or aesthetic disposition and set of practices premised on an openness to cultural diversity and global awareness. Within the broader academic literature, a growing sociology of cosmopolitanism is characterized by research that uses a grounded notion of cosmopolitanism to understand the ways in which cosmopolitanism is ‘lived’ and expressed in daily life. For this session, we feature papers that advance sociological understandings of the various ways in which cosmopolitanism is manifest in everyday life. This includes research that focuses on cosmopolitan consumption and markets, cosmopolitan canopies and cultural practices, as well as the relationships between cosmopolitanism and banal nationalism. Theoretically informed and grounded in empirical research, the papers are based on recent studies that consider how cosmopolitanism surfaces and is expressed in various, ordinary ways.

Much research in child and youth studies focuses on challenges in young lives, including vulnerability, inequality, discrimination, marginalization, worry, and hardship. While seeking to recognize and appreciate these challenges, researchers in the sociology of childhood and youth frequently recognize that such challenges do not wholly define the lives of children and youth who are living with precarity: there is also hope, joy, innovation, creativity, participation, and activism. The papers in this session all examine hope in the face of precarity, and the possibilities for thinking about and making change.

The papers in this session are curious about what is generated by generation. Generation invites us to consider the tensions produced through expectations about age, and what is produced within and carried through different stages of life (whether that be inequality, investment, or trauma). The papers in this session explore how ideas of generation—including the experiences of a specific generation, interactions between generations, and transgenerational trauma—shape young people’s lives.

How does design in our work with children, in areas such as research, practice and policy, bring about particular ways of being and doing? How does design shape research carried out with children, e.g. in terms of methods, methodology, participation, and knowledge mobilization? How do conceptualizations of childhood shape the design of spaces where children and youth spend their daily lives? How can design create particular life worlds for some children and their families while excluding others? This session includes researchers, educators, and other professionals who work with children and will share their ideas, knowledge and experiences from research and/or practice to contribute to discussions that rethink, refocus and reshape the future for children through a focus on design. Design within this context can be understood as an intentional plan aimed at a particular result. This session will provide space for reflecting on and sharing our work with children while engaging with larger questions around design and exploring the impact of design on children’s past, present and future lives. These reflections can lead us to exploring and considering our own role as childhood scholars and the ways we are collectively responsible for designing the field of childhood studies. As Spyrou (2022) states, “A critical engagement with design might offer childhood studies not just a new conceptual area for innovative theoretical and methodological work but also more fertile ground for exploring its own design practices and their effects on research work with children.” (p.471).

Cette session invite des contributions qui évaluent les théorisations de l'enfance. Parmi les récits disponibles aujourd'hui, quels sont ceux qui semblent particulièrement sophistiqués, prometteurs, perspicaces et/ou bien fondés ? Quelles sont les questions importantes en suspens dans ce domaine et quelles sont les lignes d'approche les plus prometteuses pour y répondre ? Alors que la diversité et les multiples facettes de la manière dont les humains conçoivent l'enfance avaient déjà suscité l'intérêt des chercheurs dans les années 1890 et avaient reçu un nouvel élan avec la publication de L'enfant et la vie familiale sous l'Ancien Régime d'Ariès en 1960, c'est avec la naissance des études sur l'enfance et de l'EPE reconceptualiste à la fin des années 1980 et au début des années 1990 que les « constructions de l'enfance » et « l'image de l'enfant » sont devenues un programme de recherche soutenu. Pourtant, malgré une génération d'efforts depuis lors, le chemin parcouru n’est pas clair. L'une des images dominantes de l'enfance est que « les enfants sont notre avenir ». Un avenir durable et partagé est essentiellement un avenir dans lequel nos enfants (et leurs enfants, et leurs enfants, ...) peuvent envisager de vivre réellement. En même temps, pour les adultes, l'enfance est aussi une affaire de passé, un passé qui peut être perçu avec ambivalence ou nostalgie, et qui peut servir de ressource ou d'obstacle à un avenir vivable. Les constructions de l'enfance ne sont pas seulement des « idées », mais des institutions et des pratiques, avec leurs explications et leurs justifications, leurs projets et leurs critiques. Les questions sur la manière dont nous théorisons et construisons l'enfance sont donc précisément des questions sur la manière dont nous construisons l'avenir – et quels avenirs nous construisons, pour qui.