Author Description

<p>However unthinkable child-soldiers may be within a generalized conception of childhood, they are not imaginary figures; rather, they are a constant in almost every armed conflict around the world. The participation of children in wars may question the idea of childhood as a "once-upon-a-time story with a happy and predictable ending," disrupting the (natural) idea of a protected and innocent childhood and also eliciting fear, uncertainty, revulsion, horror, and sorrow.<br><br>Using the perspectives of both childhood studies and critical approaches to international relations, Jana Tabak explores the constructions of child-soldiers as "children at risk" and, at the same time, risky children. More specifically, <i>The Child and the World </i>aims both to problematize the boundaries that articulate child-soldiers as necessarily deviant and pathological in relation to "normal" children and to show how these specific limits participate in the (re)production and promotion of a particular version of the international political order. In this sense, the focus of this work is not on investigating child-soldiers’ lives and experiences per se but on their presumed threatening feature as they depart from the protected territory of childhood, disquieting everyday international life.</p>