Toward Decolonizing Childhood: Researching Memories of Everyday Life in (Post)Socialist Societies

Session Type: Demonstration/Performance

Abstract

This session brings together theoretical and methodological insights from childhood studies, memory studies, and postcolonial studies to explore how adult generated memories may enable access to children’s lived experiences. Focusing on the memories of (post)socialist childhood in contexts ranging from Central Europe to Asia, the contributors (re)narrate their past lived experiences through autobiographic, autoethnographic, and collective biography research. They explore how children conceive the world on their own terms and as social actors, illuminating the diverse spaces of childhoods interweaving with broader political, economic, and social life. They challenge what is considered “normal” and “natural” in the historical accounts of socialist childhoods and (re)write histories that rub against traditional imaginaries of Cold War divisions between East/West.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Critical Perspectives on Early Childhood Education

Chair

• Iveta Silova, Arizona State University - Tempe

Directors

• Susanne Marie Gannon, Western Sydney University

• Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland

Papers

• Erasure and Renewal in (Post)Socialist China: My Mother's Long Journey - Jinting Wu, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Uncle Ho's Good Children Award and State Power at a Socialist School in Vietnam - Violette Hoang-Phuong Ho

• Toward Decolonizing Childhood and Knowledge Production - Iveta Silova, Arizona State University - Tempe; Nelli Piattoeva, University of Tampere; Zsuzsanna Millei, University of Newcastle