Grime, Jill (2000) Children in between : child rights and child placement in Sri Lanka. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

This thesis examines the appropriateness of the use of rights based strategies in
meeting children's needs. In an era of proliferating international conventions this is
an issue that demands further debate.
The starting point of the thesis is the way that rights talk about children. It is
suggested that ideas of difference are integral to child rights. Needs and rights are
attributed on the basis of difference. The difference between children and adults is
defined and informed by the scientifically based discourse of child development,
on which a prescriptive model of childhood is built. Difference also structures the
relationship between child rights and other cultural norms of childhood. Rights
make claims to a universal application. Other constructions of childhood are
redefined as local, and required to fit into the rights framework, or delegitimised.
Developing these points it is asked whether rights, as an internationally dominant
discourse, can succeed in accommodating rather than excluding difference, since
the process of exclusion involves an operation of power which serves to reinforce
the status quo. This is a problem that is recognised in some theoretical perspectives
(although only rarely applied to child rights). The response is usually in terms of
restating universal claims, or advocating some form of cultural relativism. This
thesis leans in favour of the latter. However, it also departs somewhat from this
dichotomy, and argues, relying on ideas of chaos and complexity, that child rights
need to be reworked. Two distinct approaches are suggested: either the recognition
of radical, incommensurable difference, in which there can at best be convergence
under a limited overarching framework of values; or the removal of difference as a
structuring concept.
The argument is elaborated through a detailed analysis, structured by theories of
globalisation, of the interaction between the dominant rights discourse of
childhood, and alternative conceptions of childhood in Sri Lanka. The analysis is
based on field research, in which the response of the child care authorities to the
practice of child placement was investigated, as was the impact on children and
families of their responses. This investigation involved one of the only pieces of
empirical research yet done in Sri Lanka, on either the juvenile courts, or on child
placement and domestic service. The findings supported the conclusion that in
order to be able to embrace complexity, and empower children, child rights need to
be rethought.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Children's rights, Children -- Sri Lanka, Child labor -- Sri Lanka
Official Date:	September 2000
Dates:	Date Event September 2000 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	School of Law
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Paliwala, Abdul
Extent:	vi, 352 leaves
Language:	eng

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