Bodies of Knowledge: Children and Childhoods in Health and Affliction

Description

Spanning the countries of South Africa, Swaziland, and Ghana, this collection of work brings into focus child and youth experience together as a collage of anthropology, creative writing, poetry, and the fine arts. Woven together by questions related to the political economy of child and youth well-being, identity formation, and the multiple layers through which children articulate their health-narrative, ‘ Bodies of Knowledge’ considers living in and coping with chronic illness, spirit-possession, and death. The growth in Critical Health Humanities and the Arts globally, suggests the desire for blended efforts to draw in a wider breadth of knowledge that cuts across the divided worlds of critical social science and the arts. This book, set in an African context, offers myriad possibilities for cross-disciplinary synergies as learning sites. It is a critical contribution to the field of children and childhood studies. Contents Note to the reader Acknowledgement Contributing Authors Introduction: Children and Childhoods in Perspectice Accounting for children Changing the assumptive narrative Figurations of childhood Book chapters References Plate 1: The Collapsing Dark Chapter 1: Life in the Oncology Ward: Children's Experiences of Cancer treatment Introduction On children On the hospital On embodiment Setting the scene: Biomedical penetrations Coming to stay A ‘new world order’ The drip The continual monitoring More ‘checks’ Inscriptions of sickness The ‘cancer’ The hospital The treatments The baldness The separations Pain and touch Theorising pain Pain and touch in the ward Pain and touch as inscription The experience of knowledge References Chapter 2: Beloning somewhere Safe: Children Reflect on Violence in Symphony Way Temporary Relocation Area in Cape Town, South Africa Introduction Finding home in Blikkiesdorp Internal displacement in South Africa Stories of violence in temporary spaces Mapping out the violence in relation to space In summary References Online sources Chapter 3: Invisible Harms: Humans as Waste, Toxic Layering, and Childhood Poisoning in Cape Town, South Africa Introduction Toxic layering and invisible harms Are public health interventions enough? Concluding argument: toxicity and the workings of humansas waste References Plate 2: The Kids Wear Crowns over Here Chapter 4: 'Growing Kids in Gods' Way': An Ethnographic Case Study of the Social Politics of Child-centred Humanitarian Care and REscue in the Context of a Care Programme for Children in Contemporary Swaziland Introduction Re-birth Labored love Moral pioneers “They’re not Swazi anymore” Conclusion References Poem 1: Young Spirits and Uncured Skins: The Celebration of Young Matyrs and Braved Childhoods Young spirits and uncured skins Young spirits and uncured skins: the celebration of young martyrs and braved childhoods Chapter 5: Reading Bodies, Seeing Signs: Patient-making in a Paediatric Ward ‘You tell them Brooklyn’ The child patient Life ‘inside’ Medicinal meals Drink or die Returning to the child patient References Poem 2: 'The Funeral" & "IM' Spiegel' the funeral Spiegel Im Spiegel Chapter 6: Living with Mortality: How Beliefs and Daily Routine are Experiences in a Paediatric Oncoly Ward Schooling, routine and coping with illness Accounting for the impact treatment has on children and parents Home away from home The role of religion in normalising care Concluding remarks References Chapter 7: Managing Vulnerability and Change through Amakhosi Spirit Possession Contextual and temporal stressor conditions in young people’s lives as a product of social structural violence Traditional African Medicine and healing Amakhosi spirit possession References Chapter 8: "Making a Plan to Keep my Baby": Navigating Maternal Health Policy among South African Mineworkers Introduction Contextualising women in mining and gendered risks The intersections between underground working and pregnancy Physical hazards Chemical hazards How mining policies materialise into the rhythms of day-to-day life Slow Violence Conclusion Postscript References Online sources SHORT STORY