This introduction frames the collection of essays, “Vulnerability, Innocence and Futurity: Essays on Contemporary Politics of Childhood.” This collection centers children who unsettle the dominant cultural imaginaries of childhood by examining cultural politics surrounding the adoption of Indigenous children in Canada, the incarceration of children deemed terrorists in Egypt and migration of children at the US-Mexico border as well as the protests against “gender ideology” in France and children at the forefront of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran. Rather than reclaiming innocence and Continue reading → Continue reading →
What comes into view when we take childhood as a window into larger political formations? How do “children” as a category reinforce or unsettle some of the most enduring foundations of modern politics? In this essay, I examine the politics of Egyptian children to bring liberalism and authoritarianism, which are oftentimes studied as separates, into a unified analytical framework. I do so by examining portrayals of Egyptian children in the media and in government discourse at a time of heightened authoritarianism in Egypt that is Continue reading → Continue reading →
Starting with a discussion of the genocide and the figure of the child in Gaza, this essay brings together the collection “Vulnerability, Innocence and Futurity: Essays on Contemporary Politics of Childhood,” arguing that the various essays show how children serve as a battleground for the shifting relationship between liberalism and illiberalism in the contemporary world. I suggest that the shift towards illiberalism is visible by looking at the concept of innocence, and how it changes in relation to children. Specifically, the liberal, Enlightenment belief that Continue reading → Continue reading →


