Introduction

Dutch anthropologist Olga Nieuwenhuys (2013: 4) explains the necessity of postcolonial perspective in childhood studies with three arguments: first, ‘the dominance of the North over the South is inextricably linked to Northern childhood(s) representations against which Southern childhood(s) are measured and found wanting’. Second, the normative dominance of Northern childhood(s) translates ‘in an overproduction of knowledge based in disciplinary strongholds that resist critique of their Eurocentrism’. Postcolonial thoughts could help subvert this process. Third, ‘the analysis of children's agency, finally, while playing a seminal role in addressing the two first limitations, runs up against a lack of imagination about its wider social, political and ethical implications and risks missing its radical edge’. In a general sense, the postcolonial approach challenges otherwise unquestioned Eurocentric thought patterns, and can contribute to opening the intellectual arena for all those who are considered subaltern, or subordinate.

Describing colonized people as possessing a lower rank than those coming from ‘higher’, European civilization shows, according to Nieuwenhuys, ‘remarkable parallels with theories of child development that were emerging at the same time in Europe’ (Nieuwenhuys, 2013: 5). Postcolonial thoughts do not reject constructs such as ‘modern childhood’ or ‘children's rights’, they rather question the supposed exceptionality or absolutism of these terms, by contextualizing them.