CCYSC Awaaz

Simran Josan, our CCYSC intern, is in conversation with Sumit Parewa (Trustee, TCLP) and Nisha (Class IX student) regarding The Community Library Project, a public initiative to promote the right to read and organise free libraries for all in India and beyond.

Sumit and Nisha share their experiences of joining the TCLP as young members and helping to bring books to working-class children in several parts of Delhi.

* This conversation has been recorded in the Hindi language.

प्रयत्न एक आदिवासी युवा समूह है जिसने भारत में पश्चिम बंगाल के जलपाईगुड़ी के चाय बागान क्षेत्र में शिक्षा, सामाजिक जागरूकता और अपने समुदाय के सशक्तिकरण की दिशा में 10 वर्षों से अधिक समय तक काम किया है। वे छात्रों को उच्च अध्ययन के लिए सलाह देते हैं और तैयार करते हैं एवं बुजुर्गों तक मदद पहुंचते हैं। इसके अलावा अन्य कार्यक्रमों जैसे कि, यौन शोषण के शिकार लोगों का समर्थन करते हैं और यहां तक कि स्थानीय सफाई अभियान भी चलाते हैं। यह एक इंटरव्यू (साक्षात्कार) है जो ज्योति के द्वारा प्रयातन के तीन सदस्यों के साथ आयोजित किया गया है; फुलमोनी, निकिता और सुजीत जहाँ वे अपने समूह के गठन एवं उनके द्वारा संचालित कार्यक्रमों, उनके समुदाय के सामाजिक विकास के प्रति उनकी प्रतिबद्धता के साथ-साथ COVID-19 महामारी के दौरान उनके समुदाय और क्षेत्र पर पड़ने वाले प्रभाव के बारे में चर्चा करते हैं।

साक्षात्कारकर्ता:

ज्योति अंबेडकर यूनिवर्सिटी दिल्ली के स्कूल ऑफ एजुकेशन स्टडीज में मास्टर ऑफ एजुकेशन की छात्रा हैं। उनकी राजनीति विज्ञान की पृष्ठभूमि है और शिक्षण के साथ-साथ गायन और नृत्य में भी उनकी रुचि है।

प्रयत्न सदस्य:

फुलमोनी मुंडा जलपाईगुड़ी के इंडोंग चाय बागानों से आती हैं और वर्तमान में आईआईटी गांधीनगर में  Society and Culture (समाज और संस्कृति) में स्नातकोत्तर कर रही हैं।

निकिता चिकबरैक जलपाईगुड़ी के आईभील चाय बागान से हैं और वर्तमान में टाटा इंस्टीट्यूट ऑफ सोशल साइंसेज, मुंबई से शिक्षा में स्नातकोत्तर कर रही हैं।

सुजीत बारला वर्तमान में अम्बेडकर विश्वविद्यालय दिल्ली से शिक्षा में स्नातकोत्तर कर रहे हैं और जलपाईगुड़ी के बटाबारी चाय बागान से हैं।

प्रयत्न से जुडें: [email protected]

संपादक: वेदा गोपाल (छात्र, स्कूल ऑफ एजुकेशन स्टडीज, अम्बेडकर विश्वविद्यालय दिल्ली)

संगीत: स्कॉट होम्स द्वारा ‘लिटिल आइडिया’ (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Prayatn is an Adivasi youth collective that has worked in the tea garden region of Jalpaiguri, West Bengal in India for more than 10 years towards the education, social awareness and empowerment of their community.They mentor and prepare students for higher studies, run elderly outreach programs, support victims of sexual abuse and even do local clean-up drives. This is an interview is conducted by Jyoti with three members from Prayatn; Fulmoni, Nikita and Sujit as they discuss the formation of their collective, the programs they conduct, their thoughts underlying their commitment to the social development of their community as well as the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on their community and region.

Interviewed by:

Jyoti is a Masters of Education student at the School of Education Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi. She has a background in political science and is interested in the field of teaching as well as in singing and dancing.

Prayatn members:

Fulmoni Munda comes from the Indong Tea Gardens of Jalpaiguri and is a currently doing her masters in Society and Culture at IIT Gandhinagar

Nikita Chik Baraik is from the Aibheel Tea Garden of Jalpaiguri and is currently pursuing her masters in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Sujit Barla is currently pursuing his Masters in Education from Ambedkar University Delhi and belongs to the Batabari Tea Garden of Jalpaiguri.

Contact: [email protected]

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Link for English Translation of Interview: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T-La0fM_nx07K41AxMJpdGlacVaphPNcE7D0rhsxdKY/edit?usp=sharing

Seran Demiral interviews Spyros Spyrou one more time shifting the conversation this time from the politics of childhood to the challenges and opportunities of participation practices. While Demiral questions possibilities of researching with children and the potential of their becoming primary researchers, Spyrou brings in critical perspectives on methodology in childhood studies related to access to participation, the diverse capabilities of research subjects and the different ways through which to reveal their experiences. This conversation about the role of method in research with children explores the intricacies of listening to children’s voices and ways of addressing the limitations of verbal communication.

Spyros Spyrou is Professor of Anthropology at European University Cyprus. His research interests include children’s identities as they intersect with nationalism and questions of borders in conflict societies and children’s role as political actors in the context of climate change activism. Over the years, he has also explored questions related to children and immigration, poverty, social exclusion and single-parenthood as well as constructions of motherhood and babyhood. He has an ongoing interest in children’s participation in research and the ethics and politics of knowledge production in childhood studies. Spyros is the author of Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies and co-editor of Reimagining Childhood Studies and Children and Borders. He is also co-editor of the journal Childhood (Sage) and a co-editor of the book series Studies in Childhood and Youth (Palgrave).

Seran Demiral is a children’s literature and sci-fi writer from Istanbul. She studied the subjectivities of children through their interaction with digital technologies for her PhD in Sociology by focusing on changing childhood experiences within online environments. She is also a P4C (Philosophy for Children/Communities) trainer and part-time lecturer at Boğaziçi University, Primary Education. As a teenager, Demiral published fantasy novels. After she graduated from the architecture department, she began to write for adolescents. Demiral also published a science-fiction book and many stories in anthologies and magazines. Her first non-fiction work, Living Alternative Lives, is about Ursula Le Guin’s literary works. Demiral continues to work on her novels, children’s books and plays.

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

In this episode, Marina Cartier interviews Dr Clémentine Beauvais about translation and childhood studies. The discussion is about Dr Clémentine Beauvais' research on the educational use of translation in the classroom through literary translation workshops. Dr Clémentine Beauvais explains to us the principles and organisation of this workshop and her particular interest and focuses on literary and aesthetic skills that emerge during these literary translation exercises. She also shares what are the data and findings of her research. The conversation also addresses what is translation and the specificities of the translation for children and its theorization in the academic field.

Dr Clémentine Beauvais is a senior lecturer in education at the University of York. Her research interests are childhood studies, translation in education, creative writing, and particularly children’s literature. She is also a Children’s book author and translator from English to French

Marina Cartier is a PhD student at the University of York in the Department of Education. Her research subject is about the children’s responses to translated humorous picturebooks.

This episode was edited by Riya Kwattra

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

In India, as with many other nations, sexuality education is fairly limited. As a result, many individuals are left with a lot of unanswered questions which cause problems once they mature and become sexually active. So, in this episode of CCYSC Awaaz, Ayushi Misra, a masters student at Ambedkar University Delhi, and Ramya Anand, a senior  manager at TARSHI, discuss the importance of providing a comprehensive sexuality education to children and young adults.

TARSHI is a Delhi-based non-government organization that supports and enables people's control and agency over their sexual and reproductive health and well-being through information dissemination, knowledge and perspective building, within a human rights framework.

Ayushi is pursuing a Masters in Education from Ambedkar University Delhi. She is currently invested in understanding adolescent psychology with a special  focus on curriculum design, sexuality education, and inclusive education for the mentally disabled.

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Yamila Rodríguez and Seran Demiral interview Basia Vucic on children's literature, democratic education and how the child impacts and changes the political circumstances around for the final episode of this series* through a frame of Janusz Korczak's famous novel for children: King Matt the First. On the one hand, the conversation investigates the functions of literature and Korczak's developing strategies as a fiction writer in addition to being an educator and child rights defender; on the other hand, Vucic, Rodríguez and Demiral try to understand children's positioning in society by playing games and "propagating" their stories to re-make the politics throughout history. 

According to an ancient pre-Socratic quote, "Time is a child playing, moving pessoi (pieces). The Kingdom belongs to the child." This episode, The Kingdom is a Game, is an initiative to give the child credit for reconstructing society.

*The previous episodes are The Born Criminal, which is about the good or evil nature of the child in the history of childhood, and Educating the Educator on Janusz Korczak's experiences with -and against- child-centred approaches and "Praeternatural Pedagogy" concept, developed by Vucic.

Basia Vucic is an expert on the philosophy of education -and especially on JK educational philosophy- from UCL, London (UK). Invited as a 2019 visiting fellow to the UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, the scope of her research at UCL includes the hidden history of the child rights movement, political theory, and democratic education.

Yamila Rodríguez, Lawyer & Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Law, University of Buenos Aires, researches the extension of the international obligation of the state to ensure children's rights to participation and access to justice in the criminal justice system, focusing on children who are victims and witnesses of crimes with her academic training and career as a civil servant at a Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, where she worked for over ten years.

Seran Demiral is a children’s literature and sci-fi writer from Istanbul. She studied the subjectivities of children through their interaction with digital technologies for her Ph.D in Sociology by focusing on changing childhood experiences. She is also a P4C (Philosophy for Children) trainer, and teaches digital childhoods, children's literature, creative writing and sociology at various universities as a part-time lecturer. 

Edited by Veda Gopala

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

This podcast features a conversation with Dr Peggy Froerer (Reader, Anthropology) and Dr Gunjan Wadhwa (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Education), Brunel University London. It discusses Dr Froerer's work with the historically marginalised Adivasi communities in rural parts of Central India (Chhattisgarh) with a particular focus on young people's engagements with education and its entanglements with work and livelihoods. Dr Froerer critically highlights the continuities and tensions between the global discourses of development and modernity and the local lived realities of the Adivasis, and the impacts of this on young people's aspirations. The conversation brings out the methodological and theoretical challenges of doing research in rural contexts, working with marginalised social groups and undoing the dominant frameworks. Dr Froerer emphasises paying attention to the context to understand intersections of religion, ethnicity and gender in relation to her work, along with the work of the state in the current socio-political conditions.​

Dr Peggy Froerer is Reader in Anthropology at Brunel University London and author of Religious Division and Social Conflict. She is currently working on her second book, which considers how marginalized young people’s differentiated engagement with school education articulates with their livelihood options and aspirations for a better future. Peggy is also co-Investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project (ESRC-DfID, 2016-2018) which examines education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas of India, Lesotho and Laos. She has directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on her research on development, the state and corruption in central India.

Dr Gunjan Wadhwa is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Education at Brunel University London on 'Rural youth identities in India'. Her research troubles the dominant discursive strains that produce the post-colonial nation-state and citizen, and through this position marginalised groups like the Adivasis and rural youth in opposition to ideas of the ‘modern’. Gunjan's recent publications include Ethics of Positionality in Capturing Adivasi Youth ‘Voices’ in a Village Community in India (Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People, 2021) and (Un)Doing Rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India (The International Journal of Human Rights, 25:7, 2021).

Edited by Yashita Jain

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

This podcast features a conversation with Dr Peggy Froerer (Reader, Anthropology) and Dr Gunjan Wadhwa (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Education), Brunel University London. It discusses Dr Froerer's work with the historically marginalised Adivasi communities in rural parts of Central India (Chhattisgarh) with a particular focus on young people's engagements with education and its entanglements with work and livelihoods. Dr Froerer critically highlights the continuities and tensions between the global discourses of development and modernity and the local lived realities of the Adivasis, and the impacts of this on young people's aspirations. The conversation brings out the methodological and theoretical challenges of doing research in rural contexts, working with marginalised social groups and undoing the dominant frameworks. Dr Froerer emphasises paying attention to the context to understand intersections of religion, ethnicity and gender in relation to her work, along with the work of the state in the current socio-political conditions.​

Dr Peggy Froerer is Reader in Anthropology at Brunel University London and author of Religious Division and Social Conflict. She is currently working on her second book, which considers how marginalized young people’s differentiated engagement with school education articulates with their livelihood options and aspirations for a better future. Peggy is also co-Investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project (ESRC-DfID, 2016-2018) which examines education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas of India, Lesotho and Laos. She has directed an ethnographic film (Village Lives, Distant Powers; produced by Margaret Dickinson), which is based on her research on development, the state and corruption in central India.

Dr Gunjan Wadhwa is an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Education at Brunel University London on 'Rural youth identities in India'. Her research troubles the dominant discursive strains that produce the post-colonial nation-state and citizen, and through this position marginalised groups like the Adivasis and rural youth in opposition to ideas of the ‘modern’. Gunjan's recent publications include Ethics of Positionality in Capturing Adivasi Youth ‘Voices’ in a Village Community in India (Ethics and Integrity in Research with Children and Young People, 2021) and (Un)Doing Rights: Adivasi participation in governance discourses in an area of civil unrest in India (The International Journal of Human Rights, 25:7, 2021).

Edited by Yashita Jain

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

In this episode, Seran Demiral interviews Spyros Spyrou on how children and young people make sense of climate change and the climate crisis, how they see their role as climate activists and how younger generations imagine the future. Pointing out the policy brief, which has given the conversation its title, There is No Plan(et) B: youth activism in the fight against climate change in Cyprus, Spyrou mentions childhood activism in  schools about climate change. Through Demiral's questions about digital activism and the networks of young people, the conversation addresses both intersections of ecological and childhood movements and youth political participation in general.

The association examples of the youth mentioned during the session: 

- Fridays for Future

- Earth Guardians

Spyros Spyrou is Professor of Anthropology at European University Cyprus. His research interests include children’s identities as they intersect with nationalism and questions of borders in conflict societies and children’s role as political actors in the context of climate change activism. Over the years, he has also explored questions related to children and immigration, poverty, social exclusion and single-parenthood as well as constructions of motherhood and babyhood. He has an ongoing interest in children’s participation in research and the ethics and politics of knowledge production in childhood studies. Spyros is the author of Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies and co-editor of Reimagining Childhood Studies and Children and Borders. He is also co-editor of the journal Childhood (Sage) and a co-editor of the book series Studies in Childhood and Youth (Palgrave).

Another related work referred to in the episode: Children as future-makers

Seran Demiral is a children’s literature and sci-fi writer from Istanbul. She studied the subjectivities of children through their interaction with digital technologies for her PhD in Sociology by focusing on changing childhood experiences within online environments. She is also a P4C (Philosophy for Children/Communities) trainer and part-time lecturer at Boğaziçi University, Primary Education. As a teenager, Demiral published fantasy novels. After she graduated from the architecture department, she began to write for adolescents. Demiral also published a science-fiction book and many stories in anthologies and magazines. Her first non-fiction work, Living Alternative Lives, is about Ursula Le Guin’s literary works. Demiral continues to work on her novels, children’s books and plays.

A related session she recently contributed: CLIMATE INJUSTICE: Meteotopias Around the Globe

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Hedi Viterbo and Ekta Oza. They discuss Dr. Viterbo's new book, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Bridging disciplinary divides, and drawing on hundreds of previously unexamined sources (many of which are not publicly available), this book radically challenges our picture of childhood, human rights, and law, both in and beyond the Israel/Palestine context. In the book, Dr. Viterbo reveals how Israel, rather than disregarding children's rights and international law, has used them to hone and legitimize its violence against Palestinians. Further, he exposes the human rights community's complicity in this situation, due to its problematic assumptions about childhood, its uncritical embrace of international law, and its recurring emulation of Israel's security discourse.

Hedi Viterbo is Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London. His research examines issues concerning childhood, state violence, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary and global perspective. He is the author of Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and co-author of The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Ekta Oza is a PhD Scholar at the School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London. Her PhD focuses on geographies of childhood and political agency in India-occupied-Kashmir. She is the lead researcher and author of the book, Restless in the City: Conversations with Young People in Resettlement Colonies (SAGE-Yoda Press, 2021).

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Girls’ voices are often neglected or disregarded, but a girl child’s voice needs to be heard too and we need to give an ear to the messages that her chattering sound waves produce. Today we will be listening to the suffering of a girl child as double marginalised being a disable as well through the perspective of Alice Walker’s idea of womanism.

A transcript of the episode in English is available here.

Supriya Ghosh is a scholar from Azim Premji University. She is currently a content development coordinator creator at Language and Learning Foundation Delhi. She has been serving in the field of education for last 7 years and more in institutions like, Delhi Public School, Patna (Takshila Educational Society, Akanksha foundation Mumbai, Azim Premji Foundation, Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand) etc. She has worked with children in different capabilities and has also engaged with different marginalised sections of our society during the last few years.

Deepty Victor is an alumni of B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi. She is an educationist, researcher, author, illustrator, a storyteller, an ELTReP Awardee by British Council 2014 and founder of ‘Colourful Story Mind.’ She has two published books on Amazon Kindle. She currently freelanced with S.C.E.RT. Assam on a Value Education based project. Below are the links to her books and channels:

The Picture Book of Alphabets 

Enter the world of tales of magic and mystery 

“The impact of the Bihar Language Initiative for Secondary Schools (BLISS) project on Teacher Educators: a study in Bihar” (a research paper published by British Council)

Youtube Channel Colourful Story Mind by Deepty Victor

Colourful Story Mind | Facebook 

Edited by Yashita Jain

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

!Trigger Warning! This episode contains mentions of child sexual abuse between 25:18-25:39.

This 25th episode of CCYSC Awaaz is a tribute to the fearless activism and extraordinary life of Kamla Bhasin, poet, story teller, feminist, activist, and a pioneer in many endeavours. The interview follows Simran, a student pursuing her masters degree in education at Ambedkar University Delhi, in conversation with Kamla Bhasin as they discuss her journey towards writing, her books, what goes into the process of writing them, their significance and the impact of patriarchy on young children. 

Kamla Bhasin was an eminent South-Asian feminist activist, poet and author. She was the founder and advisor to Sangat - A Feminist Network and she was also the South Asia coordinator of the One Billion Rising movement. She has authored multiple books including the popular children's book Satrangi Ladke aur Ladkiya, that celebrates the diversity and individuality of boys and girls, Laughing Matters, Feminism & Its Relevance in South Asia, Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition, Understanding Gender, What Is Patriarchy etc. Several books and booklets on understanding patriarchy and gender which she authored have been translated into nearly 30 languages and are read all across the world.

Simran Varma is a writer and editor, who specializes in the field of education and history. She recently finished editing her first book, Crowdfunding: The Story of People. Prior to this, she has worked as a Gandhi Fellow in Mumbai - providing support to municipal school stakeholders. In her free time, she writes about gender and politics.

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Photograph: Bhupendra Rana, Kamla Bhasin, 2020, colour photograph, for article by Mittra Prerna. (2020, 21st May). ‘No two boys or girls are alike’: Kamla Bhasin on her books Satrangi Ladke and Satrangi Ladkiyan. The Indian Express. https://indianexpress.com/article/parenting/learning/gender-no-two-boys-girls-are-alike-author-kamla-bhasin-satrangi-ladke-and-satrangi-ladkiyan-6420312/ (accessed on 10/10/2021)

The central theme of this conversation is children and the climate crisis. In this Podcast episode, Dr Tanu Biswas and Jyotsna Singh explore how the climate crisis has evolved over the years. The conversation addresses various stakeholders engaged in the debate on the climate crisis. Dr Tanu Biswas explains her opinions and experiences related to the Fridays for Future movement and youth activism. During their conversation, Biswas and Singh also create linkages between childism and the climate crisis; they eventually investigate how climate activists have connected to extreme themes, such as anti-natalism.

Dr Tanu Biswas is an interdisciplinary philosopher of education with a specialisation in childism. She is an associate professor of pedagogy at the University of Stavanger, and co-speaker of the Gender, Queer, Intersectionality and Diversity Studies Network at the University of Bayreuth. Tanu is a polyglot, who grew up in Bombay in the 90s. She now divides her time between her homes in Germany and Norway.

Jyotsna Singh is currently pursuing her master's degree in Education with a specialisation in Early Childhood Education and care from Ambedkar University, NewDelhi. Jyotsna just finished her master's dissertation, she also loves to explore new cultures and read about different cultural rituals and practices.

This episode was edited by Riya Kwattra.

This episode features a conversation with Clara Han and Andrew Brandel. They discuss Dr Han's recent book, Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War (Fordham University Press, 2020), which explores the violence of the Korean War through the perspective of a child. In this book, Clara Han writes from inside her childhood memories as the daughter of parents who were displaced by war, and simultaneously, as an anthropologist whose fieldwork has taken her to the devastated worlds of her parents— Korea and the Korean language. Seeing Like a Child sees the inheritance of familial memories of violence as embedded in how the child inhabits her everyday life and invites us to explore categories such as “catastrophe”, “war”, “violence”, and “kinship” in a brand-new light.

Clara Han is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Seeing Like a Child: Inheriting the Korean War (Fordham University Press, 2020), Life in Debt: Times of Care and Violence in Neoliberal Chile (UC Press, 2012), and co-editor of Living and Dying in the Contemporary World: A Compendium (UC Press, 2015).

Andrew Brandel is an anthropologist at Harvard University, where he is a faculty member of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies. His forthcoming book, A World Of Ciphers: Literature and Migration in “Global” Berlin (under contract with University of Toronto Press) is an ethnographic study of the claims made on, in, and for literature as it carries people through Berlin on irregular and intersecting paths. He is the co-editor of Living with Concepts: Anthropology in the Grip of Reality (Fordham University Press, 2021)

This episode discusses the recently published book, Children and Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents: Innovative Approaches to Research Across Space and Time, co-edited by Deborah Levison, Mary Jo Maynes, and Frances Vavrus. This volume features a wide range of essays that showcase a variety of approaches to the interdisciplinary field of childhood and youth studies, examining how young people in a range of contemporary and historical contexts around the globe live their young lives as subjects, objects, and agents.

In addition to describing the book, the episode also features discussions about the related research collaborative Youth as Subjects, Objects, Agents, sponsored by the University of Minnesota Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change, which brings together faculty and doctoral students to explore the lives of children and youth in the Global South. The episode features interviews and comments by several of the book’s contributors and members of the collaborative, including Dr. Elena Albarran, Dr. Karen Brown, Dr. Kelly Condit-Shrestha, Dr. Elizabeth Dillenburg, Dr. Lauren Heidbrink, Dr. Elisabeth Lefebvre, Judith Merinyo, Dr. Emily Markovich Morris, Dr. Michele Statz, Dr. Frances Vavrus, and Dr. Laura Wangsness Willemsen.

This episode was produced by Dr. Elisabeth Lefebvre and Dr. Emily Markovich Morris and edited by Rafael Flores. The music featured in the podcast was performed and produced by Dr. Emily Markovich Morris and Tabu Zawose.

In this episode Peter Wien hosts Dylan Baun for a discussion of 20th century youth politics in the Middle East based on Baun's recent book Winning Lebanon: Youth Politics, Populism, and the Production of Sectarian Violence, 1920-1958 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). The conversation covers Lebanese youth organizations from their inception in the period of French Mandate rule between the two World Wars to the first Lebanese civil war of 1958. Despite the similarities between the youth movements in terms of rituals, appearances, and comportment, they played an essential role in the drawing of sectarian boundaries foreshadowing decades of violent conflict.

Dylan Baun is an Assistant Professor of Modern Middle East and Islamic World History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dylan received his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Arizona. His first book, published with Cambridge University Press in 2021, is titled Winning Lebanon: Youth Politics, Populism, and the Production of Sectarian Violence, 1920-1958.

Peter Wien is Professor for Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Maryland in College Park. His latest book is Arab Nationalism: The Politics of History and Culture in the Modern Middle East (London: Routledge, 2017). Wien serves as President of The Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TARII).

Edited by: Sanjana Bajaj
Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com)/CC BY-NC

In the second episode of the series with Basia Vucic about education and childhood, Yamila Rodríguez and Seran Demiral revisit child-centered approaches within a critical perspective by pointing out Janusz Korczak's experience with Polish children in between two wars through an experiment of building a democratic community. Basia both reveals the differences underlying between Korczak pedagogy and social psychologists, like Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, and explained a unique concept Praeternatural Pedagogy to underline children being as little scientists, thinkers, and human subjects as well. 

Basia Vucic is an expert on the philosophy of education -and especially on JK educational philosophy- from UCL, London (UK). Invited as a 2019 visiting fellow to the UNESCO Janusz Korczak Chair at the Maria Grzegorzewska University in Warsaw, the scope of her research at UCL includes the hidden history of the child rights movement, political theory, and democratic education

Yamila Rodríguez, Lawyer & Ph.D. Scholar, Department of Law, University of Buenos Aires, researches the extension of the international obligation of the state to ensure children's rights to participation and access to justice in the criminal justice system, focusing on children who are victims and witnesses of crimes with her academic training and career as a civil servant at a Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, where she worked for over ten years.

Seran Demiral, Ph.D. in Sociology at Mimar Sinan University, has studied the subjectivity of children through their interaction with digital technologies. She is interested in changing childhood experiences within online environments and teaches digital childhoods, children's literature, creative writing, and sociology at various universities as a part-time lecturer. 

Edited by Nipunika Sachdeva

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

In the first episode of this series, Yamila Rodríguez and Seran Demiral speak with Basia Vucic, who is an expert on the philosophy of education -and especially on JK educational philosophy- from UCL, London (UK) about the good or evil nature of the child in the history of childhood and its relation with criminological theories and educational approaches.

Yamila Rodríguez, Lawyer & PhD Scholar, Department of Law, University of Buenos Aires, researches the extension of the international obligation of the state to ensure children's rights to participation and access to justice in the criminal justice system, focusing on children who are victims and witnesses of crimes with her academic training and career as a civil servant at a Criminal Court in Buenos Aires, where she worked for over ten years. 

Seran Demiral, PhD in Sociology at Mimar Sinan University, has studied the subjectivity of children through their interaction with digital technologies. She is interested in changing childhood experiences within online environments and teaches digital childhoods, children's literature, creative writing and sociology at various universities as a part-time lecturer.

Edited by Nipunika Sachdeva

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

In this episode of CCYSC Awaaz, Pooja Agarwal discusses the experiences and work of Savitha Suresh Babu, Kirana Kumari, Pavitra and Nanjundaswamy at Baduku Centre for Livelihoods Learning, Samvada, Bengaluru. The college offers short term courses on socially critical domains such as education, journalism, sustainable development, and justice. 

Savitha Suresh Babu works as a faculty member at Baduku Centre for Livelihoods Learning; currently working with the centre for transformative education, co-convening a course called 'Learner Lecturer: an online course for the transformative educator' meant for college lecturers, to sharpen their understanding of higher education, as also sharpen their teaching skills. Previously she has co-convened a course called Hita (roughly translates from Kannada as comfort): a course in basic counselling, offered in the evenings for working professionals. 

Kirana Kumari is currently the Principal of Baduku Community College. For several years now, she worked as the convenor of the Center for Wellness and Justice. Before joining Samvada, she worked in Odanadi Seva Trust between 2000-2001. She worked with the MHRD Education Department Mahila Samakhya Karnataka between 1989 and 1999.  In Samvada, since November 2001, Kirana has played a range of roles including that of a Youth Work Resource Center Convenor, Convenor, Center for Wellness and Justice, Baduku Community College. Passionate about social justice and equity, she is part of several people’s movements that work with anti-caste and feminist ideologies, and for communal harmony. 

Pavitra and Nanjundswamy alumni are involved with a Counseling Course on Facilitating Women's Wellness and Justice, and sustainable organic farming respectively. 

Hosted and edited by Pooja Agarwal, MA Education, Ambedkar University Delhi. 

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

A transcript of the episode in English is available here. 

In this episode of CCYSC Awaaz, Dr Anandini Dar, Assistant Professor, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi and Dr Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan, senior lecturer at Department of Anthropology, Goldsmiths, University of London talk about youth, cities and the global discussing Dr Gabriel's recently published book The Globally Familiar: Digital Hip Hop, Masculinity, and Urban Space in Delhi. 

Edited by Nipunika Sachdeva

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC