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Child Labor and Africanist Scholarship: A Critical Overview

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Beverly Grier
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Abstract:

Though children's labor has been critical to African economies historically, Africanist scholars tend to treat child and adolescent workers as invisible. In this essay, the reasons for this neglect are explored, as are the consequences of such neglect for theory and empirical research. Suggestions are made for pursuing research on child and adolescent labor that places young workers within the broader context of economic, social, and political relationships and processes. The essay critically reviews the extant scholarly literature on children and work in the pre-colonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods and concludes that child labor is either underresearched or undertheorized to the detriment of our understanding of gender, patriarchy, agency, the formation of worker and political consciousness, capital accumulation, and the state. The essay argues that children have shaped and continue to shape history in Africa and that childhood is a terrain of struggle in which numerous social and political forces (including children, patriarchy, capital, and the state) seek constructions that suit their particular (and changing) interests. The essay makes a plea to Africanist scholars to take children more seriously in their research.

Résumé:

Résumé:

Bien que, d'un point de vue historique, le travail des enfants ait été capital pour l'économie des pays africains, les chercheurs africanistes ont tendance à traiter les travailleurs enfants et adolescents comme s'ils étaient invisibles. Dans cet article, nous examinons les raisons de cette négligence, ainsi que les conséquences d'une telle négligence pour la recherche théorique et empirique. Nous proposons des pistes de recherche sur le travail des enfants et des adolescents, qui situent ces jeunes travailleurs dans le contexte plus large des relations et processus économiques, sociaux et politiques. Cet article établit un examen critique des publications universitaires existantes sur l'enfance et le travail dans les périodes précoloniale, coloniale et post-coloniale, et conclut que le travail des enfants est soit sous-recherché, soit sous-théorisé au détriment de notre compréhension du genre, du patriarcat, de l'instrumentalisation, de la formation de la conscience politique et des travailleurs, de l'accumulation du capital et de l'état. Nous soutenons dans cet article que les enfants ont façonné, et qu'ils continuent à façonner l'histoire de l'Afrique, et que l'enfance est un terrain de lutte sur lequel un grand nombre de forces sociales et politiques (y compris les enfants, le patriarcat, le capital et l'état) recherchent des constructions qui correspondent à leurs intérêts particuliers (et changeants). Cet article implore les chercheurs africanistes de considérer les enfants plus sérieusement dans l'exercice de leur recherche.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , September 2004 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 2004

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