Közgazdaság- és Regionális Tudományi Kutatóközpont Magyar Tudományos Akadémia Kiváló Kutatóhely

Parenting and the State: State intervention in the age of the family

2020.05.14. - 2020.05.15.

Call for papers

We are inviting abstract submissions for a two-day workshop, which will discuss current instances, forms and results of state interference into parenting.

Theme of the workshop

During the past decades childhood and child raising have become increasingly debated public issues, with the appearance of an unprecedented array of experts seeking to give advice and interfere into what most people consider their private affairs. In many instances it has also led to intensified state intercessions, such as Family Intervention Projects, restrictions on home or alternative education, or pregnancy policing. States can influence parenting practices and norms through various channels: (1) policies and regulations (family support schemes, regulations on education, health care policies, etc.), (2) institutions (such as school, medical services, child protection), and (3) the everyday practices of state officials or civil servants (teachers, welfare workers, medical practitioners, nurses/health care visitors) as they interact with parents. These state practices are highly normative, seeking to determine the “best” ways of child-rearing, which reflects dominant social (often middle class and ‘white’) values. Delineating “good” parental practices from “bad” ones have important consequences for families of particular ethnic or social backgrounds in terms of social acceptance and belonging, thus strengthening lines of exclusion, marginalization and deservedness.

Undoubtedly, interest in children, and thereby influencing parental practices, have been a concern of nation-states from their very birth as a crucial aspect of ensuring the “proper” upbringing of the next generation of “good” citizens. However, the content, form, aims and consequences of such interference are culturally and historically specific and are strongly informed by broader political, economic and social processes. The workshop thus seeks to discuss novel forms of such interventions that are specifically linked to recent, globally relevant processes. 

Whereas public discourse is usually remorse about the constant weakening of the family as an institution, there has been a rising political interest in “the family” amongst right-wing political forces in many countries. Whilst in rhetoric this is often linked to worries about population change or decline in religious “traditional” values, it often materializes in measures that promotes particular (mainstream middle class) family ideals while stigmatizing others, and gives ways to increased monitoring and interventions into the lives of marginalized poor families especially. This goes hand in hand with crucial cultural transformations of child-rearing in the 2000s, with a new parenting culture becoming globally significant, although in different degrees and forms. Increased risk consciousness, the scientification of parenting and a shift of focus from children to parents’ behavior  have led to the “responsibilization” of parents. The latter are increasingly conceived as incompetent (regardless of socio-economic status), therefore in need of expert advise and assistance in even the most minute aspects of child rearing, such as feeding, sleep and play. Such parental determinism and the omnipotence of medical and psychological knowledge from which it emerges dovetails with the individualization of social problems under neoliberal governance. Parents and parenting are held solely responsible for social ills, while the scientific language closes off any discussion of structural social problems. Thus constructs of “good” and “bad” parents are utilized to legitimate both increased surveillance into family life and the retrenchment of welfare, often under the aegis of social investment and early prevention programmes.

These processes, amongst others, lead to the ongoing:

 ·       reconfiguration of the roles of different institutions in the up-bringing of the next generation of citizens

 ·         transformation of relationships of various institutions with parents (of different ethnic and social background)

 ·         novel collisions or cooperations between the newly appearing experts and more long-established professionals (usually civil servants)

 ·         renegotiation of responsibilities, rights and duties of both the state and citizens.

The workshop seeks to establish the novel instances, character and results of such state interference into parenting, which are linked to the above global political, economic and social tendencies.

We are looking for contributions which discuss:

 (a) policies, discourses, or everyday interactions and practices through which different states seek to influence parenting

(b) analyze the socio-political consequences of such interference

(c) examine the ways parents negotiate their child raising practices, rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis these state practices.

We invite abstract submissions that address these themes from different disciplinary perspectives in the social sciences (with a particular preference for ethnographically grounded research) and with regard to particular institutional settings and the contexts in which they are embedded.

Application details:

Interested participants should send to the organizers:

-          their abstract (max. 300 words)

-          name

-          paper title

-          short bio-note

Deadline: 31 January 2020.

We are able to offer subsidies to cover travel and accommodation costs (up to 300 Euro). Please indicate if you would like to avail this option. 

Organizers:

Alexandra Szőke  (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies), szoke.alexandra@krtk.mta.hu

Cecília Kovai  (Centre for Economic and Regional Studies),kovaicili@gmail.com

 

 

Helyszín: MTA Humán Tudományok Kutatóháza (Budapest 1097, Tóth Kálmán u. 4.)