A Difference-Centred Alternative to Theorization of Children s Citizenship Rights

Citizenship Studies, Vol. 9, No. 4, 369 388, September 2005 A Difference-Centred Alternative to Theorization of Children s Citizenship Rights MEHMOONA MOOSA-MITHA School of Social Work, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada ABSTRACT The rights revolution has become a central feature of modern political consciousness and has resulted in a proliferation of theories about children s rights. Yet mainstream liberal theories in which children s rights are theorized rarely take children s rights as citizens seriously, due to the normative stance of liberal theories that construct children in terms of not-yet-citizens. This article argues for a difference-centred theory of children s citizenship rights by situating the analysis within feminist, anti-racist, gay, lesbian and transgendered theories of citizenship that are difference-centred. It discusses an alternative, difference-centred, articulation of children s citizenship rights through an analysis of their rights of liberty and equality. Through a broadening of liberal, normative notions of liberty defined around exercising individuated autonomous decision-making or the participation in citizenry duties, the article re-defines children s rights of liberty in relational terms that addresses their agency and acknowledges their presence as participating subjects in the multiple relationships in which they interact. It also re-articulates their rights of equality from a mainstream liberal interpretation of equality-as-same to one that treats children as differently equal members of the public culture in which they are full participants. Normative social institutional practices and assumptions become the focus of the analysis, which concludes that these have to change as they act as barriers that exclude and marginalize children s citizenship rights on the basis of their difference (real and constructed) from an adult norm assumed of citizens. Introduction Despite the proliferation of theories on children s rights, 1 particularly as a result of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), to which most countries are signatories, children s citizenship rights still remain largely undertheorized. In this article I argue that this gap in theorizations of children s citizenship rights is directly related to normative, liberal citizenship models within which theories of children s rights are discussed and defined. Children s difference from the adult norm assumed of citizens in liberal models of citizenship result in overlooking children s citizenship rights through a construction of children as not-yet-citizens. Alternative models of citizenship that centre difference 2 on social identities, such as gender, race, sexuality, class, and so on, offer Correspondence Address: Mehmoona Moosa-Mitha, PhD, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8W 2Y2, Canada. Tel.: þ 1 250 721 8041; Email: mehmoona@uvic.ca 1362-1025 Print/1469-3593 Online/05/040369 20 q 2005 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/13621020500211354

370 M. Moosa-Mitha possibilities of defining children s citizenship in ways that take their rights and status as citizens seriously on the basis, rather than to the exclusion, of their identity as children. I situate my analysis within the writings of theorists who centre difference when theorizing about citizenship. As can be found in the writings of some feminist writers (Joseph, 1994; Lister, 1997; Stasiulis & Bakan, 1997; Yuval-Davies, 1997, 1999; Stasiulis, 2002), post-colonial and anti-racist theorists (Hall & Held, 1989; Collins, 1998; Razack, 1998; Williams, 1998; Rajan, 2003), and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered theorists (Phelan, 2001). Citizenship has always been linked to notions of inclusion and exclusion. This is even more true today within a global economy, where members of developing countries are aggressively excluded from gaining entrance in developed countries through the granting of citizenship status (Hobson & Lister, 2002). This is evidenced, for example, in the actions of the European Union member nation-states, where, through the construction of a fortress mentality, increasing barriers are erected against immigrants desirous of attaining European citizenship status (Siim, 2000). Within nation-states, there also exist different forms of exclusions whereby some people occupy the status of non-citizens, whilst others experience themselves as second-class citizens (Kymlicka, 2001). It is these experiences of inclusion/exclusion, contextualized within specific socio-political realties, that difference-centred theorists argue is overlooked through the use of universalist and transcendental notions of citizenship as espoused in liberal citizenship models (Anthias & Yuval-Davies, 1992). At the heart of contesting theories of citizenship lie at least two fault lines, which I will be discussing more fully in the body of the article. The first consists of individualist versus relational concepts of citizenship. Neo-liberals (Nozick, 1974) as well as contractual liberals (Rawls, 1971; Dworkin, 1977) conceive of citizenship largely in terms of individual ownership of legal rights and privileges. Social liberals are less individualist in their orientation, yet they too retain a formal or legalistic interpretation of citizenship (Marshall, 1950). Relational notions of citizenship as can be found within communitarian (Taylor, 1994; Kymlicka, 1995, 2001) and civic republican models (Oldfield, 1998; Phelan, 2001), contest formal or legalistic and individuated assumptions of citizenship. Instead, they interpret citizenship as being more than formal, to connote membership in the society realized through participation in citizenry obligations and an acknowledgment by others in society of one s membership. While civic republican models view citizens in terms of belonging to one large community, communitarians emphasize the rights of various communities that individual citizens are embedded in and the relationships between communities and the larger society (Taylor, 1994; Kymlicka, 2001). Difference-centred theorists also view citizenship as constituting membership in society, but do so in broader terms where citizenship is seen to connote inclusion in the public culture of which one is a member (Yuval-Davies, 1999; Yuval-Davies & Werbner, 1999; Phelan, 2001). However unlike participatory models of citizenship rights, the patterns of exclusion and inclusion which shape membership in culture and society is analysed (Hobson & Lister, 2002). This takes the form of an interrogation of hegemonic discourses and normative institutional practices that define the mainstream culture of society that serves to include and exclude certain people from participating and belonging to political communities of which they are citizens, on the basis of their difference. The struggle for recognition is therefore seen as a struggle for participation to be included as a citizen through a broadening of the meaning of citizenship (Hobson & Lister, 2002).

Children s Citizenship Rights 371 Citizenship is defined in relational terms as emerging from the multiple social relationships by which citizen s experiences of citizenship, as these are inflected by their social identity (p. 23). Yuval-Davies and Werbner (1999) define this notion of citizenship as a more total relationship, inflected by identity, social positioning, cultural assumptions, institutional practices and belonging. Later on in the article, I discuss this conceptualization of citizenship as cultural and relational more fully. Another fault line that characterizes liberal and difference-centred citizenship theories consists of the universal and transcendental perspectives within which liberals envision and define citizenship, as reflected in statements such as all citizens are born inherently equal, as opposed to difference-centred theorists, who define citizenship through an examination of the specific, socio-historical reality within which citizens lived experiences of oppression are situated. These experiences of inclusion/exclusion as a result of normative social institutional beliefs and practices, where difference is constructed as less-than as well as citizens own responses in resisting and making meaning of their lived realities, are formative in defining citizenship (Lister, 1997; Siim, 2000). Difference-centred and normative citizenship models do not represent parallel theories, but rather reflect a contestation of key concepts that are viewed as being fundamental to the envisioning and social claims of both these models. 3 I have identified these key concepts as being that of liberty and equality. I argue that liberal citizenship models due to their adultist norm define children s rights of autonomy and equality in terms of a construction of children as not-yet-citizens, 4 whilst difference-centred citizenship theories hold out the possibility of defining children s citizenship rights by taking seriously their citizenship status without reference to adults as a standard by which their citizenship is measured. I begin by undertaking a theoretical analysis of contesting notions of liberty and equality as they exist within contractual (including social liberal), civic republican and differencecentred models of citizenship. I then critique the normative stance of mainstream, liberal theories of children s rights and the interpretations of liberty and equality that emerge from these theories. I also offer an alternative framework by which to re-vision children s citizenship rights through an application of difference-centred citizenship models. In articulating an alternative, I situate my analysis on the basis of an ethnographic study I undertook with former sexually exploited children (Moosa-Mitha, 2004). I do not conceive of this alternative as being definitive; rather I see it as comprising of a starting point in a discussion that I hope will be generative in re-visioning children s citizenship rights. Social Justice Claims of Liberal Citizenship Models Contemporary liberal models of citizenship are derived from the twin traditions of post- Enlightenment and Aristotelian perspectives of citizenship (Hobson & Lister, 2002). The former, such as contractual and social liberals, conceive of citizens as individual rightsbearers, while the latter, such as civic republican liberals, think of citizens in terms of the obligations that come with being a citizen (ibid.). Modern inheritors of these twin traditions are discernible by their particular social justice claims, which are premised on particular interpretations of liberty and equality. A Rawlsian, contractual model of citizenship conceives of social justice in contractual

372 M. Moosa-Mitha terms. The citizen as the bearer of civil, political and social rights is perceived as contracting with the state, for the protection and legal entitlement of these rights in return for allegiance and loyalty to the state (Rawls, 1971; Winston, 1989). Social justice claims of civic republican models, descended from the Aristotelian tradition, are not envisioned solely in formal terms but also in relational ones, as citizens obligations to one another to participate in the social and cultural institutions of the society to which they belong. Participation is conceived as being important to the maintenance of society as well as for one s sense of self-fulfilment (Phelan, 2001). However participation is defined in normative terms through particular activities that are considered as citizenry, such as marriage, military and the marketplace, participants (citizens) are those who possess the virtues, such as rationality, disinterestedness, and so on, considered necessary for participation. Hence the social justice claims of civic republican models also uphold the status quo through its normative stance. Social Justice Claims of Difference-Centred Citizenship Models Difference-centred models of citizenship are grounded in theories that have arisen from what have been called the new social movements, such as post-colonial, anti-racist, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered, feminist, American Indian and other social movements. Based on the insights garnered from these movements, difference-centred theorists envision citizenship in terms of a radical, democratic conception of citizenship (Mouffe, 1994). As such, difference-centred theorists reject the normative stance that exists in liberal models of citizenship where the citizen s self as a rights-bearer or as virtuous is understood in singular and universal terms. Nor is it understood through singular identity positions such as gender or race, as is found within singular social identity theories such as some feminist theories (Hobson & Lister, 2002). Rather, differencecentred theorists take a more fluid and pluralist approach to citizenship that is situated in a politics of solidarity, a transversal politics (Yuval-Davies, 1999), where citizens occupying multiple subject positions such as class and gender and race come together in solidarity to resist a common oppression. Hence difference-centred theorists envisage citizenship in terms that are not dissimilar to civic republican citizenship models, but do so by recognizing the role of difference as it relates to citizens experiences of belonging and participation, outside of the conceptual articulation of a universal individual with a single set of rights. Citizenship therefore signifies recognition of citizens difference as collectivities with distinct historical circumstances, vulnerabilities and interests (Hall & Held, 1989; Hobson & Lister, 2002). Secondly, citizenship also signifies belonging through an acknowledgment of citizens subjective desires to belong as a full member of the society rather than through a normative stance of socially prescribed activities assumed to be citizenry. Social justice visions are rooted in a vision of social change that is transformative at heart (Lister, 1997) which includes a transformation of both the individual s sense of self, through self-empowerment, and a transformation of power relationships in society (Yuval- Davies & Werbner, 1999). Power relations are seen as having both a material basis, for example, in the hierarchical nature of employment opportunities that exist on the basis of gender and race and so on, as well as a non-material basis in the beliefs, norms and assumptions of social institutional practices (Lister, 1997).

Children s Citizenship Rights 373 Contesting Notions of Liberty: Contractual Liberal, Civic Republic and Difference- Centred Views The concept of liberty is fundamental in defining both citizenship claims as well as notions of the citizen s self in contesting theories. 5 Liberty in both Rawlsian as well as earlier, Hobbesian, narratives of liberalism is understood in the negative sense, as freedom from interference by the state as citizens pursue their self-interests. Human beings are constructed as self-made and self-making individuals, whose deepest impulse is the free pursuit of individual self-interest (Rawls, 1971; Nedelsky, 1990). This vision of freedom is a deeply individualist one, where liberty is understood in terms of autonomy, which literally translated means governed by one s own law (Nedelsky, 1989, p. 3). The fact that historical relationships that also make of us what we are is overlooked within this theory (Yuval-Davis, 1999). There exists a tension, in the contractual, liberal model, between the individual and the collective, as freedom is understood through a narrative of self-determination against the perceived tyranny of the collective or community (ibid.). Liberty is also understood through a rights-based discourse where rights construct a barrier between the self and the other, as a safeguard against interference in the self-determining activities of each individual. Social relations in society are seen as being propelled mainly through motives of selfinterest, thus being atomistic in nature (Dietz, 1987). The relationship between the individual and the state is privileged over all others within this narrative of citizenship (Yuval-Davis, 1999). The self is not only individualized but also universalized where it is assumed that all citizens desire and are propelled by the need to be free, or independent of each other. Such a view of self, argue feminists, reflects a normatively gendered one where women of childbearing age who may not want freedom from their children in the individualist manner projected within this male-stream version of citizenship rights, for example, are ignored (Young, 1997). It also treats whiteness as a norm because the liberal emerges as a disembodied being. The citizen s gender, race, age, psychological and emotional characteristics amongst others are either ignored or, as in the case with Rawls, are considered irrelevant to an articulation of the rights of freedom. By not recognizing race as a marker for differential experiences of citizenship, it overlooks the experiences of people who are racially different. Black people, for example, may not in fact experience freedom in this individualist sense unless it is through a collective expression of freedom as reflected in the case of black people engaged in the Civil Rights Movement. I would add that it is also reflects an adultist norm where children who are more likely to live interdependent lives are also not reflected in this interpretation of liberty. Finally, the self that emerges within the classical and social justice model of citizenship rights is a passive one (Lister, 1997). The rights of liberty and equality that this self owns are innate or inherent in nature. The citizen does not have to do something in order to merit these rights, nor is the ownership of rights dependent on the activities in which a citizen may or may not engage (Raphael, 1967; Winston, 1989). Liberty is not understood in this individuated and formal sense within civic republican citizenship models. Rather it is understood in terms of freedom to participate in the political and social institutions of society as an equal member (Lister, 1997). However, participation is defined in a narrow sense through a normative stance where participation in only certain types of activities is considered to be citizenry. In contemporary times,

374 M. Moosa-Mitha these activities have come to be known as the three Ms, as participation in the institutions of marriage, military and the marketplace (Lister, 1997; Siim, 2000). Such a definition of participation reflects a gendered norm as it reflects activities in the military and to an extent in the marketplace that are likely to be more representatives of male activities. It also reflects a heterosexist norm as couples in same-sex relationships are not always free to participate in the institution of marriage (Phelan, 2001). Children, who are not free to participate in any of these activities, would therefore be constructed as secondclass citizens within this adultist view of participation. Freedom to participate is also conceived within a normative stance as only those citizens who possess certain virtues own the freedom to participate. These virtues were historically defined as those of disinterestedness in making decisions for the public good ; independence, rational mindedness. Thus women were excluded as citizens through a construction of women as emotional and dependent as were black people for being incapable of reasoning, etcetera. Whilst to varying degrees women and black adults have fought against these exclusions, children continue to be constructed as notyet-citizens and excluded through the use of a similar type of rationale. The self that emerges in this model of citizenship is both relational as well as active. One s membership in society after all depends on an acknowledgment of other members belonging to that society; it is not simply an individuated exercise (Phelan, 2001). However, due to its normative stance, the active self is limited within normative constructions of what it means to be active (Stastilius, 2002). Difference-centred theorists challenge the non-participatory/participatory divide through which individualist and participatory liberal models define themselves, by fundamentally challenging how participation is interpreted within both these perspectives. By situating their analysis within the lived realities of communities of difference, difference-centred theorists point out that the assumption of the citizen as passively inheriting the rights of liberty and equality is simply not reflective of the lived experiences of citizens who are different. Lister (1997), a feminist who centres difference in her analysis, reflects on the experiences of women and argues that women have never had the privilege of having their rights recognized as being inherent ; instead they have always had to fight for their rights. Lister concludes, using the arguments of some European and black feminist writers (Lourde, 1984; Collins, 1998; Siim, 2000), that one cannot conceive of women s rights outside of the participation that people of difference have engaged in to form particular constructions of civic and political rights. Hence, in the case of communities of difference, formed through organized activism, their rights are not distinguishable from their formal and participatory aspects (Hobson & Lister, 2002). However, difference-centred theorists challenge the definition of participation as it exists within liberal theories by broadening the meaning of participation beyond the private/public split through which it is formed. The notion of participation as individuated autonomous decision-making is contested by pointing out that the law, through which contractual liberals conceive the self to secure their rights of autonomy and privacy, in fact addresses all aspects of citizens lives (Nedelsky, 1990). For example, the law also regulates citizens sexual relationships, which are normally understood as private, through legislation that determines the legal age of consent to sexual relationships. Anti-racists and feminists have broadened civic republican notions of participation within the public arena to include care-related duties as well as local and collective participation within neighbourhood boards as also being another form of political participation (Lister, 1997).

Children s Citizenship Rights 375 While there has been some movement to recognize relational aspects of participation, I would argue that individuated, public spaces continue to be privileged over relational ones, as my analysis of children s rights within a family, which is constructed as a private and autonomous space, makes clearer. Black feminist theorists have expanded the meanings of participation even further by challenging definitions of participation as outcomes driven or externally situated (Lourde, 1984). Situating their analysis within the lives of black women whose participation against injustices that is both racial and gendered has not necessarily resulted in making a difference that is material in nature, both overt and covert acts of resistance against oppression is understood as being participatory (Yuval-Davis, 1997). Hence acts of resistance, such as an inward refusal to believe oneself to be inferior, are also defined as being participatory. This broader definition of participation as the expression of one s agency in the multiple relationships within which citizens are present in society is very important to a re-definition of children s right of freedom of participation as it recognizes different ways of participating. There are two ways by which difference-centred theorists re-define the citizens self. The first is to introduce the idea of the citizen as having active selves, as having agency 6 (Lister, 1997). The second is to define the citizen s self as relational, as a dialogical self, that gains a sense of self through relationships with the other (Yuval-Davies, 1999). Black feminist writers like Patricia Hill Collins (1998, 2000), Patricia Williams (1998, 2000) and Audre Lourde (1984) have theorized about the dialectical relationship that exists between the self and participation in communities of organized resistance against oppression. Agency itself is understood as consisting of the dialectical relationship between individual sense of self and collective action. Citizens agency leads them to participate against oppression, which in turn leads to the gaining of some rights, in turn leading to a greater sense of self-confidence and further politicization of people struggling for rights, and so on (ibid.). It should be noted that the participative self of differencecentred theorists is not to be confused with the responsible self of the neo-liberal and civic republican interpretations of self. The self of difference-centred theorists is a responsive one, showing agency in interacting with its own lived reality and not a responsible one along predicated lines of normative expectations of citizenry duties and obligations (Siim, 2000; Hobson & Lister, 2002). Freedom in difference-centred theories is therefore understood in terms of the right to participate differently in the social institutions and culture of the society. Lack of freedom is defined in terms of a lack of recognition of the participation and contribution of people of difference as a result of their difference from normative assumptions of participation and participants (Hall & Held, 1989). Recognizing people s difference through a shifting of these normative values and practices of society so as to acknowledge the interests, presence, agency of citizen s of difference is viewed in transformatory ways as changing fixed and hegemonic meanings of citizenship for fluid and difference-centred ones (ibid.). Lister (1997) summarizes this point when she says: Citizenship as participation represents an expression of human agency in the political arena, broadly defined: citizenship as rights enables people to act as agents. Moreover, citizenship rights are not fixed. They remain the objects of political struggles to defend, reinterpret and extend them. Who is involved in these struggles, where they are placed in the political hierarchy and the political power and influence

376 M. Moosa-Mitha they can yield will help to determine the outcomes. Citizenship thus emerges as a dynamic concept in which process and outcome stand in a dialectical relationship to each other. (p. 35) This re-interpretation of freedom as recognition of one s agency and therefore one s presence in society through a broader and relational interpretation of participation will be analysed further in relation to a re-articulation of children s rights of freedom. Contesting Interpretation of Equality: Contractual, Civic Republican and Difference-Centred Views The rights of equality are conceived and follow consistently from interpretations of citizens rights of liberty and the assumption of the citizen s self that it entails. The rights of equality refer to citizens relationships with each other as liberty refers to citizens self in contesting theories of citizenship. Contractual views of equality, consistent with their individualist and formal stance, are interpreted as the legal rights of all members of society to be treated with equal dignity and respect under law. Dworkin (1977) defines it as: The weaker members of a political community are entitled to the same concern and respect of their government as the more powerful members have secured for themselves, so that if some men have freedom of decision whatever the effect on the general good, then all men must have the same freedom. (p. 32) Equal respect and concern for all human beings derive their particular interpretation through the Kantian notion that man (Kant only used the male pronoun) of all creatures in nature is endowed with reason and a sense of morality. This makes him the master of his own destiny and of equal worth as all other human beings (Rawls, 1971; Taylor, 1989). As such, human beings cannot be treated as instruments for the fulfilment of another s desire. Man s dignity lies in being seen as an end in himself and not as a means to an end (ibid.). Equality is therefore understood in universal and transcendental terms through a claim of a commonly shared humanity. Such a view also asserts a normative stance that asserts human beings to be of equal worth on the basis of their rational and independent (even autonomous as the phrase end in himself suggests) character. As such equality is predicated on sameness (Phelan, 2001) within contractual liberal views, because those who are not competent in the use of reason, such as very young children, cannot lay claim to their rights of equality. Similarly those who are dependent on the state through the use of social services, or children, who live interdependent lives, are also perceived as being unequal. The right to the same respect gets defined in formal terms as entitlement to an equal redistribution of rights and privileges (Rawls, 1971). Social liberals define equality in a more substantive way by examining the social conditions that enables citizens to participate more equally in society (Marshall, 1975). Yet because participation is understood in formal terms, equality gets defined as equality of opportunity rather than outcome and is also understood as equality of status rather than in structural terms (Siim, 2000; Phelan, 2001). 7

Children s Citizenship Rights 377 Civic republican models interpret equality in relational terms as signifying equal membership and a sense of belonging in society (Phelan, 2001). Membership and belonging is understood as being more than formal in order to signify inclusion within social institutions and the wider culture of society. Inequalities are defined in formal and material terms but also through exclusions that citizens experience when barred from exercising their rights of participation in the public culture (Phelan, 2001). Because participation in the public culture of society is so central to civic republican citizenship models, exclusion from participating in the public culture inevitably results in being excluded from exercising one s citizenship. To be treated as an equal member of society therefore translates as treating the personal concerns of citizens as a matter of public significance (ibid.). This is an important contribution of civic republican notions of equality, one that is central to difference-centred theorists. The obligation of women to contribute equally to society, for example, entails a corresponding obligation of the state to take women s concerns seriously (Phelan, 2001). However, as discussed previously, despite a commitment to equal participation, the history of civic republicans has been that of excluding large segments of the population due to their difference from an assumed norm. One of the ways that people of difference are excluded is through the use of a private/public divide. For example, gay men can participate in the military in the States, but only on the condition that they are not out as gay and keep their sexual orientation private (Phelan, 2001). Thus in this theory, as in contractual models of citizenship, as a result of its commitment to notions of an ideal citizen, equality and membership in society are predicated on sameness. Difference is marginalized, considered a deviation, or inferiorized for being less than ideal. Difference-centred theorists emphasize belonging as fundamental to the interpretation of equality, by grounding their analysis within the subjective experiences of citizens of difference (Gilroy, 1987; Hall & Held, 1989). This subjective experience has been defined as one where the racialized subject participates as a citizen through a contradictory space of embracing one s country even while resisting the particular oppressions within which one experiences one s citizenship (Hall & Held, 1989). Hence citizenship within anti-racist analysis is about a politics of desire, an imaginary citizenship and an imaginary homeland, a telos of citizenship rather than a notion of citizenship as it exists in the present (Gilroy, 1987; Hall & Held, 1989). None of the other models acknowledge this subjective nature of citizenship due to the imposition of normative assumptions of the citizen and citizenship in fixed terms, outside of the views of the citizens themselves. Equality is therefore understood in terms of formal, structural as well as through an examination of normative assumptions and practices of society (Lister, 1997). Power relations that characterize social relationships of dominance and oppression are examined for the inequalities that exist as a result of normative social institutional practices and values (Yuval-Davies, 1999). Difference-centred theorists offer alternative interpretations of equality that are transformatory in nature, where difference is the basis rather than the site of exclusions for membership in society. Yuval-Davies summarizes this shift in definition by positing that instead of the liberal definition of equality as the right of citizens to be equal and different, equality should be re-interpreted to mean that all citizens are differently equal (ibid.). By emphasizing difference first, Yuval-Davies suggests that it is through difference that equality is defined, rather than difference being transcended through a claim to equality.

378 M. Moosa-Mitha Furthermore, while civic republican notions of equality emphasize membership in terms of singular communities and the nation-state, membership is defined in broader terms as existing within groups, between groups and between citizens towards each other as well as the state (Anthias & Yuval-Davies, 1992, 1994). Aboriginal theorists have pointed out (Peterson & Sanders, 1998) the difficulties that liberal societies experience in acknowledging citizens membership within multiple relationships, resulting in Aboriginal people having to choose whether they want to live in the mainstream community and give up their rights of ancestry, or live on designated reservations and give up the right to live within the wider community. Theories of Children s Rights A fundamental demarcation of theorizations of children s rights is constructed around the binary of sameness versus difference. Child liberationists (Franklin, 1986; Holt, 1975; Farson, 1978) view children as being the same as adults and therefore maintain that children should have the same rights as those enjoyed by adults. Child protectionists (Goldstein et al., 1979, 1980), on the other hand, emphasize children s differences from adults and define the rights of children in terms of their status as not-yet-adults. A third perspective on children s rights, the liberal paternalist view (Freeman, 1983, 1992, 1999), attempts to take a middle path between the views of the child liberationists and child protectionists. Children s difference from adults is acknowledged, but not defined within fixed categories; instead children s difference from adults is ascertained on a case-bycase basis, particularly in the case of older children. This fundamental binary of sameness versus difference generates a series of other binaries by which theorizations of children s rights are undertaken, such as parental rights of autonomy versus equality rights of children; or protection versus the participation rights of children. Difference-centred theorists liberates theorizations from these dichotomies by providing a space where childhood is acknowledged as being an important stage in life without reference to adulthood as a norm or standard by which children get constructed as not-yet-adults, where children s difference/s, both real and constructed, is not understood in terms of less-than. Children s Rights of Liberty Two of the three perspectives on children s rights, the child protectionist and the liberal paternalist, reflect contractual and social liberal assumptions of citizenship, where children are viewed in terms of individual rights-bearers and the rights of liberty as the right to autonomous, individuated decision-making. Hence children s capacity to make rational decisions regarding their own best interests, and their ability to live independent lives, becomes the focus for determining children s rights of liberty. The term children is used in an essentialist way as depicting all children in a monolithic sense, or as in the case of liberal paternalists as a group that possesses a singular difference defined with reference to adults. Hence differences of race, gender, class, and so on, while acknowledged in Freeman s writings, do not bear any relevance to his theorizations of children s rights. Also, the rights of freedom are conceived in terms of the formal rights of civic and political freedoms.

Children s Citizenship Rights 379 Child protectionists (Goldstein et al., 1979) view childhood as a natural state that is characterized by physical and psychological immaturity and vulnerability. Children s rights are ascertained by their needs, particularly their need to be loved and nurtured. Children s dependency is therefore used as the reason to emphasize children s rights of protection, and commitment to a teleological principle of beneficence that stresses adults duties to protect the interests of their children. Child protectionists argue, using a formal definition of liberty, that treating children as equal participants is catastrophic for children, as it results in children having to bear responsibilities that are beyond their capacities (ibid.). Liberal paternalists (Freeman, 1983, 1992, 1999) consider childhood to be a social construct that is historically specific, but also emphasize the reality of children s vulnerability and dependency on adults on the basis of their physical immaturity. Using a Rawlsian liberal framework of analysis, Freeman (1983) interprets liberty as autonomy and argues that children s rights of autonomy (that is, individuated decision-making about one s life) should be respected. However, rather than respecting their rights of actual autonomy, children s capacity to be autonomous should be respected. Freeman explains his stance by stating that children as persons of equal worth should be shown regard by protecting them from irrational acts, whilst also granting them rights of autonomy when they show capacity to make independent choices regarding appropriate life choices (Ibid.). Children s capacity to make these choices, according to Freeman, can be ascertained within a neutral theory of good, which provides a standard for measuring children s abilities on a case-by-case basis. This, according to him, entails decisionmaking by adults on behalf of children using the principle of future-oriented consent by which he means that the decisions made by adults would find agreement with children, once they too become adults. The above narrow interpretation of children s rights of liberty as autonomy is also reflected in more recent works by child theorists, who are supportive of the emphasis on children s rights of participation as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Two recent books by Flekkoy and Kaufman (1997) and Covell and Howe (2001) strongly argue for children s rights of participation. In both these books, however, the rights of participation are understood in terms of their capacity for individuated, autonomous decision-making. Feminists have critiqued liberal notions of the children s self that emerge when defining their rights of liberty. Minnow (1996) has argued that to frame children s participation and agency, as being synonymous with competency is problematic. She points out that competencies are not always knowable entities and usually reflect adult ideas of what children know and need. Nor, she adds, is the normative assumption of the adult citizen as independent and autonomous true of all adult citizens (ibid.). Hughes (1996) has critiqued the narrow view where lack of freedom is rationalized on the basis of children s psychological incapacity for rational decision-making, by arguing that children s lack of participation is not just a matter of psychological capacity but also a social one. For Hughes (1996), children s agency is not recognized because they do not have the authority or the authorial presence, where their views or presence is taken seriously in society (p. 46). Child liberationists (Franklin, 1986; Holt, 1975; Farson, 1978) interpret children s rights of liberty in terms of their rights of participation, as equal members of society. Echoing anti-racist and feminist theorists regarding the construction of race and gender,

380 M. Moosa-Mitha they consider childhood to be a social construct created by and in the interest of adults. They assert that childhood is a concept about which very little can be said with certainty (Franklin, 1986; Holt, 1975; Farson, 1978). They regard children to be in unequal power relationships with adults, suffering oppression as a result of it, particularly in the social construction of children as less-than and through an imposed dependency on adults for prolonged periods of time that further adult interests in society. Child liberationists draw on the works of child historians such as Aries (1962), who argued in his seminal book, A History of Childhood, that the construction of childhood changed and evolved through history in response to the specific socio-economic demands of societies. They cite the works of child historians as evidence that children participated as members of society by running their own businesses, getting married, voting and participating in the political processes of the society they lived in during the nineteenth century. Thus, child liberationists argue that children should have the right of freedom to participate in society such as marriage and employment, should they desire to do so. They argue that very young children would not desire to engage in these activities and that it should be left to the children to decide. They point out that adults do not always desire to participate in the political process without detriment to their rights of participation (Holt, 1975). While child liberationists broaden the concept of liberty and rights to include the notion of the child as an active, participative being, they do so by interpreting participation in a normative sense where children are viewed as having the same obligations or responsibilities of participation as do adults. In this case, children are treated as being the same as adults, thus continuing to define children s rights of freedom by overlooking difference, such as the very real difference that exists between very young children and adults. Other writers, using obligation-based theories by which to define children s rights, also treat the participative self as a responsible self, except that they reject that children are the same as adults and therefore conclude that children should not own the rights of free participation. O Neil (1996), for example, negates the use of a rights-based approach to ascertain children s rights because she finds that as true dependants children are in a different position than other oppressed groups struggling for their rights. She suggests children s true dependency is evidence that children have neither the power nor the ability to retain responsibilities, which she considers to be a basis for ownership of rights. Hughes (1996) adds to this perspective by suggesting that to treat children as equals and responsible for the world they find themselves in would be a travesty against children. In arriving at these conclusions, both Hughes and O Neil equate the participative self with the responsible self, which is consistent with civic republican notions of participation. Through a broadening of the concept of participation, by moving beyond formal or normative assumptions of participation, the insights of difference-centred theories provide an alternative envisioning of children s rights of liberty. Participation, understood as an expression of agency, however differently it may be expressed, provides a real alternative by which to understand the participative self that is not limited to notions of the responsible or virtuous self of civic republican models, or the individuated, autonomous self of the individual rights-bearer. Difference-centred models would posit the child as having an active self one that has agency. Thus children may not be responsible for the way the world is, and they may not have the psychological wherewithal to make rational choices but they certainly respond, mitigate, resist, have views about and interact with the social conditions in which they find themselves. Even infants, for example, have a presence

Children s Citizenship Rights 381 and express their agency in a multitude of ways by making their needs, desires, likes and dislikes as well as their joy expressed through acts of crying, laughing and other verbal and non-verbal means of communication. Moreover, children s rights of participation, in the broad sense, would be defined in terms of the multiple relationships that children have in society. Through an acknowledgement of the self as both relational and dialogical, the focus on ascertaining children s rights of participation would be to examine children s participation within interdependent relationships, rather than in terms of their rights of autonomy that emphasizes independence from these relationships. Nedelsky (1989) suggests that we need to re-articulate autonomy so as to address people s right to be in relationships without having to give up their autonomy as a result of it. I would re-define children s rights of freedom, in this associational sense, by examining if children are able to have a presence in the many relationships in which they participate. By presence, I mean the degree to which the voice, contribution and agency of the child is acknowledged in their many relationships. Presence, more than autonomy, acknowledges the self as relational and dialogical, thereby suggesting that it is not enough to have a voice; it is equally important to also be heard in order for one to have a presence in society. Not to recognize the presence of a citizen, be it a child or a black man, is itself a form of oppression. Hence the rights of children to participate freely in society are only ascertainable within the specific socio-historical context within which they encounter barriers to participation. These barriers are formal, structural as well as cultural, where the norms and assumptions of social institutional practices construct children in terms of less-than and therefore overlook their participation and agency that may be different from those of adults. In the theories discussed above, children are constructed as passive by constructing them solely as dependants or needy or irrational. Depending on the specific context, children may well be all of these things, but the reason that this excludes them from their rights of participation is as a result of the normative assumptions of certain liberal theories of the citizens self as independent and autonomous. Indeed, beyond their identity as children, other identity factors such as race, gender, and so on will also lead to differential experiences of participation within a society marked through white, patriarchal practices and norms. Various ethnographic studies that have examined cultural practices that children participate in have made the point that children s contribution to the wider culture of society is overlooked through a construction of these activities as not-real or transient (Amit-Talai & Wulff, 1995). Through a normative, adultist assumption that overlooks childhood as a real time in one s life, the wider society continues to overlook children s participation and agency in society. As a result of adultist norms that characterize the social relationships within which children interact, their agency as expressed in their participation in cultural activities that are different is overlooked. Alternative articulation of children s rights of freedom would address children s agency as participative beings, as well as examine the normative assumptions of social institutional practices that bar children s participation either by overlooking it or by actively condemning it. In an ethnographic study that I undertook with former sexually exploited children, I found a clear reflection of societal practices and assumptions that consistently ignored or criminalized children s agency and participation in the many relationships within which they interacted. In relation to the normative assumption of children as passive, I found that the narratives of the research participants contested this assumption as they recounted their

382 M. Moosa-Mitha experiences, testifying to their active presence in what were very oppressive relationships. I found in the narratives of the research participants that even at a very young age, they were active in responding, negotiating, strategizing in an effort to mitigate the oppressive conditions that they experienced in their family, school as well as neighbourhoods. Yet they remained alone in doing so, while teachers, parents, and other adults in the neighbourhood consistently blamed and punished them for rebelling or for voicing opposition to oppression. Upon entering the sex trade, their legal rights 8 are constructed through a dichotomy where sexually exploited children are either viewed as victims or as criminals. They are victims if an adult is caught buying sex from them and as criminals if they are caught selling sex. Through a normative discourse that constructs children as sexually innocent, the only possibility that exists for children who participate in the sex trade is one of victimhood. Being caught transgressing that norm, by actively soliciting in selling sex, results in treating them as criminals under the same criminal charges as are used against adult prostitutes. It is as though their legal rights, themselves reflections of normative social practices, have determined that a child who shows agency in participating in sexual relationships can no longer be conceived of as a child, but has to be treated as an adult and punished for it. Acknowledging children have agency, in this case as participating in the sex trade, does not mean that children are responsible for being in the trade, nor should recognition of agency be treated as synonymous with the positive use of agency. Indeed children suffer grave harm when working in the sex trade, and are not responsible for being in the trade, but they certainly are responsive and many make meaning of their presence in the trade in ways that are far more complicated than a normative victim discourse allows. Children s rights of protection, as they are presently conceived, overlook children s presence in their many relationships and construct them within a participation/protection dichotomy, where protection is conditional on non-participation. This, as Stastilius (2002) suggests, denies them the rights of protection when they need it most. Children s rights of participation must address and empower children s agency in resisting the oppressions that they may be facing in ways that have their basis in an acknowledgement of children s right to participate in this resistance and not by overlooking it through a construction of children as victims. Children s Rights of Equality The concept of belonging is as central to theorizations of children s rights of equality as participation is in defining their rights of freedom, particularly within difference-centred theories of citizenship that conceive of citizenship in terms of membership in the public culture. Liberals privilege the relationship of the child in the family, and focus primarily on the relationships of the family and the state in their theorizations. Difference-centred theorists examine the multiple relationships, including children s relationships within educational, health, neighbourhood and other social institutions through which to analyse children s experiences of belonging. Moreover, the state is considered to be neutral in its relationship to the family and the children of those families. Difference-centred theorists perceive the state, and the family to reflect the normative assumptions and values of the wider culture within which these and other social institutions participate. Hence children s rights of equality within differencecentred theories would acknowledge the subjective experiences of belonging, as well as

Children s Citizenship Rights 383 the norms and practices of social institutions that children have relationships with and which mark their experiences of belonging, particularly as inflected by their social identity such as race, age and gender. According to the child protectionist and liberal paternalist view, the family, in particular the parents, occupies an autonomous space as a private space existing outside of state interference. This notion of the family as constituting a private space has a long tradition in liberal theory, going as far back as Locke, Hobbes and Rousseau, all of whom treated the family as a small republic, at the helm of which was the father (Greene, 1979; Cafagna, 1982; Santilli, 1982). These assumptions of parental autonomy and the family s right of privacy are therefore constructed as being in a dichotomous relationship to children s rights of equality within liberalism, which defines equality in terms of state intervention, with an emphasis on protecting the interests of all citizens equally. Parental autonomy therefore becomes the mediating point in determining children s equality rights in liberal models where state intervention is only found acceptable when parents palpably show evidence of not fulfilling their obligations towards their children. Hence child abuse constitutes the main rationale for state intervention and even in that case the premise of parental autonomy is not rejected; rather the individual parents are conceived as having acted inappropriately. The state then intervenes by taking their place, through the exercise of the legal principle of parens patriae, thus replicating the power relationships of adult control, in which these children find themselves. Child protectionists (Goldstein et al., 1979) clearly reflect this stance through a theory that uses psychological and other social sciences as the knowledge base by which to privilege the child s relationship in the family over any other as being the most natural space of belonging for the child. Moreover, child protectionists further assert that parents are best able to undertake their parenting tasks, so important to the needs of children, if they are confident in the knowledge that the state will not arbitrarily interfere with their parenting. Children s rights of equality are therefore only defined in terms of their legal rights of protection by the state in case they suffer harm at the hands of their parents. In that case child protectionists concede that the state should intervene but only in such a way as to replicate the familial situation where children are cared for by another set of parents. Liberal paternalists, in subscribing to a contractual Rawlsian view of citizenship, also interpret children s rights of equality in formal terms, as the equal distribution of rights and privileges (Freeman, 1992, 1999). As with Rawls, Freeman arrives at the conclusion that in the interest of children s rights of equality, parents, and if necessary the state, have an obligation, one that is paternalistic, of providing children with the necessary social conditions and opportunities to develop their ability to exercise their rights of equality. Lack of ability to make independent judgements and children s dependent status are invoked in arriving at this definition of equality in terms of equality of opportunity, where children are constructed as not-yet-adults. In the case of children as well, equality is defined as sameness and children as less-than and in need of paternalist intervention until they are the same as adults. According to this view, children s rights of equality also continue to be treated within a public/private dichotomy. For example, Freeman (1992) rationalizes intervention of the state by arguing that the protection of children s rights may depend on the infringing of parental autonomy and family privacy (p. 48). Child liberationists (Holt, 1975; Farson, 1978) argue that children are equal members of society and should have the same rights of participation, as do adults in society. They too invoke the notion of the family as a private space, but they condemn it on the basis of its

384 M. Moosa-Mitha oppressive character, from which children should be released in cases when their liberty is stifled. Rather than a future-oriented view of children as eventually becoming the same as adults, child liberationists consider children to already be the same as adults and therefore as owning equal rights as adults. In more recent research on children s rights, Covell and Howe (2001) attempt to break this binary. They argue against the view that children are parental property and affirm the state s responsibility to intervene in children s lives through the use of proactive and preventive programs that can act as resources for parents in helping them cope with parenting difficulties that they may encounter. Similarly, they argue for greater intervention by the state to address harmful social conditions in which children grow up, citing child poverty levels as a particular concern that could lead to lifelong structural inequalities in children s lives. Yet their contestation is limited because although they do attempt to dismantle the parental autonomy/children s equality binary, they continue to envisage the space of the family as distinct and separate from other social institutions. Moreover, children s right of equality continues to be defined within a normative stance, where equality is defined through the exercise of their formal rights of equal protection. Feminist theorists (Ruddick, 1982; Pateman, 1992; Boyden, 1993; Stephens, 1995) argue against this public/private binary. They theorize that the role of the family is to support the state by acting as a socializing site for the next generation of citizens. One of the ways by which this is accomplished is through the family s role as a consumer unit sustaining the economic structure of the capitalist system. Hence, these feminists argue that there is nothing essentially private about the family. Moreover, like other social institutions, the family too participates in the normative assumptions and practices of society. The space of the family therefore reflects public assumptions and norms that are gendered and adultist (Boyden, 1993; Stephens, 1995). Gendered norms of the social culture, for example, also result in differential experiences of equality where children and women may have lesser rights of equality than does the father who is considered the head of the family, both within and outside the family (Ruddick, 1982; Pateman, 1992). Okin (1989), a feminist theorist, has long argued that relationships within the family should be regulated through principles of social justice much as any other social institution. Moreover, the public nature of the family is particularly visible in the case of families of difference, whose rights of autonomy are less likely to be enforced. Single mother families are more likely to be intruded upon by the state, with less regard for the mother s rights of autonomy. Similarly families that are different from the heterosexual, middleclass, white norm presumed of families, also known as open textured families, are more deliberately surveyed and regulated by state institutions (Ruddick, 1982). This is also evidenced in the case of Aboriginal populations in Canada where the private/public construction was easily dismantled as the state intruded in the lives of families by removing the children from their homes and villages in order to send them to residential schools. Difference-centred perspectives define equality in broader terms than ownership of the formal rights of equality, locating it instead in the lived experiences of exclusion that citizens encounter as a result of their difference from the norm assumed and reflected in social institutional practices and beliefs. To belong as less-than an equal, within a cultural and relational notion of equality, is to be treated as though one s personal concerns or

Children s Citizenship Rights 385 interests do not count as being of public significance. Yet it is in the public culture, within mainstream values and norms, that experiences of inclusion and exclusion occur in citizens lives. Normative assumptions of the family as a separate and private space already place children at a disadvantage where only legally defined norms of harm counts as being significant enough for intervention by the state. Child poverty, for example, can be as harmful as is child abuse, yet children do not have recourse through equality rights to be protected from poverty. In the study that I undertook with former sexually exploited children, I found that the oppression that they experience within their families did not always reflect normative definitions of abuse. For example, I found many instances of gendered oppression where female research participants were clearly told by their fathers that they would not amount to much as they were only girls. Gendered oppression was also clear when children were forced to watch their mothers being physically abused by their fathers. Similarly, their narratives also showed examples of other social institutions that also engaged in gendered, racialized and heterosexist normative practices through which children were marginalized and felt excluded. Racism was either ignored or perpetuated by teachers and other school personnel. Male research participants narrated instances of teachers locking them into closets if they were caught playing with dolls, school counsellors engaged in adultist practices where they colluded with parents to blame the child for their problems. Similarly neighbourhoods were also fearful places as children were often bullied or physically and sexually abused because they looked vulnerable. The marginalization that these children faced within the multiple relationships that they interacted with prior to entering the sex trade only intensified manifold once they entered the sex trade. The public, that is, residents, police officers, health centre professionals and so on, did not take kindly to children s presence on street corners. The transgressing of normative expectations of children as sexually innocent and as belonging in the home resulted in multiple forms of abuse being heaped on them that cannot be accounted for within formal liberal notions of rights. The research participants spoke of being harassed or whistled at, having pennies thrown at them or jeered by members of the public. A few of the research participants spoke of maltreatment by the police; in two instances, when they complained of date rape, the police officers responded by saying What do you expect if you are going to sell your body? Similar attitudes were also expressed by health nurses and social workers. An alternative view of children s rights of equality would focus on normative assumptions and beliefs of social institutions that are gendered, racialized and adultist, and which exclude children from belonging as equals both within and outside the family. What counts for injustice, harm or oppression would be based on children s experiences of exclusion, both in ways that centre their voice and also in ways that are not prescribed solely within normative views of harm. The assumption that children naturally belong in the home is a most striking example of this, because children, according to my study, were put into different foster homes up to 10 or 11 times, where they faced abuse and ran away. Yet social services refused to consider alternate places for these children to live that was safer, because that would have meant removing them outside of adult care. Children s needs continued to be overlooked by almost every institution as being of no public significance as they continued to be overlooked within the social norms, institutions and values in society.

386 M. Moosa-Mitha Conclusion Over the course of this article I have argued for alternative ways of articulating children s rights that are difference-centred and take their rights of citizenship seriously. Through a discussion of contractual and civic republican views of the concepts of liberty and equality I have critiqued the formal, individuated and normative stance of liberal theories that result in an articulation of children s rights that treat children as not-yet-adults. Cultural and relational interpretations of citizenship that perceive individuals as members of the public culture of which they are citizens and as living within multiple and interdependent relationships with each other, such as articulated within difference-centred theories, are, I have argued, particularly suitable in defining children s citizenship rights. Rather than defining children s rights of freedom using normative assumptions of freedom as autonomy or freedom in terms of obligatory participation, I have argued that children s presence and agency, differentially expressed, should be recognized and empowered within the wider culture. In doing so the normative stance of social institutional assumptions and practices within which children interact need to be challenged. I have also argued that alternative analysis of children s rights of equality would address their rights to belong as differently equal members of society, outside the private/public dichotomy that results in marginalizing children s interests and needs as private as reflected in adultist norms and social practices of the public culture. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers, Ruth Lister, Sadru Jetha and Lena Dominelli for sharing their insights and providing me with feedback on an earlier draft of this article. Notes 1 See Freeman (1983, 1992, 1999); Goldstein et al. (1979, 1980); Flekkoy and Kaufman (1997); Franklin (1986); amongst many others. 2 Not all social justice claims based on difference are seen as equally legitimate. As Mouffe (1993) suggests, only those difference-centred claims that are liberatory and address themselves to the emancipating of people s lives from oppression are seen as the basis for anti-racist feminist theorizations of citizenship rights. 3 I use the term keywords as defined by Raymond Williams (1976), where he describes how certain key concepts evolve through contestation and debate, as their meanings are continuously re-interpreted and reframed. He argues that conversations around key concepts constitute the basis for explaining the emergence of alternative definitions and theoretical frameworks. In a similar fashion, my analysis will centre on the conversations that arise around some key concepts between liberal and difference-centred discussions of citizenship rights. 4 I refer to the term children as representing a heterogeneous collectivity, which includes the entire spectrum of children from their infancy to the age of 18, that age which legally defines childhood in most societies. 5 Rawls (1971) envisions liberty to be the first and primary principles by which liberal democratic societies govern themselves as a socially just one. Equality is the second of these two principles and falls beneath the principle of liberty within a Rawlsian hierarchy of liberalism. 6 Giddens (1990) states that agency refers to the use of one s resources and abilities to respond to another s, or several others, use of their resources and abilities. Moreover, as Dominelli (2002) points out, one can use one s agency in positive or negative ways. Agency implies an active self not necessarily an active self that uses its agency in a positive way.

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