Book contents
- Child Rights, Legal Theory and Social Advocacy
- Child Rights, Legal Theory and Social Advocacy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Child and Human Rights
- 2 The Monist Construction of the Child
- 3 The Complex Intersectionality of the Child
- 4 Heard but Unable to Speak
- 5 The Child in the Child Rights Movement
- 6 The Child in the Exception
- 7 The Monist Pull of Universalization
- 8 The Monist Child-Rights Identity and Universal Positivism
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - The Monist Child-Rights Identity and Universal Positivism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 November 2024
- Child Rights, Legal Theory and Social Advocacy
- Child Rights, Legal Theory and Social Advocacy
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 The Child and Human Rights
- 2 The Monist Construction of the Child
- 3 The Complex Intersectionality of the Child
- 4 Heard but Unable to Speak
- 5 The Child in the Child Rights Movement
- 6 The Child in the Exception
- 7 The Monist Pull of Universalization
- 8 The Monist Child-Rights Identity and Universal Positivism
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The monist construction of the child-rights identity serves an important purpose of shielding the child from the harmful and abusive social and traditional practices that is part of the everyday life of so many children. However, its downside is that it does not allow children to exercise self-determination in the shaping of their own identity. The power to shape your identity sits at the heart of modern democracy and ideas of inclusion and equality. Complex intersectionality will allow the child to both maintain the protection that comes with its monist construction while also allowing for self-determination that takes the social context of the concrete child into consideration. This together with a deliberate practice of self-critique to challenge false hegemonic consciousness of the image of the child it thinks it serves. This might prepare child rights to serve a forceful and relevant theory for advocates to lean on when we are entering the full effects of the climate crisis, and this will be the most significant stress test of our democratic system we as a world community have experienced to this day.
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- Child Rights, Legal Theory and Social Advocacy , pp. 174 - 182Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024