Manchester University Press Refiguring Childhood: Encounters with Biosocial Power (Social and Political Power)

Refiguring childhood stages a series of encounters with biosocial power, which demarcates a specific zone of intensity within the more encompassing arena of biopower and biopolitics. Attentive to the contingency of childhood - the ways in which particular childhoods are constituted and configured - the method used in the book is a transversal genealogy that moves between past and present, and across a series of discourses and practices framed by children's rights (the right to play), citizenship, health, disadvantage, and entrepreneurship education. With an emphasis on the how, where and when of biosocial power, Refiguring childhood will appeal to researchers and students interested in examining the relationship between power and childhood through the lens of social and political theory, sociology, cultural studies, history, and geography. From the Inside Flap Refiguring childhood stages a series of encounters with biosocial power, which is a specific zone of intensity within the more encompassing arena of biopower and biopolitics. Assembled at the intersection of thought and practice, biosocial power attempts to bring envisioned futures into the present, taking hold of life in the form of childhood, thereby bridging being and becoming while also shaping the power relations that encapsulate the social and cultural world(s) of adults and children. Taking up a critical perspective that is attentive to the contingency of childhoods the ways in which particular childhoods are constituted and configured this book offers a transversal genealogy that moves between past and present while also crossing a series of discourses and practices framed by childrens rights (the right to play), citizenship, health, disadvantage and entrepreneurship education. The overarching analysis converges on contemporary neoliberal enterprise culture, which is approached as a conjuncture that helps to explain, and also to trouble, the growing emphasis on the agency and rights of children. It is against the backdrop of this problematic that the book makes its case for refiguring childhood, focusing on the how, where and when of biosocial power. From the Back Cover Refiguring childhood stages a series of encounters with biosocial power, which is a specific zone of intensity within the more encompassing arena of biopower and biopolitics. Assembled at the intersection of thought and practice, biosocial power attempts to bring envisioned futures into the present, taking hold of life in the form of childhood, thereby bridging being and becoming while also shaping the power relations that encapsulate the social and cultural world(s) of adults and children. Taking up a critical perspective that is attentive to the contingency of childhoods - the ways in which particular childhoods are constituted and configured - this book offers a transversal genealogy that moves between past and present while also crossing a series of discourses and practices framed by children's rights (the right to play), citizenship, health, disadvantage and entrepreneurship education. The overarching analysis converges on contemporary neoliberal enterprise culture, which is approached as a conjuncture that helps to explain, and also to trouble, the growing emphasis on the agency and rights of children. It is against the backdrop of this problematic that the book makes its case for refiguring childhood, focusing on the how, where and when of biosocial power. About the Author Kevin Ryan is Lecturer in Political Theory at the National University of Ireland Galway