Toward a Feminist Anthropology of Childhood

Beginning with the author's experience of joining a Child and Youth Studies department as a feminist anthropologist, the paper reviews the historically weak links between feminism, anthropology and child research. It then draws attention to a newer sociology and anthropology of childhood that is more closely engaged with feminism. Examples of anthropological work that foreground gendered children are used to prompt a re-visiting of the authors' own anthropological work on Irish Travelling People, and to demonstrate the possibilities of a feminist anthropology of childhood.En debutant par l'expcrience que l'auteure a eu en se joignant a un departement d'Etudes de l'enfant et de la jeunesse en tant qu'anthropologue feministe, l'article revoit les points faibles qui existent historiquement entre le feminisme, l'anthropologie, et la recherche sur l'enfant. Cela, alors attire l'attention sur une nouvelle sociologie et anthropologic de l'enfance, qui s'engage encore plus etroitement avec l'anthropologie feministe de l'enfance. Des examples de travail anthropologique qui met en premier plan les enfants qui sont classes par sexe et qui sont utilises pour pousser a revoir l'oeuvre anthropologique de l'auteur sur les gens du voyage de l'lrlande

“I’ll be more prepared than most people”: Very young Canadian workers talking about their first jobs

We report on interviews with very young Canadian workers regarding their first jobs, with a focus on why they started working, the rewards and risks of their work, and their familial supports. Our participants were largely positive about their early work experiences, although they also raised concerns, e.g. about safety. We reflect on three inter-related themes emerging from their accounts: competence and vulnerability, independence and dependence, and protection and under-protection

Reflections on Using Participant-Generated, Digital Photo-Elicitation in Research With Young Canadians About Their First Part-Time Jobs

Participant-generated photo-elicitation usually involves inviting participants to take photographs, which are then discussed during a subsequent interview or in a focus group. This approach can provide participants with the opportunity to bring their own content and interests into research. Following other child and youth researchers, we were drawn to the potential of participant-generated photo-elicitation to offer a methodological counterweight to existing inequalities between adult researchers and younger participants. In this article, we reflect on our use of one-on-one, participant-generated photo-elicitation interviews in a Canadian-based research project looking at young people’s earliest paid work. We discuss some of the challenges faced when it came to gaining institutional ethics approval and also report on how the method was unexpectedly but productively altered by participants’ use of publicly accessible Internet images to convey aspects of their work. Overall, we conclude that participant-generated photo-elicitation democratized the research process and deepened our insights into young people’s early work and offer some recommendations for future photo-elicitation research

The global imbalances and the contradictions of US monetary hegemony

Over the last decade, the world economy has been characterised by escalating global current account imbalances between the United States (US) and East Asia in particular. This article argues that US monetary hegemony has been a necessary condition for the emergence of these imbalances. It is contended that the notion of structural power is indispensable to understanding the nature of US monetary hegemony and its relation to the imbalances. US monetary structural power has both induced East Asian states to increase their accumulation of dollar-denominated assets and allowed the US to decrease its savings. The article also shows that the mechanisms of US structural monetary power contain several contradictory dynamics that are able to undermine its own purpose, which is to avoid the burden of adjustment to balance-of-payments disequilibria. Journal of International Relations and Development (2010) 13, 105-135. doi:10.1057/jird.2009.3