Colonialism and the colonization of childhoods
It is said that the Negro loves to jabber; in my own case, when I think of the word jabber I see a gay group of children calling and shouting for the sake of calling and shouting – children in the midst of play, to the degree to which play can be considered an initiation into life. The Negro loves to jabber, and from this theory, it is not a long road that leads to a new proposition: The Negro is just a child. The psychoanalysts have a fine start here, and the term orality is soon heard. (Frantz Fanon. Black Skin. White Masks, [1952]1986: 15–16)
Although generalizations are of course dangerous, colonialism and colonialization basically mean organization, arrangement. The two words derive from the Latin word colĕre, meaning to cultivate or to design. Indeed, the historical colonial experience does not and obviously cannot reflect the peaceful connotations of these words. But it can be admitted that the colonists (those settling a region), as well as the colonialists (those exploiting a territory by dominating a local majority) have all tended to organize and transform non-European areas into fundamentally European constructs. (V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa, 1988: 1)
Introduction
In order to develop a concept of childhoods in postcolonial and decolonizing contexts, it is necessary to understand the connections between colonialization and childhood.
Childhood is understood here equally as a form of being a child and a discourse about this form of being (Alderson, 2013). Both dimensions should not be confused, but also should not be separated. The history of childhood is closely intertwined with changes in the modes of production and reproduction of societies, in the modern European era particularly with the development of the capitalist mode of production and the rise of the bourgeoisie to the ruling class. They have led to a spatial separation of the production and reproduction sphere and the localization of women and children in the small family, which is organized as a private space. In this context, new normative conceptions of a childhood have emerged, which were conceived beyond the production sphere as a ‘pedagogical province’ (Goethe), ‘family childhood’ and finally also as ‘school childhood’ (see Hendricks, 2011). To this extent, the history of childhood is always a history of the ideas and conceptions of childhood. They gain a life of their own and influence the way in which children are treated. They also influence how children perceive themselves, and what opportunities are available to them and are used by them. Here I now argue that childhood, as well as the ideas and conceptions of childhood that have been developed in Europe since the late Middle Age, are closely linked to the colonialization of other continents in many ways.
The concept of childhood, separated from adult life, ‘liberated’ of productive tasks but also directed to the margin of society, arose almost simultaneously with the ‘discovery’ and colonialization of the world outside of Europe. The subjugation and exploitation of the colonies, first in America, then in Africa and Asia, formed their material prerequisites by creating a class living in material prosperity in the ‘mother countries’, which could privatize their children and place them in a reserve of rearing and care. On the other hand, the conquest of the colonies constituted the model for the subjugation and ‘education’ of the domestic children, whether of the ruling classes, or the subaltern classes, so that we can rightly speak of a colonization of childhood or the modern childhood as a kind of colony. This perspective also served as a model for early childhood science, which was aimed at the control and perfection of childhood. Conversely, the construction of childhood as an immature pre-stage of adulthood constituted the matrix for the degradation of people of any age in the colonies as immature beings, which were still to be developed and civilized, as expressed in Hegel’s famous dictum of Africa as a ‘land of childhood’ (Hegel [1837]2001). Looking at the postcolonial constellation, questions arise around how childhood research can learn from history, how to account for its own entanglement, and how to use critical postcolonial thoughts for the understanding and analysis of today’s childhoods.
A few words on the use of the concepts of colonialism, colonialization and colonization, which are here addressed in various contexts and meanings. Under colonialism I follow Osterhammel’s (2005: 16–17) understanding. According to him, colonialism is:
… a relationship of domination between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders. The fundamental decisions affecting the lives of the colonized people are made and implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in distant metropolis. Rejecting cultural compromises with the colonized population, the colonizers are convinced of their own superiority and of their ordained mandate to rule.
In encyclopaedias or dictionaries, the concepts of colonialization and colonization are mostly understood synonymously, but in two different directions: a) in the sense of the exploration of a natural space not previously used for human purposes; b) in the sense of subjugating a territory, including the population living there, as a colony. The former is identified with the extension of human settlements to virgin forests, deserts, moors, districts, and similar difficult-to-use natural areas within a national territory (sometimes referred to as ‘internal colonization’). In contrast, the second sense is identified with the establishment of colonies outside an existing territory (‘external colonization’) and corresponds to the above-mentioned understanding of colonialism. One problem with this distinction is that in reality it is often not clear (where there are still uninhabited areas in the sense of Terra Nullius) and the states themselves can extend their borders, or according to their own (military and economic) power claim spheres of influence and ownership beyond their national borders. I will only use the concepts of colonialization and colonization here in the second meaning. However, I propose an extension by referring the term not only to spaces and areas but also to living persons and their inducement. In the first case, I prefer the concept of colonialization; in the second case, that of colonization. This corresponds to a proposal by Maria do Mar Castro Varela (2015: 23), who distinguishes the terms de-colonialization and decolonization as follows:
If de-colonialization signifies the formal independence of a former colonized country, the concept of decolonization aims at the ongoing process of liberation from a rule that determines thought and action.
In the first part of this chapter, I shall discuss the mental connections between the emergence of the European-bourgeois childhood pattern and the colonialization of foreign continents. I will then trace the dialectic of education or literacy and power in the colonial and postcolonial relations. In the second part, I will trace how, in the 1960s and 1970s, the discourse on the ‘colonization of childhood’ arose and finally was linked with postcolonial theories. Finally, I will shed light on some ambivalences of European-bourgeois childhood construction with regard to colonialization and decolonization.
Colonialization as a childhood project
An essential feature of the modern European concept of childhood is the idea of imagining the child as imperfect and in a developing stage before adulthood. This not only justifies the need for strict control and education of children, but also justifies the subjugation of the people