Element for a genealogy of contemporary child subjectivity based on critical-scientific discourses about childhood

• Autor(a) principal: Erica Atem GonÃalves de AraÃjo Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFC
• Texto Completo: http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=145
• topic: GENEALOGIA; SUBJETIVIDADE; INFANCIA; genealogy; subjectivity; childhood; CIENCIAS HUMANAS

This research discusses the naturalization of the idea of a âchild with a sayâ in contemporary critical-scientific discourses. This conception was constituted in these discourses so as to criticize the idea of modern childhood, related, among other things, to notions of immaturity and dependence on adults. The figure of subjectivity âchild with a sayâ is used to justify an ensemble of varied practices â juridical (âchild-witnessâ), political (âcitizen child"), mediatic (âprotagonist childâ), educational (âcompetent childâ) â which aims at investing on the child figure for which the constitution of a child as a subject of opinion and representation is determinant. The analysis of this discursive field â which comprises Sociology of Childhood, Anthropology of Childhood, Pedagogy of Childhood and Social Psychology â based on M. Foucaultâs archaeo-genealogy, identified the kinds of statements present in this network, as well as the kind of discourse used. It was noticed that the functioning of these discourses depends on some presuppositions, which, in this research, are denominated mechanisms of critical discursivity. They are: the development of the concept representations of childhood and child, the constitution of the adult as an interdictor, the rediscovery of childhood, speech as a natural possibility and the idealization of the âchildhood with a speechâ. It was concluded that such presuppositions cooperate to produce the âchildhood with a speechâ as evidence, to which knowledge must devote itself and experience. Finally, an assemblage of investigation lines were elaborated and served as a base for the constitution of a genealogy of this subjectivity figure, typical of present times.