Critical Theory: A Life-Worlds Approach
Reynaert, D. (2024). Critical Theory: A Life-Worlds Approach. In N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood. Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool.
In this session, Didier Reynaert introduces Life-worlds as a critical tool for the study of childhood through an exploration of phenomenology, social movements studies, how they frame the concept of ‘life-worlds’, and how they enable developing a critical approach to children’s rights.
The session looks at the problems with the dominant childhood and children’s rights paradigm, particularly its legalism, the problem with homogenising ‘childhood’, and its technocratic and decontextualised practices. It introduces the concept of Life-Worlds as a perspective which may allow to overcome these issues.
It looks at studies of reality through the lived experience of real children as its starting point, it looks at the concept of life-worlds and how it reframes our understanding of scientific study, and explores the relationship between subjective life-worlds and historical and social contexts.
It explores, moreover, the role of Social Movements studies as a valuable perspective to have a grass-roots understanding of childhood. It, finally, presents the core tenets that a critical approach to childhood must take.
Key issues addressed:
- What is the problem with dominant childhood discourses?
- A Phenomenological perspective on scientific study.
- The concept of Life-Worlds.
- The relationship between Subjective and Intersubjective life-worlds.
- Social Movements studies
- Core elements of a Critical approach to children’s rights.
Life-Worlds and Childhood
Viterbo, H. and Reynaert, D. (2024). Life-Worlds and Childhood. In N. Brando, D. Lawson and H. Stalford (eds.) Children in Theory: Theoretical Methods and Approaches to the Study of Childhood. Online Masterclass Series. University of Liverpool.
Springing from the introduction to a Life-World approach to children’s rights, Hedi Viterbo and Didier Reynaert discuss the potential of critical approaches in providing new normative structures for children’s rights. Delving deeper into the relationship and tensions between the Law and the realities of childhood, and how critical legal theory and critical human rights scholarship can feed into this conversation. Among the issues addressed are the following questions:
- How can a Life-Worlds perspective of children’s rights be put into practice?
- What is the value and limitations of the fluidity and ambiguity in the law for creating new children’s rights practice more amenable to children’s life-worlds?
- How should we deal with the problem of essentialising the concept of ‘childhood’? Should we get rid of it?
- The conversation engages with issues of child poverty, child punishment, and children in residential care.
Further References and Sources
- For an more in-depth study of critical approaches to children’s rights see the Children’s Law and Policy Network video series, titled 'Child Rights - A Critical Introduction'.
Phenomenology in Theory
- Habermas, J. (1987). The theory of communicative action. Vol. 2: Lifeworld and system: A critique of functionalist reason. Boston, MA: Bacon Press.
- Husserl, Edmund (1970). The crisis of European sciences and transcendental phenomenology. Northwestern University Press.
- van Manen M, and van Manen M. (2021). ‘Doing Phenomenological Research and Writing.’ Qualitative Health Research. 31(6):1069-1082.
Phenomenology in Practice
- Grunwald, K. & Hans Thiersch (2009)The concept of the ‘lifeworld orientation’ for social work and social care, Journal of Social Work Practice, 23:2, 131-146.
- Ife, Jim. (2009). Human Rights from Below. Cambridge University Press.
- van Manen M, and van Manen M. (eds.) (2020). Classic Writings for a Phenomenology of Practice. Routledge.
Critical Approaches of Children’s Rights
- Cordero Arce, M. C. (2012). Towards an emancipatory discourse of children’s rights. The international journal of children's rights, 20(3), 365-421.
- Cordero Arce, M. C. (2015). Maturing children’s rights theory: From children, with children, of children. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 23(2), 283-331.
- Hanson. K. and Olga Nieuwenhuys (eds.) (2013). Reconceptualizing Children's Rights in International Development: Living Rights, Social Justice, Translations (Cambridge University Press).
- Liebel, M. (2023). Childhoods of the Global South: Children’s Rights and Resistance (Policy Press)
- Pupavac, V. (2001). ‘Misanthropy Without Borders: The International Children’s Rights Regime’ Disasters 25: 95–112.
- Quennerstedt, A. (2013). Children’s rights research moving into the future–Challenges on the way forward. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 21(2), 233-247.
- Reynaert, D., & Roose, R. (2016). Children’s Rights: A Framework to Eliminate Social Exclusion? Critical Discussions and Tensions. In Handbook of Children's Rights (pp. 58-74).
- Reynaert, D., Bouverne-De Bie, M., & Vandevelde, S. (2012). Between ‘believers’ and ‘opponents’: Critical discussions on children’s rights. The International Journal of Children's Rights, 20(1), 155-168.
- Reynaert, D., Bouverne-de-Bie, sM., & Vandevelde, S. (2009). A review of children’s rights literature since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Childhood, 16(4), 518-534.
- Roose, R., & Bouverne-De Bie, M. (2007). Do children have rights or do their rights have to be realised? The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a frame of reference for pedagogical action. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(3), 431-443.
- Vandenhole, W. Ellen Desmet, Didier Reynaert, and Sara Lembrechts (eds.) (2015), Routledge International Handbook of Children's Rights Studies (Routledge).
- Viterbo, H. (2023). ‘Critical Childhood Studies Meets Critical Legal Scholarship,’ in Sarada Balagopalan, John Wall, and Karen Wells (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Theories in Childhood Studies (Bloomsbury) 349–364.
This project has been developed by members of the European Children’s Rights Unit with the support of the British Academy’s Newton International Fellowship award No. NIFBA19\190492KU. For more information on the series, please contact Nico Brando.