Giving Voice to Children's Voices: Practices and Problems, Pitfalls and Potentials

In this article, I explore the lessons that the anthropological debates of the 1980s about writing culture might have for contemporary childhood research within anthropology and the social sciences more generally. I argue that the current rhetoric about "giving voice to children," commonplace both inside and outside the academy, poses a threat to the future of childhood research because it masks a number of important conceptual and epistemological problems. In particular, these relate to questions of representation, issues of authenticity, the diversity of children's experiences, and children's participation in research, all of which need to be addressed by anthropologists in their own research practices with children. Unless anthropologists do so, childhood research risks becoming marginalized once more and will fail to provide an arena within which children are seen as social actors who can provide a unique perspective on the social world about matters that concern them as children.     

Solidarity, children and research

While research on children is supported by many professional guidelines, international declarations and domestic legislation, when it is undertaken on children with no possibility of direct benefit it rests on shaky moral foundations. A number of authors have suggested that research enrolment is in the child's best interests, or that they have a moral duty or societal obligation to participate. However, these arguments are unpersuasive. Rather, I will propose in this paper that research participation by children seems most reasonable when considered as an act of solidarity; a form of identification with, and provision of practical assistance to, those who are less well off. This is an articulation of the view that many children, and their parents, seem to take seriously the suffering of others, and wish to assist in advancing other children's wellbeing. Perhaps, by fostering an environment in which children are encouraged to take solidarity seriously, participation in research which holds out substantial hope of benefit to those less well off would come to be perceived as a behavioural norm rather than an exceptional practice.     

Street working children in lima: The child's ‘Surcharge’ between survival strategies and socialisation

Child labour is usually analysed within the framework of exploitation. This essay is an attempt to analyse children's economic activities in the street using the concept ‘surcharge”, which may be defined as a child's negative experience of overload or over work. In the comparison between dissatisfactory and satisfactory working conditions, it has been argued that the first is linked not only to a lack of protection, but also to a lack of autonomy and recognition. Analyses include examinations of extreme conditions, different representations of the family, childhood and labour, as too women's roles. Such dimensions are considered essential for the comprehension of children's experience, since they are often surcharged due to the lack of economic resources, the unequal division of labour within the family and contradictory practices found in the research population. Examples of those difficulties draw on children and families' experiences of compulsory and ‘free’ education. The author concludes the need for better knowledge of socialisation processes and children's experience of work that should ideally integrate into the theoretical framework of exploitation.     

Moral Distress,Workplace Health,and Intrinsic Harm

Moral distress is now being recognized as a frequent experience for many health care providers, and there's good evidence that it has a negative impact on the health care work environment. However, contemporary discussions of moral distress have several problems. First, they tend to rely on inadequate characterizations of moral distress. As a result, subsequent investigations regarding the frequency and consequences of moral distress often proceed without a clear understanding of the phenomenon being discussed, and thereby risk substantially misrepresenting the nature, frequency, and possible consequences of moral distress. These discussions also minimize the intrinsically harmful aspects of moral distress. This is a serious omission. Moral distress doesn't just have a negative impact on the health care work environment; it also directly harms the one who experiences it. In this paper, I claim that these problems can be addressed by first clarifying our understanding of moral distress, and then identifying what makes moral distress intrinsically harmful. I begin by identifying three common mistakes that characterizations of moral distress tend to make, and explaining why these mistakes are problematic. Next, I offer an account of moral distress that avoids these mistakes. Then, I defend the claim that moral distress is intrinsically harmful to the subject who experiences it. I conclude by explaining how acknowledging this aspect of moral distress should reshape our discussions about how best to deal with this phenomenon.     

Beyond the 'Village' Rhetoric: Creating Healthy Communities for Children and Adolescents

In this article, we explore the intertwining of moral identity and the social and cultural context. First, we review existing research on moral identity that has considered the role of social others and the cultural environment. Then we pose questions to further research in this area and offer a 3-level framework with which to understand how the cultural world influences moral identity development. Central to this framework is an analysis of the cultural practices within which moral identities develop, as well as the institutional contexts that support these practices and the social interactions that comprise them. Finally, we illustrate the components of framework using examples of data from 2 studies-1 focused on how an inner city Muslim school worked to foster the moral identities of students and the other on the development of civic identities among urban teens in a community action program.     

The acquisition of conscience and Developmental Systems Theory

Summary Proponents of Developmental Systems Theory (DST) argue that it offers an alternative to current research programs in biology that are built on the historic disjunction between evolutionary and developmental biology. In this paper I illustrate how DST can be used to account for the acquisition of an important component of moral agency, conscience. Susan Oyama, a major proponent of DST, has set moral issues outside the compass of DST. Thus, I examine her reasons for restricting DST to non-moral matters, and argue that they are not decisive. On the positive side, I argue that DST not only is compatible with attempts to describe and explain moral agency but also aids us in understanding it. In particular, I show how DST can provide a fruitful perspective for viewing some significant current findings and theories in moral developmental psychology about the acquisition of conscience. The familiar dichotomies resisted by DST, those between genes and environment, inherited and acquired, innate and learned, and biological and cultural, have also plagued human developmental psychology, including moral development. By bringing a DST perspective to the study of moral development, I illustrate how a DST perspective might offer a promising way to reconceive that phenomenon, and provide some insights into how further work in understanding the development of moral agency might proceed. Thus, I hope to contribute to the current efforts of proponents of DST to integrate developmental and evolutionary considerations.     

Obtaining the child testimony in the criminal proceedings

Children fall under the special category of vulnerable witnesses. Children's vulnerability is the reason that we must approach obtaining the child's testimony in the criminal proceedings with special attention. It is important to take the child's testimony as soon as possible and to avoid the repetition of interrogation. The criminal proceedings law and the juvenile court law enable children interrogation through the professional person without the presence of other parties in the procedure and enable the recording of such interrogation by audio-video link which considerably diminish the secondary victimization. The professionals who obtain the testimony must be well acquainted with children's psychological development. Knowledge of psychological development is of major importance in order to make the quality arrangements for interrogation and to interrogate the child and to achieve positive social contact between the examiner and the examinee and it is also of great importance for the credibility evaluation of the child's testimony. The adequate way of children interrogation will enable the child to say the correct information and to recognize the perpetrator. The forensic interview is well elaborated and child adapted technique of interrogation. Respecting the rules of forensic interview will enable the child's testimony on court to be relevant evidence.     

Evidence of a nesting psychology during human pregnancy

In altricial mammals, “nesting” refers to a suite of primarily maternal behaviours including nest-site selection, nest building and nest defense, and the many ways that nonhuman animals prepare themselves for parturition are well studied. In contrast, little research has considered pre-parturient preparation behaviours in women from a functional perspective. Reports in the popular press assert that women experience “nesting” urges, in the form of cleaning and organizing behaviours. Anthropological data suggest that having control over the environment is a key feature of childbirth preparation in humans, including decisions about where birth will take place, and who will be welcome in the birthing environment. Here, we describe the results of two studies, a large online study comparing pregnant and non-pregnant women, and a longitudinal study tracking women throughout pregnancy and into the postpartum period and comparing non-pregnant women at similar time intervals, using a nesting questionnaire that we developed. We found that women exhibit nesting behaviours, including space preparation and social selectivity, which peak in the third trimester of pregnancy. As is the case with nonhuman mammals, nesting in women may serve a protective function.     

Role of social cognition in post‐traumatic stress disorder: A review and meta‐analysis

Social functioning is a key component of recovery after a potentially traumatic experience, and the buffering role of the social support in trauma resilience and recovery has been very well documented. Factors contributing to resilience and recovery are notable because although most people will experience a traumatic event during their lifetimes, only 6% to 10% are diagnosed with post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The relationship between an individual and their social environment is determined both by the quality of the social environment itself, and by the individual's perception and understanding of information conveyed by the other people around them. However, little research has considered the contribution of these internal social cognitive processes to PTSD risk or resilience. The current review draws on the existing literature on social cognitive functioning in trauma exposure and PTSD, identifying key questions and themes for future research. We utilized a meta‐analytic approach to assess the evidence for alterations in social cognition in PTSD, finding a consistent large deficit in social cognitive performance in PTSD groups relative to trauma‐exposed and healthy controls. We then reviewed the literature on the interaction of genes and the social environment, supporting the hypothesis that social cognitive deficits are a preexisting risk factor for PTSD. Finally, we reviewed relevant neuroimaging findings, which suggest that alterations in social cognition affect the perception of threat cues in PTSD. Overall, research on social cognition and PTSD is still emerging, but existing findings suggest this is an important and understudied area for the understanding of PTSD.     

Adaptive explanations for sensitive windows in development

Development in many organisms appears to show evidence of sensitive windows—periods or stages in ontogeny in which individual experience has a particularly strong influence on the phenotype (compared to other periods or stages). Despite great interest in sensitive windows from both fundamental and applied perspectives, the functional (adaptive) reasons why they have evolved are unclear. Here we outline a conceptual framework for understanding when natural selection should favour changes in plasticity across development. Our approach builds on previous theory on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity, which relates individual and population differences in plasticity to two factors: the degree of uncertainty about the environmental conditions and the extent to which experiences during development (‘cues’) provide information about those conditions. We argue that systematic variation in these two factors often occurs within the lifetime of a single individual, which will select for developmental changes in plasticity. Of central importance is how informational properties of the environment interact with the life history of the organism. Phenotypes may be more or less sensitive to environmental cues at different points in development because of systematic changes in (i) the frequency of cues, (ii) the informativeness of cues, (iii) the fitness benefits of information and/or (iv) the constraints on plasticity. In relatively stable environments, a sensible null expectation is that plasticity will gradually decline with age as the developing individual gathers information. We review recent models on the evolution of developmental changes in plasticity and explain how they fit into our conceptual framework. Our aim is to encourage an adaptive perspective on sensitive windows in development.     

Bodily Remembering: Memory,Place, and Understanding Latino Folk Illnesses among the Amuzgos Indians of Oaxaca,Mexico

This paper takes the theoretical construct of popular nosology of Latino folk illnesses and combines it with Edward Casey’s concept of bodily remembering in order to more fully describe the role of memory and place in the illness experiences of the Amuzgos Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico. I ethnographically describe, across time, the interrelated links among social events, physical symptoms, and illness narratives of Latino folk illness popular nosologies as they are contextualized in their unique, social topographies. This enlarged theoretical perspective implies a smallest unit of meaning that is ethnographically defined, but that will often encompass more than the individual sufferer and more than one illness. The research objective of this study was to understand Amuzgan illness experiences through the narratives of detailed case histories and ethnographic observations that were gathered during 18 months of qualitative research. The data show that Amuzgos experience Latino folk illnesses as bodily rememberings of illness events combined with negative interpersonal interactions. Healing these Latino folk illnesses implies curing bodies, households, social relationships, and living environments.     

EMPIRICAL ETHICS AS DIALOGICAL PRACTICE

In this article, we present a dialogical approach to empirical ethics, based upon hermeneutic ethics and responsive evaluation. Hermeneutic ethics regards experience as the concrete source of moral wisdom. In order to gain a good understanding of moral issues, concrete detailed experiences and perspectives need to be exchanged. Within hermeneutic ethics dialogue is seen as a vehicle for moral learning and developing normative conclusions. Dialogue stands for a specific view on moral epistemology and methodological criteria for moral inquiry. Responsive evaluation involves a structured way of setting up dialogical learning processes, by eliciting stories of participants, exchanging experiences in (homogeneous and heterogeneous) groups and drawing normative conclusions for practice. By combining these traditions we develop both a theoretical and a practical approach to empirical ethics, in which ethical issues are addressed and shaped together with stakeholders in practice. Stakeholders' experiences are not only used as a source for reflection by the ethicist; stakeholders are involved in the process of reflection and analysis, which takes place in a dialogue between participants in practice, facilitated by the ethicist. This dialogical approach to empirical ethics may give rise to questions such as: What contribution does the ethicist make? What role does ethical theory play? What is the relationship between empirical research and ethical theory in the dialogical process? In this article, these questions will be addressed by reflecting upon a project in empirical ethics that was set up in a dialogical way. The aim of this project was to develop and implement normative guidelines with and within practice, in order to improve the practice concerning coercion and compulsion in psychiatry.     

The impact of ADHD on morality development

Attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) is one of the most commonly diagnosed childhood mental disorders. This pervasive disorder can affect all aspects of the child’s life, including, but not limited to: peer relations, adult relations and intellectual development. As a direct result of ADHD, many of these deficiencies pervade through the child’s life into adulthood. Although there is a growing number of literature focusing on the sequela of ADHD, especially social deviance, most of the literature’s scope is limited to the connection between ADHD and criminality. This finite perspective provides little insight into the developmental characteristics which actually link ADHD to criminality. The most glaring example of an obscured developmental link is that of moral judgment. The following is an attempt to draw a meaningful connection between deficient moral development and ADHD, especially as it relates to attachment theory. Connecting previous research relevant to the topic as well as time-tested psychological theories on morality and attachment will serve to validate this claim.     

REFLECTIVE EQUILIBRIUM AND EMPIRICAL DATA: THIRD PERSON MORAL EXPERIENCES IN EMPIRICAL MEDICAL ETHICS

In ethics, the use of empirical data has become more and more popular, leading to a distinct form of applied ethics, namely empirical ethics. This ‘empirical turn’ is especially visible in bioethics. There are various ways of combining empirical research and ethical reflection. In this paper we discuss the use of empirical data in a special form of Reflective Equilibrium (RE), namely the Network Model with Third Person Moral Experiences. In this model, the empirical data consist of the moral experiences of people in a practice. Although inclusion of these moral experiences in this specific model of RE can be well defended, their use in the application of the model still raises important questions. What precisely are moral experiences? How to determine relevance of experiences, in other words: should there be a selection of the moral experiences that are eventually used in the RE? How much weight should the empirical data have in the RE? And the key question: can the use of RE by empirical ethicists really produce answers to practical moral questions? In this paper we start to answer the above questions by giving examples taken from our research project on understanding the norm of informed consent in the field of pediatric oncology. We especially emphasize that incorporation of empirical data in a network model can reduce the risk of self‐justification and bias and can increase the credibility of the RE reached.     

The Transformation of Everyday Social Experience: What a Mental and Social Health Perspective Reveals about Chinese Communities under Global and Local Change

Chinese communities in East Asia are undergoing great economic and social change. The result includes material prosperity but also worsening mental and social health indices. Epidemiological studies clarify the magnitude of these problems and the particular vulnerability of women and the elderly. Ethnographic studies indicate that moral experience is also changing, and that with it subjectivity is being altered in ways that are of concern. And yet it is not clear, in historical perspective, how to assess these changes when they are compared to the extraordinarily difficult experiences of the Chinese over most of the Century.     

Public consultation in ethics an experiment in representative ethics

Genome Canada has funded a research project to evaluate the usefulness of different forms of ethical analysis for assessing the moral weight of public opinion in the governance of genomics. This paper will describe a role of public consultation for ethical analysis and a contribution of ethical analysis to public consultation and the governance of genomics/biotechnology. Public consultation increases the robustness of ethical analysis with a more diverse set of moral experiences. Consultation must be carefully and respectfully designed to generate sufficiently diverse and rich accounts of moral experiences. Since dominant groups tend to define ethical or policy issues in a manner that excludes some interests or perspectives, it is important to identify the range of interests that diverse publics hold before defining the issue and scope of the discussion and the premature foreclosure of ethical dialogue. Consequently, a significant contribution of ethical dialogue strengthened by social analysis is to consider the context and non-policy use of power to govern genomics and to sustain social debate on enduring ethical issues.     

The widsom of children-in-context

Children-in-families-in-communities are embedded in social realities that provide the matrix in which they grow, learn and develop and against which they test their identity. To view children-in-context it is necessary to shift from a dualist perspective that sees children and context as two separate entities to a view that sees the two as one at the interface of an ongoing transformational relationship. Childhood viewed in specific contexts, cultural, historical and social, expose the extent to which this is true. A contextual view acknowledges the structures, the forces and the processes in societies that impact on the interactions and regularities in children's daily lives. In a number of societies a deficit model of children is inherent in these interactions and regularities. This deficit model includes discrimination on the basis of age that places them lowest in the pecking order and denies them rights. Children, more than any other group, endure the added burdens of poverty and violence that further marginalize and alienate them from society. Childhood is not something to grow out of, childhood is life itself. Social interactions that acknowledge and respect children's experiences as valid can potentially reconstruct societal views towards children. To begin this process and to counter the present discriminatory discourse, research that gave children a voice to speak about their own experiences of violence is reported. This research recognizes that in the land of the small, it is the small who are wise.     

传统生态知识的民族生态学分析框架

传统生态知识是民族生态学研究的核心范畴,国外已有多年的研究基础,国内的相关研究正是方兴未艾。通过文献查询和比较分析等方法,介绍了国外已有的传统生态知识的民族生态学分析框架的3个模型:知识-实践-信仰的三角形框架;本土经验知识-资源管理知识-社会制度知识-世界观知识的四椭圆框架;事实观察-管理体系-旧有及当下利用-伦理价值-文化特征-宇宙观的五边形框架。结合田野调查研究,提出了一个立体的传统生态知识的民族生态学分析模型,强调了传统生态知识的动态特征,将民族对于自然的被动认识和主动认知、民族人际关系规范、民族的哲学与伦理等方面所呈现出的传统生态知识进行了分类,从而为民族生态学的调查研究提供了方法上的建议。最后总结了这个立体的传统生态知识分析框架的意义,并建议在我国的生态文明建设中发展和应用民族生态学。     

Environmental hazards to children's health in the modern world

Patterns of illness in children have changed dramatically in the last century, and will continue to change in this century. The major diseases confronting children are now chronic and disabling conditions termed the "new pediatric morbidity"-asthma, leukemia and brain cancer, neurodevelopmental dysfunction and neurobehavioral abnormality, reproductive and systemic developmental problems. Chemical toxicants in the environment, poverty, and little or no access to health care are all factors contributing to life-threatening pediatric diseases; children are uniquely vulnerable to chemical toxicants because of their disproportionately heavy exposures and their inherent biological growth and development. Genetic susceptibility and environmental exposures during vulnerable periods of development are also important contributors to the etiologies of many diseases of childhood. It is vital that we develop a better understanding of the mechanisms and interactions between nutrition, infectious disease, environmental exposures, and genetic predisposition in order to develop better prevention methods. This paper briefly examines modern contributors to children's environmental health problems, efforts to date on both the regional and international level to address these challenges, and reflects upon major research needs that must be addressed in order to close the gaps that exist in our understanding of the relationship between environmental exposures and children's health.     

Senses,Sociality and Salons: Medicinal Hospitality in a Chinese Hair-Dresser's Salon

Recent calls for a revitalisation of the study of hospitality as central to anthropological theory have focussed on the material, affective, moral and cosmological aspects of hospitality. This paper argues that any such theory of hospitality should also afford consideration of how hosting practices can also be a form of medicinal experience, showing how in a Chinese hair salon these experiences ricochet into ideas of well-being by drawing on discourses and practices that are grounded in Traditional Chinese Medicine. This paper argues for an understanding of the dispersed and diffused nature of Chinese medicinal practices and concepts throughout society, while still taking into account the specificities and logics of the Chinese medical tradition. The concept of ‘medicinal hospitality’ helps to understand the social nature of these ostensibly medical treatments, and how they use the creation of distinct sensory experiences which are shared between groups of customers to generate social relations.