The Exclusionary Facets of the Social Environment and Their Effects on the New Image of Childhood

Abstract

A critical analysis of discourse attempts to uncover struggles over meaning and to look for processes of power and exclusion that, ultimately, succeed in presenting a particular matter as uncontroversial. In order to achieve temporary consensus on the content of specific concepts (as thick signifiers rather than empty signs), discursive interaction in international negotiations and policy-making processes is bound to share a basis of collectively congruent interpretations of reality. This consensus, as has been argued before, always rests upon moments of exclusion, be it exclusion on a semantic level (prior meanings) or exclusion on a contextual level (institutional framework). Dominant concepts, such as the international notion of the ‘child’, ‘childhood’ and ‘child’s rights’, are thus made possible by means of a permanent exclusion or ‘displacement’ of those elements that seriously threaten a temporary fixation of meaning. It has been claimed on several occasions that the CRC and its coming-into-being represent a showcase for ‘a model of inclusive norm creation’ (Harris-Short, 2001: 350; Johnson, 1992). Yet, while Harris-Short argues that the CRC reflects concerns of non-Western cultures to a greater degree than other human rights treaties (such as CEDAW or the ICCPR), she nevertheless admits that the process of norm-creation was still marked by exclusionary dimensions. Ultimately, the argument is supported that all instances of meaning-making and policy-making, no matter how inclusive, still exhibit moments of exclusion.