Dissertation Research: A Reconsideration of Child Labor in the Contexts of Household Economics and Community Norms

结束童工的国际努力有时被认为是欧美普遍主义儿童发展和人权概念与发展中国家特定文化信仰和做法之间的意识形态之争。联合国机构和儿童福利非政府组织都强调童工对儿童的身心健康和道德健康的负面影响。这篇由文化人类学家进行的研究将在家庭生计战略的背景下考察印度迈索尔童工的健康状况。学生将对一组选定的家庭进行为期一年的研究，以确定儿童对家庭收入的贡献是否会对他们获得与健康相关的资源产生不同的影响，并确定和比较一系列与工作相关的变量是如何被视为影响儿童健康的。与其他社区成员和当地儿童福利非政府组织工作人员的访谈将有助于在更广泛的社区规范框架内了解个别家庭的看法和做法，这些规范将童年视为生命阶段，儿童的人权，以及不同类型工作的年龄和性别适当性。这项研究的更广泛影响包括促进我们对社区如何评估与童工相关的风险的理解，这一理解对于国际公认的迅速将儿童从最危险的工作形式中解救出来的短期目标至关重要。它还将提供对家庭健康和经济逻辑的重要见解，对那些设计儿童生存和扶贫计划的人有用。除了这种实际应用之外，这项研究还将促进最近的社会科学努力，以发现在不同的环境中，普遍主义人权概念可以找到文化上可以接受的解释的方式。该项目还有助于培养一位年轻的社会科学家。

0234019Nichter / WindThe international effort to end child labor has sometimes been framed as being an ideological battle between Euro-American universalistic conceptions of child development and human rights on the one hand and the culturally specific beliefs and practices of developing countries on the other. Both agencies of the United Nations and child welfare NGOs have emphasized the negative impact of child labor on the physical, mental, and moral health of children. This dissertation research by a cultural anthropologist will examine the health of child workers in Mysore, India within the context of household livelihood strategies. The student will study a select group of households for one year to determine whether children's contributions to household income differentially affect their access to health-related resources and to identify and compare how a range of work-related variables are perceived as impacting children's health. Interviews with other community members and the staff of local child welfare NGOs will serve to situate the views and practices of individual households within a broader framework of community norms regarding childhood as a life phase, the human rights of children, and the age and gender- appropriateness of different types of work. The broader impacts of this research include advancing our understanding of how communities evaluate the risks associated with child labor, an understanding crucial to the internationally recognized short-term goal of quickly removing children from the most hazardous forms of work. It will also offer important insights into household health and economic logic useful to those designing child survival and poverty alleviation programs. In addition to such practical applications, the research will add to recent social science efforts to discover ways in which universalistic concepts of human rights may find culturally acceptable interpretations in diverse settings. The project also contributes to the education of a young social scientist.