Imagining Children's Rights in Central Africa: Francophone Fiction and State Discourse since 1999

本文将探讨1999年以来中非法语小说和国家话语中对儿童权利的刻画，这一时期是儿童权利法的巩固时期，也是该地区普遍存在的冲突。它将采用后殖民的方法来分析这些文本如何反映不同的儿童观，并揭示：i)儿童生活的复杂性，与儿童权利话语的道德清晰度形成对比；以及ii)儿童与成人、个人与国家以及非洲国家与国际人权制度之间的内在紧张关系。研究问题本论文将在1999年以来中非大湖区冲突的背景下，探讨法语小说和国家人权话语中儿童权利的表现。它将解决最重要的问题：--虚构和国家话语中对儿童的描述如何坚持或挑战普遍的儿童和儿童权利概念？在此过程中，它将探讨以下次级问题：--这些陈述如何显示儿童在(冲突的)成人世界中运作和承担责任？-国家/虚构的叙述如何支持或质疑非洲对人权的所有权和儿童对权利的所有权？--关于儿童权利的叙述如何帮助儿童与社会分离或融合？本论文将从小说文本、法律文本和政府文本三个方面探讨社会中儿童的不同观念。它将探讨它们各自的愿景如何相互关联，以及如何与国际人权法的核心文本相关联，并将考虑：一)想象的作用：小说的想象；成人想象儿童；想象一个更好的、肯定权利的世界；二)后殖民政治话语和(以西方为中心的)人权文化所固有的紧张；三)普遍与特殊之间更广泛的紧张，其中人权文化使用个人叙事让我们参与普遍价值，但普遍主义忽视了个人的经历/环境。

This thesis will explore the portrayal of children's rights in francophone fiction and state discourses from Central Africa since 1999, a period of consolidation of children's rights law, as well as widespread conflict in the region. It will take a post-colonial approach to analyse how such texts reflect differing conceptions of childhood and shed light on: i) the complexity of children's lives, in contrast to the moral clarity of children's rights discourse; and ii) the tensions inherent in the relationship of the child to the adult, the individual to the state, and African nations to the international human rights regime.Research questionsThis thesis will explore the representation of children's rights in francophone fiction and state human rights discourses in a context of conflict in the Great Lakes region of Central Africa since 1999. It will address the overarching question: - how do depictions of the child in fictional and state discourses adhere to or challenge universalised notions of childhood and children's rights? In doing so, it will explore the following sub-questions:- how do these representations show the child operating and assuming agency in an adult world (of conflict)? - how do state/fictional narratives support or question African ownership of human rights and child ownership of rights?- how do narratives of children's rights serve to separate or integrate the child and society? This thesis will explore the different conceptions of the child in society in fictional, legal, and governmental texts. It will explore how their respective visions relate to each other and to the core texts of international human rights law, and will consider:i) the role of imagination: the imagination of fiction; the adult imagining the child; imagining a better, rights-affirming world; ii) the tension inherent in post-colonial political discourse and (western-centred) human rights culture;iii) the wider tension between the universal and the particular, where human rights culture uses individual narrative to engage us in universal values, but universalism ignores the individual experience/circumstance.