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

终结童工的国际努力有时被框定为一场意识形态之战，一方是欧美关于儿童发展和人权的普世主义观念，另一方是发展中国家具有文化特殊性的信仰和做法。联合国各机构和儿童福利非政府组织都强调童工对儿童身心和道德健康的负面影响。本文研究由文化人类学家将检查在迈索尔童工的健康，印度在家庭生计策略的背景下。该学生将对选定的一组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有关的资源产生不同的影响，并确定和比较一系列与工作有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面谈将有助于将个别家庭的观点和做法置于一个更广泛的社区规范框架内，这些规范涉及童年作为一个生命阶段、儿童的人权、年龄和性别- -不同类型工作的适当性。这项研究的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，这对于国际公认的短期目标——迅速使儿童摆脱最危险的工作形式——至关重要。它还将提供关于家庭健康和经济逻辑的重要见解，对设计儿童生存和扶贫方案的人有用。除了这些实际应用之外，这项研究将有助于最近的社会科学努力，以发现在不同的环境中普遍的人权概念可能找到文化上可接受的解释的方法。该项目还有助于培养一名年轻的社会科学家。

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.