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

本论文将探讨自1999年以来，儿童权利法的巩固时期，以及该地区普遍存在的冲突，从中非法语小说和国家话语的儿童权利的写照。它将采取后殖民主义的方法来分析这些文本如何反映不同的童年概念，并阐明：i）与儿童权利话语的道德明确性相比，儿童生活的复杂性;（二）儿童与成人、个人与国家的关系中固有的紧张关系，本论文将探讨在大不列颠及北爱尔兰联合王国冲突的背景下，法语小说和国家人权话语中儿童权利的表现。自1999年以来一直在中部非洲的湖区工作。它将解决的首要问题：-如何在虚构的和国家话语的儿童坚持或挑战儿童和儿童权利的普遍化的概念？在这样做的时候，它将探讨以下子问题：-这些表示如何显示儿童在成人世界（冲突）的运作和承担机构？- 国家/虚构的叙述如何支持或质疑非洲人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有助于儿童与社会的分离或融合？本论文将探讨小说、法律的和政府文本中儿童在社会中的不同概念。它将探讨他们各自的观点如何相互关联以及与国际人权法核心文本的关联，并将考虑：㈠想象的作用：虚构的想象;成人对儿童的想象;想象一个更美好的、肯定权利的世界; ㈡后殖民政治话语中固有的紧张关系，（以西方为中心的）人权文化; ㈢普遍性与特殊性之间存在更广泛的紧张关系，人权文化利用个人叙述使我们接受普遍价值观，但普遍主义忽略了个人的经验/情况。

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.