From Trauma to Protection: the twentieth century as the children's century

From the end of the nineteenth century, the discourses articulated around children’s rights to physical protection, health and well-being underwent profound changes. From the multiplication of laws to protect young people in the public and private spheres, to the rise of non-governmental organisations and associations, efforts were made to bring them relief from trauma, insecurity and maltreatment.

Yet, simultaneously, that same period has gone hand-in-hand with increasing opportunities for children to experience such tragedies; and in both domestic settings (abuse or neglect) as well as wider geopolitical manifestations of violence (war and genocide) such anxieties have influenced the form and nature of the above responses.

‘From Trauma to Protection’ is a two-day interdisciplinary conference which seeks to interrogate these two mutually-dependent themes in modern history. Paying attention to scholarship on the history of the family, on state and NGO aid provision, and on the perspectives of children themselves, its focus on constructions and understandings of trauma as a medicalised category should be of interest to SSHM scholars working on child and family health initiatives, humanitarian healthcare, and health and well-being campaigns which are directed at, or seek to mobilise, children and young people.

Keynote speaker: Dr Manon Pignot (Université de Picardie-Jules Verne)

From Trauma to Protection: the twentieth century as the children's century 

Conference - 19-20 April 2018

University of Warwick, Arden Conference Centre

Arden, Kirby Corner Road, Coventry, UK

Programme

Registration  
 

The Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah supports the organisation of the panel entitled "Children, Trauma and Genocide: the Holocaust/Shoah and Rwanda"