Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage
Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage explores how the everyday experiences of children and their imaginative and creative worlds are collected, interpreted and displayed in museums and on monuments, and represented through objects and cultural lore. Young people constitute up to half the population of any given society, but their lives are inescapably influenced by the expectations and decisions of adults. As a result, childrens distinct experiences are frequently subsumed within the broader histories and heritage of their families and communities. And while adults inevitably play a prominent role in childrens lives, children are also active creators of their own cultures. As this volume so vividly demonstrates, the cultural heritage of children is rich and varied, and highly revealing of past and present attitudes to children and their work, play, creativity, and human rights.
The essays in this book span the experiences of children from classical Rome to the present moment, and examine the diverse social and historical contexts underlying the public representations of childhood in Britain, Europe, North America, Australia, North Africa and Japan. Case studies examine the heritage of schools and domestic spaces; the objects and games of play; the commemoration of child Holocaust survivors; memorials to Indigenous child-removal under colonial regimes; children as collectors of objects and as authors of juvenilia; curatorial practices at museums of childhood; and the role of children as visitors to historical sites.
Until now, the cultural heritage of children and the representations of childhood have been largely absent from scholarly discussions of museology, heritage places and material culture. This volume rectifies that gap, bringing together international experts in childrens histories and heritage. Aimed at a wide readership of students, academics, and museum and heritage professionals, Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage authoritatively defines the key issues in this exciting new field.
Kate Darian-Smith is Professor of Australian Studies and History at the University of Melbourne, and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. She has published widely on Australian and imperial history; on memory studies, material culture and heritage; and the historical and contemporary dimensions of childrens play. She has held advisory positions with many cultural institutions, and led major research projects in partnership with government, museums and heritage organisations.
Carla Pascoe is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, an Honorary Associate at Museum Victoria and a professional historian. She has published a monograph Spaces Imagined, Places Remembered: Childhood in 1950s Australia (2011) and in leading Australian and international journals.
Key Issues in Cultural Heritage
Series Editors:
William Logan and Laurajane Smith
Also in the series:
Heritage and Globalisation
Sophia Labadi and Colin Long
Intangible Heritage
Laurajane Smith and Natsuko Akagawa
Places of Pain and Shame
William Logan and Keir Reeves
Cultural Diversity, Heritage and Human Rights
Michele Langfield, William Logan and Mirad Nic Craith
Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes
Laurajane Smith, Paul Shackel and Gary Campbell
The Heritage of War
Martin Gegner and Bart Ziino
Managing Cultural Landscapes
Ken Taylor and Jane L. Lennon
Coming soon:
Heritage and Tourism
Russell Staiff, Robyn Bushell and Steve Watson
Children, Childhood and Cultural Heritage
Edited by
Kate Darian-Smith and Carla Pascoe
First published 2013
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2013 Kate Darian-Smith and Carla Pascoe for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors.
The right of Kate Darian-Smith and Carla Pascoe to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Children, childhood and cultural heritage / edited by
Kate Darian-Smith and Carla Pascoe. First [edition].
pages cm (Key issues in cultural heritage)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Children. 2. Cultural property. I. Darian-Smith,
Kate, editor of compilation. II. Pascoe, Carla, editor of compilation.
HQ781.C543 2012
305.23dc23
2012021434
ISBN: 978-0-415-52994-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-52995-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-08064-1 (ebk)
ISBN: 978-1-136-16870-3 (epub)
Typeset in Garamond
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Contents
Illustrations
Figures
Tables
Contributors
Christine Alexander is Scientia Professor of English at the University of New South Wales, Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and general editor of the Juvenilia Press. She has published extensively on the Bronts, including The Early Writings of Charlotte Bront (1983), The Art of the Bronts (1995), The Oxford Companion to the Bronts (2003), and a number of critical editions; and she has co-edited, with Juliet McMaster, the first book on literary juvenilia, The Child Writer from Austen to Woolf (2005). She has recently completed an Oxford World Classics edition entitled The Bronts: Tales of Glass Town, Angria, and Gondal: Selected Writings (2010).
Andrew Burn is Professor of Media Education at the Institute of Education, University of London, and a pioneer of the use of new media for creative production with young people, conducting many funded research projects on childrens play, creativity and culture. His published work on the media includes studies of media literacy in schools, the semiotics of the moving image and computer games, and young peoples media production. His recent books are Making New Media: Creative Production and Digital Literacies (2009), and, with J. Durran, Media Literacy in Schools: Practice, Production and Progression (2007). He was principal investigator for the recent UK research project Childrens Playground Games and Songs in the Age of New Media.
