Guest Editor: Barbara Baird
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Anxiety about ‘the child’ is a stock response to the complexities of life in the twenty-first century. Many children are abused, neglected, exploited and despite political rhetoric to the contrary, not given the resources they need to thrive. ‘Child politics’, whether as cultural anxiety or the challenge to provide for those made vulnerable because of their age, or a tangled mixture of the two, takes place across the arenas of social policy, the law, the media, sexuality and in our own memories of childhood. Our own identities - gendered, raced, aged - are implicated when ‘the child’ is represented and in all circumstances where children are present. This special issue of Australian Feminist Studies offers a variety of feminist commentaries and analyses about a range of issues which will assist in navigating the domain of ‘child politics’.