ERIC Number: EJ930084
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2010
Pages: 21
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0160-5429
EISSN: N/A
Rethinking Childhood Subjectivity: The Psycho-Politics of Socialization, Private-Language Formation, and the Case of Bosnian Youth
Selimovic, Adnan
International Education, v39 n2 p21-41 Spr 2010
Under the guise of socialization, the child-subject born into the modern society is subjugated by a familial childhood trauma that appropriates the infantile psychosis caused by the incommunicability of early childhood. This appropriation, put to instrumental ends, results in a psychology of commodified object relations. In fact, there is a close relationship between the historical narrative of a culture and the trauma to which children are subjected as they become members of the social organization. The psycho-politics of the human condition are thus revealed in the realm of the progressive political discourse under which socialization occurs. This project concerns the psycho-political reading of trauma and socialization of children amidst the radical social transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the 1990s. The psycho-social situation of the youth raises questions about the social construction of identity, political subjectivity and the possibility of a democratic polity. I experiment with new concepts of political psychology to understand the relationship between the historical society and its infant citizens. Furthermore, I imagine ways of reconstituting theories of war trauma and memory to rediscover a democratic empowerment through a social education that pushes the notion of empowerment beyond its present scope. (Contains 23 notes.)
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Young Children, War, Violence, Trauma, Politics, Psychology, Social Change, Socialization, Social Organizations, Child Abuse, Psychosis, Generational Differences, Social Theories
College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 420 Claxton Complex, 1126 Volunteer Boulevard, Knoxville, TN 37996. Tel: 865-974-9505; Web site: http://cehhs.utk.edu/publications/default.html
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A