What Kind of Knowledge for a Critical Childhood Studies? Reflections on Epistemic Justice, Humility and the Politics of Knowing/Not-Knowing.

What kind of knowledge does a field like childhood studies which declares itself to be critical need to produce in order to uphold its claim? What forms of knowledge should the field seek to bring forth at a time when the world is experiencing multiple crises and the ethical imperative is not simply to know but to also act? And how, might the field seek to produce this knowledge? Through what knowledge practices, through what partnerships and alliances? And with what anticipated insights but also tradeoffs?

Turning to the notions of epistemic justice and epistemic humility as starting points for a broader discussion on the politics of knowledge production, I will consider what the possibilities but also the limits of critical knowledge production may be for childhood studies. To add to my earlier list of questions: Who gets to produce knowledge that matters, for instance? Who and what is left out from knowledge production in the field? What might be the effects of such absences for our ongoing efforts to represent children and childhood in a careful, responsible and ethically mindful manner? And lastly, what, if any, is the transformative role of childhood research in the context of children’s and young people’s struggles for justice? Though in this talk I will not seek to answer these questions in any prescriptive manner or settle these matters in any specific way, I nevertheless wish to problematize them sufficiently as a matter of concern and consequence for the development of critical childhood studies as a field at this juncture of its historical development.