Becoming ‘brilliant’ : Generationing education and development in rural Sierra Leone

Introduction

There has been increasing focus on the relational aspects of children’s lives and how these vary across social and cultural context (Hanson et al., 2018; Spyrou et al., 2018). In addition, queries have been raised about the ‘globalizing’ of childhood(s) within a wider neo-liberal frame and its alignment with normative /hegemonic conceptions of a ‘good’ childhood (Kjorholt, 2013). The idea of universal compulsory schooling as synonymous with a ‘good’ childhood has been central to these processes – a key mechanism for instituting social and economic change (Devine and Luttrell, 2013). Yet an increasing focus on formal schooling not only alters what is valued in children’s childhoods. Generational orders and traditional ways of knowing, being and doing are disrupted through new forms of organization of children’s time and space through schooling.

In this paper, we explore these issues with reference to childhoods in rural Sierra Leone. Located in West Africa, Sierra Leone attained international attention as a result of a brutal civil war (1991-2002) and the more recent outbreak of Ebola in 2014-2016. Among the world’s poorest countries, Sierra Leone is ranked considerably below the average Human Development Index for Sub Saharan Africa (UNDP, 2018). While universal primary education was introduced following independence in 1961, it has been relatively under developed in rural areas, where poverty rates are also especially high. In recent years it is has become a significant focus of national development, with school enrolment growing significantly (Government of Sierra Leone [GoSL], 2019).

The paper explores the generationing of education and development in five rural villages in Northern Sierra Leone through ethnographic immersion in children’s everyday lives. Drawing on Bourdieu, we consider ruptures to the ‘field’ of inter-generational relations arising from the introduction of compulsory schooling and the proliferation of discourses of children’s rights. These developments alter dynamics of power and expectations for what adults and children ‘do’, as well as the values and discourses that underpin their actions. Children we argue are central to processes of reconfiguration in these communities, located at the nexus of glocal dynamics of economic, educational and social development.

Education and development as fields of inter-generational action

Research with children in majority world contexts has brought into sharp relief the complexities of ‘glocal’ research, including the undifferentiated pathologizing of ‘lack’ in children’s lives, especially in the Global South (Hanson et al 2018; Phiri and Abebe, 2016). With respect to African childhoods, Imoh (2016) speaks of the need to recognize the complex local as well as global dynamics at play in children’s everyday lives. Critiques call for a more nuanced analysis of the structures of power and inequality that underpin children’s social relationships and practices (Hanson et al., 2018). Traditional binaries between childhoods in the Global North and South are also queried for their inattention to the ‘glocalized’ impact of wider processes of capitalist development (Katz, 2004). Perhaps this is most evident in the idea of compulsory schooling, perceived as essential not only to the betterment of children’s lives but to the long term and sustainable development of society. Set within the wider context of neo-liberal global reform and the construction of children as human capital, education and development are inter-twined, with children (and childhood) as the key site of intervention (Devine and Luttrell, 2013). Within the Global South, education aid has come to increasing predominance since the 1960’s (Niño-Zarazúa, 2016), broadening beyond issues of access to those of quality and outcome, in addition to rights and social justice, including children’s rights to a quality education (UNESCO, 2015). Skepticism remains about implementation however in a context of neo-liberal capitalist development that leaves structural inequalities intact (Brissett and Mitter, 2017).

These modernizing processes are also embedded in western and classed assumptions about age, child development and inter-generational (parent/child) dynamics that in practice can vary substantively by culture and social context (Abebe and Ofusu-Kusi, 2016; Ansell, 2016). Yet it is these very dynamics that set the context for the success or otherwise of development initiatives with children on the ground. In traditional agrarian societies, schooling requires a shift in the locus of both adult and child activity. While it may be children who go to school, a ripple effect is created in the wider (adult) community over how they should also respond. Viewed in terms of generational ‘orderings’ (Punch, 2020), schooling disrupts traditional ‘childing’ and ‘adulting’ practices (Alanen and Mayall, 2001), restructuring the generational landscape (Huijsmans, 2016). Implied is a reworking of constructions of what it means to be a child (and adult) prescribed by chronological ‘age’ rather than by the cultural and social conditions (and requirements) of everyday life and household economy - children play and learn, adults work. Similarly Abebe (2013) highlights the impact of children’s rights discourses on inter-generational dynamics, undercutting social obligations in strongly collectivist communities. Morrow (2013) and Morarji (2016) note the challenges in contexts of uneven economic development, and the mis/matching of development aspirations with realities on the ground. This has consequences not only for the success (or otherwise) of interventions made, but also on the fabric of local communities as they grapple with rapid social, economic and cultural change (Ensor, 2012).

Kabeer’s (2000) analysis of the inter-generational contract is useful in considering the impact of such change on the fulfillment of social and moral obligations over time. Understood as a series of shared social understandings supported by the wider kinship group, the intergenerational contract underscores the material, symbolic and emotional power of elders/parents within collective communities. Elder authority and status – the seniority system (André and Hilgers, 2015), is predicated on the power to allocate resources in line with collective/familial needs. For adults/parents, obligations are honoured in anticipation of future returns, for children in recognition of past benefits (Kabeer, 2000: 20). The introduction of compulsory schooling alters the substance of this contract requiring a more strategic forward looking focus in generationing processes (Ansell, 2016). Opportunity costs in the present foregoing children’s immediate contribution to family livelihood are legitimized in anticipation of enhanced security and wellbeing in old age. If successful such development carries significant benefits. It also carries substantive risks. In contexts of abject poverty, high infant mortality and weak state infrastructure longer-term gains cannot be guaranteed (Riddell and Niño-Zarazúa, 2016). Where formal schooling becomes increasingly normative this poses challenges to families in contexts of poverty as decisions need to be made on immediate and best strategies for survival.

Resistance to traditional generational orders must also be understood as a by-product of the project of self-realization that is at the heart of the educational endeavor (Dewey, 1938). A further rupturing of generational orders arises in the undermining of the symbolic authority and relative ‘wisdom’ of elders, through the very experience of formal education itself. Education development shifts the locus of wisdom, and learning from the local, held in the hands of elders, to the glocal informed by ‘expert’ outsiders. When framed in terms of the skills required for a productive market-based economy, development processes alter norms, values and behaviour that are at the core of collective inter-generational relations (Kassa, 2016; Marshall, 2016). Understood in the context of the modernizing enactment of power (Foucault, 1979), development, including schooling, structures identity and value in new ways, creating ‘subjects’ of development of both children and adults (Morarji, 2016). Competing ideas of individual and social/collective value arise, alongside negotiations between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’.

Power is then at the heart of the contradictory processes and negotiations over the form and substance of generational orders. Foucault’s (1979) analysis of the exercise of power is useful in considering how discourses of ‘childhood’, ‘school’ ‘age’ and ‘development’ intertwine to create distinctly modern ‘subjects’ (Devine, 2003). Bourdieu’s (1986) relational epistemology is especially useful in highlighting the tensions at play and the practices (strategies) that ensue for both children and adults. For Bourdieu all social actions take place in structured contexts (fields) governed by relations of power and differential access to resources (economic, social and cultural capitals). These mobilize not only agents’ capacities to ‘act’ but also the orientations and dispositions to do so (habitus). Fields are characterized by tension between different groups in the struggle for that field’s capital, as agents position themselves in shifting dynamics (‘play’) of transformation and preservation:

A field is a structured social space. . . Constant, permanent relationships of inequality operate inside this space, which at the same time becomes a space in which the various actors struggle for transformation or preservation of the field. . .It is this power that defines their position in the field, and as a result, their strategies (Bourdieu, 1998:40–41)

In any given society, there are a myriad of fields, as there are social relations, but field, habitus and capital are inextricably linked in shaping practices in the world, as well as individual’s strategic positioning within it. It is this very agency (and change) that lends a dynamic quality to the concept of field, which can be construed as a field of struggle/and or force, as well as opportunity (Bourdieu, 1990).

For our purposes, ‘Generation’ can be considered a field of action, embedded in (discursive and material) ‘childing’ and ‘adulting’ practices (Ansell, 2016) which both contribute to and shape the possibilities for action, between children and adults in that field. These become inscribed in the habitus ‘the common sense understanding of everyday life’ (Bourdieu, 1990: 52), and (continually) reinforced through the differential access to capitals by adults and children within that field. This is the basis of the inter-generational contract in gerentocratic societies where elders act as gatekeepers to these capitals, influencing the capacities of others, including children to ‘act’. Fields do not operate in a linear manner however but are inter-twined with other fields where similar dynamics are at play. Both ‘Education’ and ‘Development’ can also be considered as ‘fields’ characterized by their own dynamics of contestation and change. Change in one field provokes change in others, requiring a continuous process of re/action. Bourdieu (1986) equates this process to playing a game, where capitals (and their relative worth/weighting) are akin to ‘tokens’ that can be exchanged for advantage within the particular field. As fields change, so do the capitals actors draw on to navigate the field. This is especially the case with respect to the field of education (Bourdieu et al., 1979), which fundamentally alters both the nature and weighting of cultural capital in the allocation of power and status in a given society/community (Figure 1).

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Figure 1.

The inter-relatedness of fields.

In this paper we explore ruptures to the generational ‘field’ influenced by development processes, and of the strategies that are drawn upon by actors (children and adults) in this field. In so doing we explore both the productive ‘shifts’ and changing social configurations that arise. We focus on two inter-linked initiatives related to children’s rights and schooling and consider how these re/form the generational contract in a wider context of neo-liberal modernization and change. Understanding these dynamics provides important insights not only to the dynamics of power and processes underpinning change, but also the central role of children in these processes of social re-configuration.

Method

The paper draws on data from a mixed methods study of gender, literacy, well-being and schooling of primary school children in rural Sierra Leone (Devine et al., 2019). We draw on case studies in five rural villages, mostly Temne speaking, situated in a northern district of Sierra Leone, one of the poorest in the country. Seasonal subsistence farming predominates (rice, cassava, potato, corn, groundnut, pepper) that can also include palm oil production – an increasingly strategic sector within Sierra Leone. Another source of income is artisan gold and chromite mining, especially evident in our case study village Mabanoma. Children live in extended families and poverty is experienced as an everyday reality. Low levels of parental literacy predominate. ¹

Ethnographic immersion in each village of between 4 and 6 weeks was conducted over a period of 2 years. Each village case study comprised four intergenerational families (20 in total), consisting of in-depth interviews with children (two boys and two girls who were in Class 1 or 2 in school, and aged between 5 and 12 years), their parents/guardians, an older sibling (in teen years) and grandparents. Additionally, research involved individual interviews with schoolteachers and headmasters along with small focus group discussions with children in classes 1 and 2 and a sub sample of youth and elders in each of the communities (Table 1).

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Table 1.

Outline of case study samples.

Village	Children	Parents	Elders	Youth	Siblings	Teachers
Gbantrani	24	4	2	2	4	2
Karamba	10	8	4	3	3	3
Naytikiwo	10	8	4	2	4	2
Mabonowa	10	8	5	3	5	4
Toroko	10	8	5	3	4	5
Totals	64	36	20	13	20	16

The research followed the ethical procedures approved by the University human ethic research committee, including informed consent. All interviews were translated to English and transcribed and analysed using Maxqda qualitative software. The remainder of the paper focuses on two inter-related themes:

Rupturing the field of generation in rural Sierra Leone

In Sierra Leone traditional generational orders place elders at the top of the social hierarchy, firmly in charge of political, economic, and educational decisions in the village and household (Bolten, 2012). Elders were clear of their role within this hierarchy, spoken of in terms of securing the welfare of the family in a reciprocal arrangement of care and assistance. Evident was an inter-generational contract (Kabeer, 2000) with the expectation that they would in turn be cared for when they were in need:

It is my duty now. I am helping my family members with my personal income from my farming activities. I believe they in return will repay me for this help (Sia’s grandfather, Mabanowa)

These views were firmly embedded in the habitus of elders, youth and children alike with expectations that ‘good’ children care for and practice obedience in their relations with adults:

If you meet an old person washing his/her clothes in the stream, you should help him/her so that the elders will see you as someone obedient (Hadiatu, class 2, girl, Karanba):

Respect and obedience was reinforced through disciplinary systems in which ‘flogging’ was perceived as central to raising a ‘good’ child. ² While children expressed a preference for those who did not flog them ‘too much’, the right of adults to punish them physically was taken as given.

I went to the stream to swim with my friends. I returned home with a wound so I was flogged for that. Another time I threw the rice away on the ground so I was flogged for that (Mustafa, Karanba)

Initiation rituals have traditionally been central to the construction of childhood in these communities (Schepler, 2014), marking the transition to adulthood through the men’s Poro, Gbangani and women’s Bondo or Sande ‘secret societies’. These constitute a hidden and parallel social reality in Sierra Leone, what Fermé (2001) has described as ‘the underneath of things’. Through such practices, ‘age’ was situationally and culturally reworked, according certain children ‘adult’ status. Mohammed, a 9-year-old boy in Gbantrani for example, was given the name of ‘Yamba’ (or Chief) in the bush, commanding subsequent increased respect from elders in the village. While practiced in substantively altered forms today, ³ initiation remains a powerful force for the mobilization of social and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986), within the local community:

The women, when they take girls to the Bondo society, they are not taking children there for any other thing but for training. The Poro society is to train them so that they will grow up as good men in the community (Elders group interview, Gbantrani)

Children’s roles and contributions were clearly defined. As is common in the Global South (Bolotta and Vignato, 2017), a ‘good’ child was perceived as part of a network of reciprocal assistance and children were expected to contribute to the wellbeing of their families through help at home and on the farm. Consistently, the children highlighted the contributions they made to the household economy. In Mabanowa older children contributed to mining during the weekends, while younger children helped parents with cooking and fetching firewood in mining sites.

Children’s work was also an important source of social capital, increasing their recognition and perceived ‘usefulness’:

Children’s everyday lives and generational orders were bounded however within conditions circumscribed by structural inequalities affecting all spheres of activity. They were acutely conscious of family material struggles and, as they got older, the importance of their contributions to livelihood strategies. It was this very struggle to survive and endure that re/produced children’s moral debts to elders in a system of communal values rooted in the inter-generational contract. Risks were mediated through power invested in the elders, in a system of ‘durable obligations subjectively felt (feelings of gratitude, respect, friendship) and ‘institutionally guaranteed’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 249). Such obligations were mobilized through the powerful socializing (and disciplinary) mechanisms of initiation and secret societies and the seniority system. In return children expected their parents to cloth and feed them and send them to school.

Yet it was also clear that the field of generation was changing in terms of the relative positioning of both children and adults. New forms of subjectivity, informed by neo-liberal globalization, were challenging the collective order and with it the generational landscape (Huijsmans, 2016). This change reflected wider shifts culturally, economically and politically in Sierra Leone (Samonova et al., 2020). Consistently, elders and parents expressed concern over the creeping materialism of children and young people:

The world now is modernizing. In our days, we don’t wear slippers until you become an adult but now. . .you will have something to wear on your feet. In our days for a child to get money is not easy but now it is very easy because they will go to this mining place (Alpha’s Uncle, Mabonowa)

For their part, elders (and parents) in each case study community commented on the decline in their authority over young people, especially girls. ‘Modern’ influences including videos and music were also viewed as undermining traditional patterns of authority. Marie’s grandmother in Naytikiwo interpreted these changes as an inversion of generational orders and stated ‘now they are the ones controlling us’, Elders in Gbantrani viewed these changes as a negative byproduct of ‘outside’ interventions by the Opotho (white men):

We are trying our best to train our children to be like us. But there are changes in the way the children are behaving. The cause of this problem is what Opotho are teaching them. When we talk, they will tell you that this is what is happening at Ropotho (white man countries) (Elders, Gbantrani)

Elder comments were also framed in concerns about a growing individualism within their communities where ‘people are not united or help each other as compared to those (past) days’ (Abubakar’s grandmother, Naytikiwo). Further their narratives of ‘losing control’ were framed with reference to children’s rights discourses and western ideas of ‘good’ parenting. The traditional collective orientation (and moral obligation) to rearing children (including ‘moderate’ flogging) was now being eschewed by more individualized approaches:

The children are difficult to control nowadays because the parents cannot flog them because of human rights. During our day, someone who is not your father or mother will flog you if you do something bad. . .You cannot discipline another man’s child in their place now (Hawanatu’s grandparents, Gbanatri)

While there was confusion at times about the meaning of the term ‘rights’ (reflecting its detachment from local context), elders’ responses to the idea of children as individual rights holders was superseded by their absolute right to discipline children, while acknowledging the benefits of children’s rights to education. Elders in Naytikiwo did not see any contradiction between the two, both intertwined in their constructs of a ‘good’ childhood:

I think it a good thing for us to aware about our children’s rights. Children have the right to be educated, and they also have the right to be controlled by their parents (Grandparent 1, Nayitkiwo)

For their part, children and young people spoke positively about the outcomes of modernization including zinc roofs on houses, running water and a better road network where they could ‘easily take their goods to big towns for selling’ (Male youth Karnako). Younger children were (unsurprisingly) reluctant to speak overtly about ‘denying’ their parents yet provided examples of occasionally doing so when work demands were felt to be harsh:

Older children were more forthright. Tamba’s sister felt Mabanowa was not a good place to ‘raise’ a child because ‘there is a lot of work which is labour intensive’. She was strongly in favour of children’s rights, interpreting children’s contributions to the household economy as a form of abuse:

Children’s rights is actually a fine idea because it is not appropriate to take advantage of the kids. . .those actions mean abusing the rights of the child (Tambas’ older sister, Mabanowa)

These comments epitomize the tensions in the ‘field’ of inter-generational relations evident more widely in Sierra Leone (Bolten, 2012). Processes of individualization in a wider context of severe poverty, war, disease and post-colonial restructuring are reshaping values and aspirations, as well as familial and community interdependencies. Indeed Boersch- Supan (2012) noted the inter-generational tensions which (continue to) arise as youth query the authority of elders to allocate a decreasing supply of scare resources. Tensions arise in the preservation of traditional ways of ‘doing’ and ‘being’, strongly rooted in power vested in the elders, to the handing over to ‘expert’ (and mainly white) outsiders, with contrary views on ‘childhood’ ‘parenting’ and development.

Becoming ‘brilliant’ (Kachemp) and the value of education

Perhaps it is in the field of education and the introduction of formal schooling that many of the tensions between transformation and preservation crystallize. While schooling is a field of action in its own right, our focus is on how the requirements of formal schooling coalesce with or against the grain of traditional generational orders. With the normalization of schooling as an everyday feature of childhood in our village communities, the collective ‘good’ now rests on the accumulation of new forms of cultural capital (educational credentials) and the delayed (and high risk) future return of investment for efforts made in the present.

Throughout our fieldwork, it was clear that education was highly valued. The attendance of children at school was consistently associated with the fostering of ‘Kachemp’: the Temne word for ‘brilliance’ with strong cultural resonance among villagers:

Significantly education was portrayed not only in terms of future wants but also present needs, given the changing patterns of work within the wider society. Elders in Mabonowa for example commented on the social and cultural capital generated through being literate, essential to negotiating employment in the mines:

With the coming of these foreign companies, we saw it that people that are educated easily made friends more than the illiterate. . .educated people are more preferred than the uneducated ones. (Elders, Mabonowa)

Expectations for what education could achieve were high, in spite of widespread youth unemployment and its vulnerabilities to the vagaries of international markets (Schepler, 2014). Both adults and children also spoke of increased respect generated through education, the accumulation of ascribed status (social capital) that could be exchanged for wealth and increased familial opportunities:

If you are educated it will make you stop your family from doing labor work in the farm. . . .if you become educated in the future we will be important in the community wherein people will admire at us.

(Class 6 interview, Taroko)

André and Hilgers (2015) define this capacity to mobilize urban opportunities as the capital of ‘autochtony’, centred on a devaluation of the uncivilsed ‘rural’ over the cosmopolitan urban. This was reflected in the comments of Ramatu’s mother in Mabonowa when she spoke of wanting education to ‘grow more and more’ because it will ‘change your status moving from this area to the city’. Similarly younger children in Class 2 in Gbantrani spoke of the ‘civilizing’ benefits of learning English:

Underpinning these ideas are values related to liberal individualism and freedom, reflected in the discourses of ‘choice’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘competition’. Education was perceived as the gateway to opportunity with fear of being ‘left behind’ in this new form of capital accumulation:

In our days education was not important but this day’s education is the best now for children and also the competition in education is too great these days. (Sia’s Grand Mother_Fatmata, Mabonowa)

Set within the wider context of neo-liberal processes of development, new forms of subjectification (Foucault, 1979) ensue, inverting not only traditional values but also zones of expertise between young and old. Children were perceived as ‘cleverer than in our own childhood’ (Parent Gbantrani), able to speak the higher status ‘Krio’ ⁴ as well as count and read. Through their schooling children now acquired proficiencies beyond the traditionally valued ‘knowing’ of most adults in their lives. Sia’s mother referred to children ‘having their eyes open’ signaling not only her association between ‘valued’ learning and formal schooling, but also her internalization of deficit constructions of past generations for their ‘lack’ of valuing such education:

In our days, we didn’t value education but this day’s children value education more than everything. Can’t you see them all going to school, their eyes are open now (Sia’s mother, Mabonowa)

These changes posed risks as well as opportunities to traditional generational orders. Elders and parents articulated the risks in terms of their declining status and subsequent loss of control. For elders especially, their status as the sole guardians of wisdom and knowledge (key elements of their traditionally greater social and cultural capital) was inverted as new forms of cultural capital and ‘value’ predominated in an increasingly credentialized society (Collins, 1979):

Even if I know how to talk and the people love me, if I want to be a counsellor, the people will not allow me because I am not educated. (Elders, Gbantrani)

They know more than us. If you ask them to do or go this way they will say your time was gone and this is our time. (Elders, Karanka)

The introduction of schooling not only raised the stakes of the ‘game’ (Bourdieu, 1986) in familial strategies for survival however. It re/structured the practices required for doing so for children and adults. Children’s labour was now directed to schooling, with less time available to contribute to the farm and/or domestic duties. Substantive and new sacrifices had to be made by adults in order to ensure continued school attendance. Implied was an inversion of traditional patterns of ‘work’, an alteration in the operation of reciprocal solidarity because of a newly felt burden on elders to continue working in order to compensate for the additional costs of schooling. In spite of increasing government support for schooling the financial burden on parents and elders remained relatively high, with choices required as to how long a child should be considered a’ ‘child’ and thus remain in school, and who among them would do so. These decisions reflected the diverse strategies parents had to employ in the allocation of resources in a context of economic fragility, and rising inflation:

Today if we see improvement coming to our communities is due to the educated people. That is why all the children are in school to learn and we the adults are now working for the children. It is also the reason why poverty is increasing because the young people who are strong and fast to work, they are all in the school and the old people who are slow and weak because of age, are the ones working now in the farm (Elders Gbantrani)

It would be a mistake however to view elder perceptions of such change as an overwhelming threat to existing generational orders. The valuing of education brought benefits that were being capitalized on by elders. Schooling yielded new forms of cultural capital that could be practically exchanged to further the economic interests and transactions for the family. In this sense children’s traditional contributions to family livelihoods on the farm/domestic work were being supplanted by their role as cultural and inter-generational negotiators. Elders drew on children’s literacy and numeracy skills to enhance the reputation/status of the family in the local village, as well as navigate economic transactions in the present that were now dependent on these new found skills:

If we are educated they should not take advantage over us by the mining in our farm in which we’ve not gotten any benefit from. (Sia’s Grand Mother_Fatmata, Mabonowa)

Education was perceived then as a necessary resource to resist exploitation by global capitalism, highlighting its transformative potential (Brissett and Mitter, 2017). In addition expectations were high for longer-term returns. The manner of fulfilling the inter-generational contract may change but the contract itself does not, all the more so in contexts of high poverty and familial inter-dependence. The obligation on parents to educate their children remained paramount – not only because of its necessity in a cash based literate economy but also because of children’s own assertion and recognition of its importance to their lives. While parents and elders consistently framed a ‘good’ child in terms of continued respect and obedience, children and their older siblings spoke of ‘good’ parenting in terms of looking after them. This included facilitating their attendance at school. Children’s resilience and agency in the face of the harsh challenges of their lives was reflected in their determination to ‘cater for ourselves’:

For those (children) in the cities their parents provide clothes and buy them their desires including what they will need for their schooling. For us here our parents have very little or no time to provide for us. Soon as day breaks we have to cater for ourselves. (Class 6 focus group, Naytikiwo)

Further, in contrast with elder concerns about a decline in their authority, children consistently articulated the purpose of education in collective terms and their capacity to ‘give back’ to their families for the sacrifices made. While parents struggled to pay, children viewed schooling as a route out of poverty and the means through which they could honour their obligations within the inter-generational contract. In so doing, they recognized their central role to the reconfigurations taking place:

If I become educated I can take my two parents out of poor status. . .now that they’ve given birth and suffered for me I won’t say I will not do that after I have gotten all my chances (Class 2, Karanka)

Discussion

This paper highlights how developments such as compulsory schooling, in addition to the construction of children as individual rights holders, disrupt traditional generational orders. Constructs of ‘adult’ and ‘child’ evolve in complex processes of social, cultural and economic change that are embedded in relations of power. Bourdieu’s concept of ‘fields’ is especially apt in highlighting the dynamic interactions in play, and the inter-relatedness of ‘generational orders’ (understood as a ‘field’ of action) with other fields (in this care ‘education’ and ‘development) in re/structuring adult and child ‘being’ and ‘doing’. Significantly his work draws attention to the practices and strategies that underpin generational orders, as adults and children negotiate and position themselves in this changing context. Tensions in the field, between preservation of established generational orders with absolute authority of elders, sit alongside transformations – the push and pull of the forces of ‘modernization’ and neo-liberal marketization. Generational orders are inverted both in terms of the authority and status of elders/parents, as well as the everyday obligations adults and children fulfill: adults work, children play and learn. New strategies for both adults and children are required, with a purposive refocusing on investment in children’s education for long term gain. Parents (and elders) recognize the need for literacy and numeracy skills in an increasingly credentialized context, yet struggle with the costs of schooling in addition to the loss of children’s work contributions to present family livelihoods. Their contradictory location within contemporary capitalism is evident, where traditional forms of power are no longer sufficient to ‘play the game’ (Bourdieu, 1990). For children education creates new zones of influence (and power) in their relationships with adults through access to more valued forms of cultural capital. ‘Free’ schooling further reduces their dependence on adults to enable them to attend. Parents and elders are also influenced by this change, not only in the expectations (and duties) they fulfill with respect to their children, but also with respect to changing ideas of ‘good’ parenting that dovetail with changing (western) constructions of what is ‘good’ in and for childhood.

Ruptures to generational orders are also mediated however by the material circumstances of family life, itself a byproduct of fragile post-colonial restructuring and global capitalist development. In each of our villages, developments were implemented in a context where survival could not be taken as given and where mutual solidarity within tight rules of social obligations – the inter-generational contract - framed everyday life. As Kabeer (2000) notes the inter-generational contract derives from risks underpinned by inter-dependency. In communities in transition, this creates challenges for children and their parents/elders, caught between ‘aspirations’ for a better life through investment in schooling, while maintaining livelihood strategies in the present. In such contexts a diversity of strategies is employed, including decisions as to whom and for how long children will attend school. While beyond the focus of this paper, gendered orders (as do those related to class) also intersect with generational orders, creating additional constraints within and across families for girls and children in the poorest families.

Children and young people both narrate and embody a sense of responsibility and duty, aware of their role in family survival strategies, while critical of flogging and severe physical punishment. As André and Hilgers (2015) note, children are central to the social re/configurations that are taking place. This supersedes their ‘value’ as human capital. In a wider context of uneven global capitalist development and the structured inequalities that ensue, they seek to balance the tensions between tradition and ‘modernity’. Evident is their assertion of the importance of education to their lives, alongside their adherence to the substance of the inter-generational contract and expectations that they would repay their parents for investments made. Without sustainable structured investment in the material conditions of their lives, however, a tension will remain between their ‘rights’ (framed individually) and their wider family ‘needs’ (framed collectively) in a context of inter-dependent generational relationships that are essential to survival. While we have focused here on ruptures to the generational ‘field’ with respect to the wider project of ‘modernization’, the resilience of these local communities in the face of existential threats has an extended history. The challenge is to work with the grain of this embodied knowing, not through the imposition of hegemonic values from the ‘outside’ but through the lens of the lived perspectives and realities of children and their families on the ground.