CCYSC Awaaz

What happens when the most formative memories of a generation are never spoken aloud?

Across postwar Central and Eastern Europe, mass deportations, forced labor, and ethnic cleansing uprooted millions and embedded patterns of mistrust, stigma, and loss that persisted across generations. Yet in many families, silence became the primary mode of transmission: grandchildren grew up sensing a wound they could not name, inheriting anxiety, somatic complaints, and fragmented stories without historical context.

In this episode, Dr. Erzsébet Fanni Tóth examines how deportation trauma after World War II continues to shape families who were never allowed to be told what really happened.

In this episode, Dr. Ilona Pinter (Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics & Political Science) discusses her research with asylum-seeking families in the UK. Her research explores children and young people experiences of poverty and material deprivation during the asylum process, while their families are restricted from employment and reliant on state support from the UK Home Office. She develops the concept of "differentiated childhood" to make sense of the unequal support provided to families and its consequences for children and young people.

This week’s episode in the Childhood and Migration Series features a conversation with Dr. ⁠Fernanda Ahumada Medina⁠ who shares her experience researching with young migrant children in Chile. During the conversation, she discusses the methods, ethics, and positionality considered in her field research.

This week’s episode in the Childhood and Migration Series features a conversation with Dr. Fernanda Ahumada Medina who shares her experience researching with young migrant children in Chile. During the conversation, she discusses the methods, ethics, and positionality considered in her field research.

Welcome to the Childhood and Migration Series, hosted by CCYSC Awaaz

In Episode 1 of this new series, Margot Lavent and Dr. Kaat Van Acker present rich, grounded examples of how families experience parenting and growing up both before and after fleeing their home countries. Within this context, they explore how families make sense of evolving roles, tasks, responsibilities, and caregiving dynamics and critically examine the widely used—and often contested—concept of parentification.

Margot Lavent is a researcher at Odisee University College in Brussels, affiliated with the Social

Work Research Group and the Centre for Family Studies. Her research focuses (changing) family dynamics among refugee families, child- and family-friendly reception centers, and, more generally, parenting and growing up in the context of refugee families. She also works as a freelancer, providing training, workshops, and peer supervision sessions on diversity-sensitive social work. Together with Mieke Schrooten, Sophie Withaeckx, and Dirk Geldof, Margot co-authored Transmigration: Social Work in a World of Superdiversity (2016), which explores the experiences of transmigrants in Belgium and the implications for social work.

Dr. Kaat Van Acker is a lecturer in Social Work at Odisee University of Applied Sciences in Brussels and in Social and Cultural Psychology at KU Leuven in Belgium. Her research focuses on family dynamics in refugee and immigrant communities, with particular attention to how parenthood and childhood are reconstructed after forced migration and shaped by institutional settings and legislation. Over the years, she has also examined issues related to the acculturation of Muslim minorities, the resilience of refugee families, and the role of collective emotions. Alongside her academic work, Kaat practices as an emotion-focused therapist and maintains a strong interest in how therapy can be adapted to intercultural contexts. She is the author of 13 peer-reviewed articles on migration and intergroup relations, including a recent study on shifting narratives of parenthood among refugee families and social workers in collective reception centres. In this work, she introduced the concept of “institutionalized forms of parentification.

Podcast hosts and editors: Dr. Adrienne Atterberry (Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Lowell) and Dr. Karina Ruiz (Director of Research, CSLX).

Post-production work: Kate Parsons (Student, University of Massachusetts Lowell)

In this episode, our member, Dr. Nicolás Brando (University of Liverpool, UK), talks about his new book, Childhood in Liberal Theory: Equality, Difference and Children’s Rights (Oxford University Press, 2024), with Prof. Tara Collins (Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada). He foregrounds the question of "who is considered a child?" and the framing of "children's rights" in philosophical and policy discourses.

In this episode Dr. Soni, Gitam University, interacts with Dr. Catriona Ellis, Strathclyde University about her recent book, "Imagining Childhood, Improving Children: The Emergence of an ‘Avuncular' State in Late Colonial South India" published by Cambridge University Press, 2023. Her research explores how colonial authorities, through education policies, child welfare programs, and juvenile reform initiatives, sought to position themselves as "avuncular" figures—benevolent yet authoritative guardians of children’s well-being in colonial south India.

Simran Josan, our CCYSC intern, is in conversation with Sumit Parewa (Trustee, TCLP) and Nisha (Class IX student) regarding The Community Library Project, a public initiative to promote the right to read and organise free libraries for all in India and beyond.

Sumit and Nisha share their experiences of joining the TCLP as young members and helping to bring books to working-class children in several parts of Delhi.

* This conversation has been recorded in the Hindi language.

प्रयत्न एक आदिवासी युवा समूह है जिसने भारत में पश्चिम बंगाल के जलपाईगुड़ी के चाय बागान क्षेत्र में शिक्षा, सामाजिक जागरूकता और अपने समुदाय के सशक्तिकरण की दिशा में 10 वर्षों से अधिक समय तक काम किया है। वे छात्रों को उच्च अध्ययन के लिए सलाह देते हैं और तैयार करते हैं एवं बुजुर्गों तक मदद पहुंचते हैं। इसके अलावा अन्य कार्यक्रमों जैसे कि, यौन शोषण के शिकार लोगों का समर्थन करते हैं और यहां तक कि स्थानीय सफाई अभियान भी चलाते हैं। यह एक इंटरव्यू (साक्षात्कार) है जो ज्योति के द्वारा प्रयातन के तीन सदस्यों के साथ आयोजित किया गया है; फुलमोनी, निकिता और सुजीत जहाँ वे अपने समूह के गठन एवं उनके द्वारा संचालित कार्यक्रमों, उनके समुदाय के सामाजिक विकास के प्रति उनकी प्रतिबद्धता के साथ-साथ COVID-19 महामारी के दौरान उनके समुदाय और क्षेत्र पर पड़ने वाले प्रभाव के बारे में चर्चा करते हैं।

साक्षात्कारकर्ता:

ज्योति अंबेडकर यूनिवर्सिटी दिल्ली के स्कूल ऑफ एजुकेशन स्टडीज में मास्टर ऑफ एजुकेशन की छात्रा हैं। उनकी राजनीति विज्ञान की पृष्ठभूमि है और शिक्षण के साथ-साथ गायन और नृत्य में भी उनकी रुचि है।

प्रयत्न सदस्य:

फुलमोनी मुंडा जलपाईगुड़ी के इंडोंग चाय बागानों से आती हैं और वर्तमान में आईआईटी गांधीनगर में  Society and Culture (समाज और संस्कृति) में स्नातकोत्तर कर रही हैं।

निकिता चिकबरैक जलपाईगुड़ी के आईभील चाय बागान से हैं और वर्तमान में टाटा इंस्टीट्यूट ऑफ सोशल साइंसेज, मुंबई से शिक्षा में स्नातकोत्तर कर रही हैं।

सुजीत बारला वर्तमान में अम्बेडकर विश्वविद्यालय दिल्ली से शिक्षा में स्नातकोत्तर कर रहे हैं और जलपाईगुड़ी के बटाबारी चाय बागान से हैं।

प्रयत्न से जुडें: [email protected]

संपादक: वेदा गोपाल (छात्र, स्कूल ऑफ एजुकेशन स्टडीज, अम्बेडकर विश्वविद्यालय दिल्ली)

संगीत: स्कॉट होम्स द्वारा ‘लिटिल आइडिया’ (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Prayatn is an Adivasi youth collective that has worked in the tea garden region of Jalpaiguri, West Bengal in India for more than 10 years towards the education, social awareness and empowerment of their community.They mentor and prepare students for higher studies, run elderly outreach programs, support victims of sexual abuse and even do local clean-up drives. This is an interview is conducted by Jyoti with three members from Prayatn; Fulmoni, Nikita and Sujit as they discuss the formation of their collective, the programs they conduct, their thoughts underlying their commitment to the social development of their community as well as the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on their community and region.

Interviewed by:

Jyoti is a Masters of Education student at the School of Education Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi. She has a background in political science and is interested in the field of teaching as well as in singing and dancing.

Prayatn members:

Fulmoni Munda comes from the Indong Tea Gardens of Jalpaiguri and is a currently doing her masters in Society and Culture at IIT Gandhinagar

Nikita Chik Baraik is from the Aibheel Tea Garden of Jalpaiguri and is currently pursuing her masters in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Sujit Barla is currently pursuing his Masters in Education from Ambedkar University Delhi and belongs to the Batabari Tea Garden of Jalpaiguri.

Contact: [email protected]

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC

Link for English Translation of Interview: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T-La0fM_nx07K41AxMJpdGlacVaphPNcE7D0rhsxdKY/edit?usp=sharing

Seran Demiral interviews Spyros Spyrou one more time shifting the conversation this time from the politics of childhood to the challenges and opportunities of participation practices. While Demiral questions possibilities of researching with children and the potential of their becoming primary researchers, Spyrou brings in critical perspectives on methodology in childhood studies related to access to participation, the diverse capabilities of research subjects and the different ways through which to reveal their experiences. This conversation about the role of method in research with children explores the intricacies of listening to children’s voices and ways of addressing the limitations of verbal communication.

Spyros Spyrou is Professor of Anthropology at European University Cyprus. His research interests include children’s identities as they intersect with nationalism and questions of borders in conflict societies and children’s role as political actors in the context of climate change activism. Over the years, he has also explored questions related to children and immigration, poverty, social exclusion and single-parenthood as well as constructions of motherhood and babyhood. He has an ongoing interest in children’s participation in research and the ethics and politics of knowledge production in childhood studies. Spyros is the author of Disclosing Childhoods: Research and Knowledge Production for a Critical Childhood Studies and co-editor of Reimagining Childhood Studies and Children and Borders. He is also co-editor of the journal Childhood (Sage) and a co-editor of the book series Studies in Childhood and Youth (Palgrave).

Seran Demiral is a children’s literature and sci-fi writer from Istanbul. She studied the subjectivities of children through their interaction with digital technologies for her PhD in Sociology by focusing on changing childhood experiences within online environments. She is also a P4C (Philosophy for Children/Communities) trainer and part-time lecturer at Boğaziçi University, Primary Education. As a teenager, Demiral published fantasy novels. After she graduated from the architecture department, she began to write for adolescents. Demiral also published a science-fiction book and many stories in anthologies and magazines. Her first non-fiction work, Living Alternative Lives, is about Ursula Le Guin’s literary works. Demiral continues to work on her novels, children’s books and plays.

Edited by Veda Gopala (student, School of Education Studies, Ambedkar University Delhi)

Music:  Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC