Short Abstract

Mainstream development often overlooks the complex realities of children and youth in conflict & colonised contexts, reinforcing victimhood & justifying saviourist interventions. This panel explores alternative approaches to research & programming that centre young people’s agency & imagination.

Description

Mainstream development and humanitarian discourse often fail to account for the lived realities of children and youth in conflict-affected and colonised contexts, such as in Palestine and Sudan. These experiences, marked by violence, displacement, trauma, and survival, are frequently oversimplified through victimising narratives that reinforce power hierarchies and justify saviourist interventions (Hart, 2008; Okyere, 2022). Children and young people are routinely silenced, either through assumptions of immaturity or practices of “unchilding” (Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2019), producing epistemic violence that excludes them from systems meant to protect. Rights-based approaches that promote participation may inadvertently reproduce Eurocentric understandings of childhood and adolescence, privileging liberal individualism and obscuring collective, intergenerational agency (de Castro, 2022; Taft, 2019). In contrast, child-centred, decolonial approaches may offer more nuanced engagement with children’s everyday experiences of adversity and colonial violence that resist adult-centric tropes (Abebe et al., 2022; Biswas, 2023).

This panel explores how alternative theories and practices can contribute to evidence-based, contextually grounded and politically informed programming with children and youth. We invite contributions that interrogate the theoretical and methodological foundations of research and practice with children and young people in development and humanitarian contexts. Key questions include: What frameworks avoid Eurocentric tropes, counter colonisation and foreground collective, grassroots agency? What participatory methods can engage with young people's realities, perspectives and demands without saviourist bias? How can research inform programming that supports wellbeing, meaningful protagonism and future-making? We welcome interdisciplinary and arts-based submissions, especially those co-created with children and youth, to foster inclusive dialogue and imagine alternative development horizons.