Child-Adult Separation in Settler-Colonialism

Hedi Viterbo, Department of Politics and International Studies, SOAS University of London

This paper examines connections, continuities, and similarities, in the separation of children of colonized groups from their elders across four settler colonial settings. Three of these involve indigenous children’s large-scale removal from their parents, families, and communities: Australia’s so-called Stolen Generations, Canadian First Nation children’s removal to residential schools, and, in the United States, Native American children’s removal to off-reserve boarding schools. The fourth case concerns Israel’s recent, and seemingly benevolent, decision to systematically separate Palestinian child detainees and prisoners from their adult counterparts. This paper compares the motivations for, and the detrimental consequences of, child-adult separation in these four cases. It then proceeds to explore the conceptual and political potential, as well as some limitations and pitfalls, of drawing comparisons between these cases, and between settler colonial societies generally.

Dr Hedi Viterbo (LLM, PhD) is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at SOAS. His main research areas are state violence (especially in Israel/Palestine and the United States), childhood, and sexuality. Among his recent publications are "Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence" (Stanford Journal of International Law, 2014) and "The Age of Conflict: Rethinking Childhood, Law, and Age through the Israeli-Palestinian Case" (in Michael Freeman ed., "Law and Childhood Studies" (Oxford University Press, 2012)).

Organiser: Dr Hedi Viterbo

Contact email: Hedi.Viterbo@soas.ac.uk

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