Spaces/Places of Growing Up:

Mapping the Geographies of Childhood

International Phygital Conference organized by

The Department of English,

Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan, Kolkata.

In collaboration with

The Critical Childhoods and Youth Studies Collective 

15th and 16th September 2022

 ‘Growing up’ or the long and often arduous journey of (trans)formation from a child to an adult necessarily happens not only through developmental milestones (like important examinations or birthdays) but through countless exposures and experiences in the social/public and the personal/private worlds inhabited by the child. While parts of this process have been traditionally or normatively defined by aspects of child-rearing, pedagogy and cognitive psychology, the many and varied physical and virtual sites of this transformative journey have not drawn much critical attention or generated a scholarly discourse, particularly in the context of childhoods across the Indian subcontinent.

The conference wants to draw attention to and critically review the varied spaces and places, which the child inhabits during the years of growing up – areas which open up exposures and provide the experiences that are a crucial part of that complex and elusive process of moving towards adulthood. Broadly speaking, such sites include the physical and the material as well as the imaginative, the psychological and the liminal  – in short, any sphere that is a part of childhood and affects the growing-up of the child. Pedagogy and leisure, nation and family, school and home, fantasy and trauma all engender spaces/places within which lessons and skills are learnt, rebellions and/or allegiances are enacted and socio-cultural identities are formed. Also interesting is the fact that in practice, the lived experiences of children within these spheres, at times overlap with the so-called ‘adult’ worlds and such cracks, seepages and contingencies also have significant roles to play in the journey to adulthood. The conference aims to review and critique these sites of growing-up, to assess their roles and impact in childhoods past and present. Papers can address (but are in no way limited to) any of the following physical, material, social and psychological spaces of childhoods:

Homes, nurseries, kindergartens, schools, classrooms, playgrounds, parks, orphanages, refugee colonies, neighbourhoods

Games, picnics, holidays, excursions, adventures, travel

Books, comics, film and media, advertisements, songs, digital-games

Fantasies, dreams, nightmares, trauma, illnesses,

Nation, Race, Family, Caste, Gender

While studies based on textual analysis are not excluded, we are looking forward to papers that are interdisciplinary and intersectional in nature.  We welcome proposals from scholars, professors, doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, authors and practitioners from fields as diverse as Culture Studies, Psychology, Law, Human Rights, History, Sociology, Literature, Education, Design, Architecture, Media and Publishing.

Please submit abstracts (300 words) for papers (15 minutes presentation time) along with a short bio-note (150 words) via email to conference@rksmvv.ac.in by 30th July 2022. The conference will have a segment devoted to student papers. Students are welcome to submit abstracts (300 words) for mini papers/poster presentations (not exceeding 10 minutes) along with a brief bio-note (150 words) via email to conference@rksmvv.ac.in by 30th July 2022. All presentations will be in English. In case of any queries prior to your submission please don't hesitate to write to us.

Conference venue:

(For physical presentation) 

Auditorium, Ramakrishna Sarada Mission Vivekananda Vidyabhavan,

33, Sri Maa Sarada Sarani,

Kolkata - 700055

(For virtual presentations)

Zoom

Important Dates:

30th July 2022 – Last date for submission of abstracts

10th August 2022 – Notification for selected papers

30th August – Tentative schedule and details regarding conference registration, paid accommodation (if needed by participants) etc.

7th September 2022 – Submission of full papers (7000 words) and AV presentations