Ambiguity in Children and Young People Agency
There are pieces of evidence on empirical research that show the experiences of survival and coping with violence and adversities in the eastern DRC. These latter researches were based on international rights-based on child protection approaches and the actual lives lived by children in eastern DRC. According to Seymour, there was a need to challenge the child protection stakeholders, this challenge would be purposeful in examining the actors’ knowledge on structural violence and socio-economic adversities (Seymour 2012, p.373). The latter knowledge or understanding would help develop relevant interventions addressing the ambiguous problems, which later would improve the outcomes for the children living under protracted violence.
Further, addressing the critical perspectives based on a social intervention based on children and youth living in Africa and how they result in ambiguous agencies. In support of Seymour’s ambiguous agencies on children (Bordanoro and Payne 2012) presents the whole African perspective on children and youth, as they have been victims or perpetrators and thus a major target by the government security policies (Bordanoro and Payne, 2012, p.365). These policies also were at developing international agencies to bring about social interventions, the type of agency developed is good enough if it addresses the cultural, social, and historical issues on the youth and children.
Nevertheless, (Tomanović 2012) presents an interplay between the ideal structure and agency on young people based on social biographies. In this presentation, he addresses the process that can be used to shape social biographies based on typology and present patterns. After carrying out qualitative research on biographical data that incorporated the children belonging to the family of workers and professionals from two Belgrade neighborhoods, several agencies emerged (Tomanović 2012, p.605). The latter agencies were related to structural constraints or opportunities, which led to inequalities during adulthood transition. There is a need, therefore, to develop different types of agencies that address the biographies of the young children based on the family resources and habitus.
Bibliography
Bordanoro, L.I. and Payne, R. (2012) ‘Ambiguous agency: Critical perspectives on social interventions with children and youth in Africa’. Children’s Geographies 10 (4) 365-372.
Seymour C. (2012) Ambiguous agencies: coping and survival in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Children's Geographies 10: 373-384
Tomanović, S. (2012) ’Agency in the social biographies of young people in Belgrade’. Journal of Youth Studies 15 (5): 605-620.
