Fixity and fluidity – circulations,children,and childhood

Abstract

Circulation is often essentialized as a prescribed, limited, and closed form of movement, ‘fixed’ in origins and destination, in intent and outcome. However, circulation may also be understood as a form of flexible movement, non-fixity or multiple stabilities (the act of living life in multiple physical and social locations). This special issue of the journal Childhood examines a plurality of circulations as metaphors and catalysts for unsettling children and childhood as fixed ontological categories. On one hand, contributors’ attention to a phenomenology of circulations, children, and childhood identifies ‘fixed’ expected or projected developmental trajectories assumed by such adult actors as state workers, child welfare experts, lawyers, law enforcement and biomedical professionals, or adoption professionals to underpin a ‘normal childhood’ (such as that which might be grounded in a nuclear family, with an assumed fixed and stable locus of belonging). On the other hand, it identifies and literally subjectifies children who deviate from this model or ideal. Using spatial metaphors to deconstruct childhood as a fixed category ultimately yields important models for thinking about how children and childhood literally and figuratively perform as markers for both stasis and fluidity in our daily lives.