Child Soldiers and Iconography: Portrayals and (Mis)Representations

Autor/in	Denov, Myriam
Titel	Child Soldiers and Iconography: Portrayals and (Mis)Representations
Quelle	In: Children & Society, 26 (2012) 4, S.280-292 (13 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0951-0605
DOI	10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00347.x
Schlagwörter	Children; Foreign Countries; News Media; Military Personnel; Males; Weapons; Popular Culture; War; Grouping (Instructional Purposes); Interviews; Sierra Leone + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Child; Kind; Kinder; Ausland; Nachrichtenwesen; Male; Männliches Geschlecht; Weapon; Waffe; Popkultur; Krieg; Grouping; Gruppenbildung; Interviewing; Interviewtechnik
Abstract	Over the past decade, child soldiers have inundated the popular media. Images of boys armed with AK47s appear ubiquitous, providing a cautionary tale of innocent childhood gone awry. While these representations turn commonly held assumptions of a protected and innocuous childhood on its head, what they conceal is as provocative as what they reveal. Popular news media tells us little about the children behind the guns or the complexity of their wartime and post-war experiences. Attempting to move beyond the narrow depictions, this paper explores the realities of a cohort of child soldiers in Sierra Leone and their experiences of armed conflict. Drawing upon in-depth interviews conducted over a two-year period, children's experiences defy the limiting portrayals offered by media discourse. While these children are frequently constructed through a framework of extremes (as either extreme victims, extreme perpetrators or extreme heroes), in reality, the lives of these children fall within the grey, ambiguous and paradoxical zones of each. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10