In:Geopolitics and Activism in Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Edited by Giuliana Fenech and Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak
[Children’s Literature, Culture, and Cognition 18] 2026
► pp. 1–14
Introduction
Children’s and young adult literature, agency, and geopolitics
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
This introductory chapter offers an overview of current
concepts and research approaches relevant to young people’s negotiations of
their geopolitical contexts, including their embodied, located, and grounded
experiences. Moreover, highlighting the connections between national and
transcultural, transnational, and global studies, as well as activism and
citizenship, it suggests the relevance of children’s and young adult
literature to geopolitical situatedness as framing children’s agency through
its socializing, decolonizing, and educating potentials. Finally, it
provides an overview of the chapters in the volume and outlines further
areas of study at the intersections of children’s and young adult literature
scholarship and the field of geopolitics.
Article outline
- Geopolitics and children’s books
Secondary sources
References (30)
Amnesty
International. 2022. “The
State of Human Rights Education”. [URL]
Benwell, Matthew C. & Hopkins, Peter (eds). 2016. Introducing
Children’s and Young People’s Critical
Geopolitics. In Children,
Young People and Critical Geopolitics, Matthew C. Benwell & Peter Hopkins (eds), 1–21. Abingdon, Oxon & New York: Routledge.
2004. The
Location of Culture. Routledge Classics /
with a new preface by the
author. London: Routledge.
Biswas, Tanu & Mattheis, Liola Nike. 2024. Developing
Disobedience: A Decolonial Childist Perspective on School Strikes
for Climate Justice. The American
Behavioral Scientist.
Bradford, Clare. 2011. Children’s
Literature in a Global Age: Transnational and Local
Identities. Nordic Journal of
Childlit
Aesthetics 2 (1): 20–34.
Bradford, Clare, Moruzi, Kristine & Smith.
Michelle J. 2023. “Children’s
Literature and
Transnationalism.” In Routledge
Companion to Children’s Literature and
Culture, Claudia Nelson, Elisabeth Wesseling & Andrea Mei-Ying Wu (eds), 377–401. New York: Routledge.
Braidotti, Rosi. 2011. Nomadic
Theory: The Portable Rosi
Braidotti. New York: Columbia University Press.
Brochin, Carol & Medina, Carmen L. 2017. Critical
Fictions of Transnationalism in Latinx Children’s
Literature. Bookbird 55 (3): 4–11.
de Castro, Lucia Rabello. 2020. Why
Global? Children and Childhood from a Decolonial
Perspective. Childhood 27 (1): 48–62.
Grosfoguel, Ramón. 2019. Epistemic
Extractivism. A Dialogue with Alberto Acosta, Leanne Betasamosake
Simpson, and Silvia Rivera
Cusicanqui. In Knowledges
Born in the Struggle Constructing the Epistemologies of the Global
South, Boaventura de Sousa Santos & Maria Meneses (eds), 203–218. New York: Routledge.
Hamer, Naomi. 2023. Marketing
and
Franchising. In Routledge
Companion to Children’s Literature and
Culture, Claudia Nelson, Elisabeth Wesseling & Andrea Mei-Ying Wu (eds), 255–266. New York: Routledge.
Jay, Paul. 2010. Global
Matters: The Transnational Turn in Literary
Studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina. 2018. Citizen-subject
Formation as Geosocialization: A Methodological Approach on
‘Learning to be
Citizens’. Geografiska Annaler.
Series B, Human
Geography 100 (2): 81–96.
Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina, Mills, Sarah & Skelton, Tracy. 2016. Editorial:
Geographies of Children and Young People’s Politics, Citizenship,
and
Rights. In Politics,
Citizenship and Rights, Tracey Skelton & Stuart C. Aitken (eds), 3–16. Singapore: Springer Singapore.
Lee, Jerome, Emerson, Lesley, Lundy, Laura & Orr, Karen. 2015. Teaching
and Learning about Child Rights: A Study of Implementation in 26
Countries. UNICEF. [URL].
Lemish, Dafna (ed). 2022. The
Routledge International Handbook of Children, Adolescents, and
Media. New York: Routledge.
Lykke, Nina, Koobak, Redi, Bakos, Petra, Aora, Swati & Mohamed, Kharnita (eds). 2024. Pluriversal
Conversations on Transnational Feminisms: And Words Collide from a
Place. New York: Routledge.
Perry, Mia. 2024. Pluriversal
Literacies for Sustainable Futures: When Words are Not
Enough. Oxon: Routledge.
Roig-Sanz, Diana & Rotge, Neus (eds). 2022. Global
Literary Studies: Key
Concepts. Boston: De Gruyter.
Skelton, Tracey & Aitken, Stuart C. 2019. Establishing
Geographies of Children and Young
People. Singapore: Springer Singapore.
Sommer, Doris. 2007. Language,
Culture, and
Society. In Introduction
to Scholarship in Modern Languages and
Literatures, David G. Nicholls (ed), 3–19. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1992. Teaching
for the Times. The Journal of the
Midwest Modern Language
Association 25 (1): 3–22.
UN Refugee
Agency. [URL].
