Childhood Studies: From Participation to the Incorporation of Their Voices

The present article seeks to reflect on the notion of “children’s voice” and to problematize the way inwhich childhood social studies have attempted to approach it. The argument draws on the definition of children’s voices as the first-person expression of the relational network of positionings and social echoes that children articulate in a singular way, responding to the words of adults. The limitations of childhood studies of capturing and accounting for the inherent complexity of this phenomenon and of the subjectivity of children’s voices are discussed. A case is made for the contribution of Bakhtin’s language theory and of relational psychoanalysis to account for the relational complexity involved in the notion of children’s voice.We propose that Bakhtin’s concepts of polyphony and discursive positions of the self can contribute to the understanding and the study of children’s voices, considering the dynamic and changing social framework in which they are produced and that will inevitably influence the research process when studying childhood. We then elaborate on the relational understanding of the human mind proposed by relational psychoanalysis and on the concept of intersubjectivity, pointing out its contribution to understanding the way in which children’s voices are articulated and how they may manifest within the researcher-subject encounter. Finally, we argue in favor of incorporating the understandings about subjectivity and the relationship between subjectivities proposed by these two theoretical models in childhood social studies that seek to account for the voices of children, suggesting some concrete methodological principles and approaches.