Cultural Geographies lecture

Abstract

As the 21st century picks up speed and settles into place, childhood has become a spectacle — a site of accumulation, commodification, and desire — in whose name much is done. In this article, I argue that the spectacle of childhood is associated with the rise of ontological insecurity provoked by anxieties around the political—economic, geopolitical, and environmental futures. I address how this spectacle is produced and made sensible, and lay out three configurations of the child — as accumulation strategy, ornament, and waste — that it calls forth. I suggest some of the consequences of these material social practices for actual children and the cultural geographies of their everyday lives. In exploring what is accomplished politically and socially by these cultural forms and material social practices, I draw out their connections with commodification, essence, distraction, and panic.