Ambivalent Childhoods: Speculative Futures and the Psychic Life of the Child

In Ambivalent Childhoods, Jacob Breslow examines how childhood operates within and against social justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, transfeminism, queer youth activism, and antideportation movements. He combines critical race, trans, feminist, queer, critical migration, and psychoanalytic theories to explore the role of childhood in shaping and challenging the disposability of young black life, the steadfastness of the gender binary, the queer life of children's desires, and the precarious status of migrants.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 280 pages
\n Publication date: 03 August 2021
\n Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
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The concept of childhood holds numerous complex and multifaceted meanings, with profound implications, particularly for individuals seeking inclusion and justice within it. In his book, Ambivalent Childhoods, Jacob Breslow delves into contemporary U.S. social justice movements, including Black Lives Matter, transfeminism, queer youth activism, and antideportation movements, to investigate how childhood functions within and against these movements.

Ambivalent Childhoods brings together critical race, trans, feminist, queer, critical migration, and psychoanalytic theories to explore the profound role of childhood in shaping and challenging the disposability of young black life, the rigidity of the gender binary, the queer life of children's desires, and the precarious status of migrants. By engaging with the "psychic life of the child" that combines theoretical discussions of childhood, blackness, transfeminism, and deportability with critical readings of films, narratives, images, and social justice movements, Breslow demonstrates how childhood demands sustained attention as a complex and ambivalent site for contesting the workings of power, not only for the young.

Through an intersectional analysis, Ambivalent Childhoods sheds light on how childhood impacts activism, national belonging, and the violence directed against queer, trans, and racialized individuals. The book offers a forward-thinking perspective on the complexities of childhood and its significance in shaping our understanding of social justice and human rights.

\n Weight: 378g\n
Dimension: 139 x 215 x 18 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781517908225\n \n