Children's rights implementation as a lived practice : An ethnography of implementation in India and its potential for Critical Children's Rights Studies
(2025) p.268-280- Abstract
- An ‘implementation gap’ between law and practice has long been noticed by scholars and practitioners of children’s rights. This chapter goes beyond critiquing such a gap by unpacking and deconstructing the very notion of ‘implementation.’ It empirically studies how India’s national child helpline, and thereby children’s protection rights, are implemented in the state of Madhya Pradesh in North India. Instead of assuming that ‘rights implementation’ simply equals a technical application of law by the state, the chapter conceptualizes implementation as a ‘lived practice’ consisting of the interactive social meeting between children’s rights law, its official and unofficial implementers, its beneficiaries (children), and their immediate... (More)
- An ‘implementation gap’ between law and practice has long been noticed by scholars and practitioners of children’s rights. This chapter goes beyond critiquing such a gap by unpacking and deconstructing the very notion of ‘implementation.’ It empirically studies how India’s national child helpline, and thereby children’s protection rights, are implemented in the state of Madhya Pradesh in North India. Instead of assuming that ‘rights implementation’ simply equals a technical application of law by the state, the chapter conceptualizes implementation as a ‘lived practice’ consisting of the interactive social meeting between children’s rights law, its official and unofficial implementers, its beneficiaries (children), and their immediate relations (most often families). If we take seriously this ‘lived practice’ of implementation, we can begin to understand both why some laws seem ‘unimplementable’ (due to, for instance, discrepancies between legal and social ages), and also which actors (such as nongovernmental organizations) are key for implementation even if they are only cursorily, if at all, mentioned in children’s rights law. By showcasing how such a conceptualization came to be through ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter also demonstrates how other critical children’s rights researchers methodologically can use ethnography for critical theoretical development. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/e01a7af3-59ff-4aa8-9824-452f1d36f66c
- author
- Boje Mortensen, Therese LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- India, Children's rights, implementation, CHILDLINE
- host publication
- Critical Children’s Rights Studies : A Research Companion - A Research Companion
- editor
- Llobet, Valeria ; Reynaert, Didier ; Twum-Danso Imoh, Afua and Vandenhole, Wouter
- pages
- 13 pages
- publisher
- Routledge
- ISBN
- 9781032827612
- 9781032836232
- 9781003510284
- DOI
- 10.4324/9781003510284-19
- project
- NGOs as Duty Bearers of Child Rights: An Ethnography of ChildLine India
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- e01a7af3-59ff-4aa8-9824-452f1d36f66c
- date added to LUP
- 2025-06-10 07:39:03
- date last changed
- 2025-06-18 10:46:30
@inbook{e01a7af3-59ff-4aa8-9824-452f1d36f66c,
abstract = {{An ‘implementation gap’ between law and practice has long been noticed by scholars and practitioners of children’s rights. This chapter goes beyond critiquing such a gap by unpacking and deconstructing the very notion of ‘implementation.’ It empirically studies how India’s national child helpline, and thereby children’s protection rights, are implemented in the state of Madhya Pradesh in North India. Instead of assuming that ‘rights implementation’ simply equals a technical application of law by the state, the chapter conceptualizes implementation as a ‘lived practice’ consisting of the interactive social meeting between children’s rights law, its official and unofficial implementers, its beneficiaries (children), and their immediate relations (most often families). If we take seriously this ‘lived practice’ of implementation, we can begin to understand both why some laws seem ‘unimplementable’ (due to, for instance, discrepancies between legal and social ages), and also which actors (such as nongovernmental organizations) are key for implementation even if they are only cursorily, if at all, mentioned in children’s rights law. By showcasing how such a conceptualization came to be through ethnographic fieldwork, the chapter also demonstrates how other critical children’s rights researchers methodologically can use ethnography for critical theoretical development.}},
author = {{Boje Mortensen, Therese}},
booktitle = {{Critical Children’s Rights Studies : A Research Companion}},
editor = {{Llobet, Valeria and Reynaert, Didier and Twum-Danso Imoh, Afua and Vandenhole, Wouter}},
isbn = {{9781032827612}},
keywords = {{India; Children's rights; implementation; CHILDLINE}},
language = {{eng}},
pages = {{268--280}},
publisher = {{Routledge}},
title = {{Children's rights implementation as a lived practice : An ethnography of implementation in India and its potential for Critical Children's Rights Studies}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003510284-19}},
doi = {{10.4324/9781003510284-19}},
year = {{2025}},
}