Power and relational dynamics in participation : children and young people's opportunities and choices in decision-making in Bangladesh"

Abstract

This thesis explores structures and processes that influence children and young people's opportunities to participate in decision-making and the actual choices that children and young people make regarding their participation in both private and public spaces in Bangladesh. An examination of children and young people's relationships with their families, society and the state is used to critique the liberal construction of the individual rights-bearing child. The experiences and perspectives of young people and adults in this study reveal the relational nature of children and young people's opportunities and choices to participate in decision-making, which is both social and political in nature. The analysis shows that at the micro level, the social values of duty, obligation, reciprocity, interdependence, deference, honour and shame in generational relationships contribute to developing children and young people's relational identity. Children and young people's engagement with social values reveals the power of moral economy in regulating their agency and shaping their experiences of participation in decision-making in relational contexts. The study demonstrates that children and young people's adherence to social norms and institutions shape their behavioural disposition and constrain their choices to participate in making decisions. In this process, generation and gender are revealed as the two key structuring factors of social, economic and political life which are further intersected by other social differentiations resulting in children and young people's social exclusion from influencing decisions. Understanding the cultural politics of childhood is thus crucial in understanding opportunities and choices of children and young people's participation in making decisions within various intergenerational and intra-generational social positions. Equally important is the analysis that reveals children and young people's real vulnerability to danger and risks that exist in the external environment in which they live. Therefore, concerns for children's protection from external vulnerabilities also cause their social exclusion and limit their agency in decision-making. At the macro level, the analysis reveals that a lack of political commitment to translate policy into practice is linked to normative and ideological views of childhood and inadequate institutional processes resulting in children and young people's systemic social, political and structural exclusion from influencing public and development policies and services. Moreover, children and young people's agency to influence policy decisions and service provisions are also shaped by powerful broader macro and structural forces such as neoliberal educational policy agenda. The analysis in this thesis thus underscores the power and relational dynamics present in children and young people's opportunities and choices in decision-making that affect their lives. This thesis therefore argues for considering socio-cultural and politico-economic contexts as spaces in which children and young people's participation in decision-making is embedded in various intergenerational and intra-generational relationships. These relationships as spaces are imbued with multiple dimensions of power and social control. A relational understanding of rights that considers the importance of rights at the macro level to hold the government accountable to realise social and economic rights and relationships at the micro level is therefore significant in taking children and young people's participation in decision-making forward.