Peer-reviewed article
Institutionalisation of Children’s Rights: Transformability and Situated Agency
Daniel Stoecklin ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view ·Key points
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Abstract
In a previous article (Stoecklin, 2017), I considered the example of the “paradox of institutionalisation” (Stammers, 2013) occurring in the drafting of the General Comment on Children in Street Situations (UNCRC, 2016). The vision of children’s “living rights” as the outcome of a structured process translating specific claims into an institutionalised set of norms (Hanson and Nieuwenhuys, 2013) has been identified. Analysis of the labels used for “street children” underlines the transformability of signification, domination and legitimation in the theory of structuration (Giddens, 1979, 1984). In this article, a theory of situated agency is outlined. It provides a new framework to understand the institutionalisation of children’s rights as the dual structuration of subjects (children) and objects (rights) occuring in given contexts. This makes “rights acting children” emerge as an interdisciplinary concept.