ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an historical account of some of the ways children and young people have been constructed as objects owned by their parents, or as minors needing to be protected until they can become adults and can exercise the affordances of adulthood like political participation. It outlines the reasons for the representation of children and young people as unsuited to political life. Showing how and why children are ill-suited for political life also depends on a quite narrow and state-centric way, conception of politics, something highlighted in the way citizenship has been represented in the west. Children and young people have long been subject to paternalism in which the child or adolescent, or youth, belongs to or is owned by parents or guardians. Representation of children and some young people as ‘minors’ refers to their status as inferior, secondary, and of lesser significance. There is a tradition in the west of seeing politics as coterminous with being a citizen.
