ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces intersectional childhood studies while exploring empirical examples of children’s gendered experiences of digital technologies. Focusing on minoritised childhoods, it aims to demonstrate the significance of decoloniality as a key resource for understanding the structures of oppression that marginalise children. The chapter first reviews the colonial underpinnings of the concept of gender and childhood and how the digital turn has allowed for new norms and forms of discrimination of children on the margins. Then, it looks at the ways in which girls of colour in the settler colonial contexts of Palestine and the US leverage the internet, particularly through digital storytelling to counter hegemonic narratives and foster community. By taking a decolonial and child-centric approach, the chapter introduces readers to vital perspectives on childhood, gender, and digital communities. M. Laura Manzi Araneda’s contribution to this chapter examines how children in Chile strategically use social media to challenge adult-centric and colonial constructions of childhood, asserting their political agency and reimagining what it means to be a child in contemporary social movements.
