ABSTRACT
This chapter mobilises Child as method to trace origins and variations of the trope of ‘honour’ as associated with the figure of ‘the child’ from medieval Europe to contemporary postcolonial contexts. I take as examples the ‘blood libel’ charges levelled against Jews across Medieval Europe, addressing the significance of these as being constellated around (false) accusations of child murder, and exploring in detail how and why these came about. Anticipating the discussion in Part III on the relations between material and ideological conditions, this is taken as a specific arena by which to consider the interplay of material with sociocultural conditions producing racism. While it was boy children around whom the blood libel charges were forged, current (so-called) ‘honour’ crimes involve the violence and often murder of (usually but not only) young women transgressing familial, cultural and received religious norms. I reflect on the significance of this gendered shift in relation to the morality politics exercised and enacted by claims to child and childhood. Hence, a constant theme is how cultural and political agendas are fulfilled in the name of the child or children to warrant religious and racialised persecution.
