Dans l’arène de la (non) verbalisation
Essential child-awakening practices are a tool for socializing children. They give rise to a social economy of (non-)verbalisation and meaning, which largely infuses the construction of the child as a social being within the community. Reverberating through the complex tool of storytelling, three ea...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Presses universitaires de Paris Nanterre
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Terrains/Théories |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/teth/6033 |
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| Summary: | Essential child-awakening practices are a tool for socializing children. They give rise to a social economy of (non-)verbalisation and meaning, which largely infuses the construction of the child as a social being within the community. Reverberating through the complex tool of storytelling, three early-learning practices recommended by public health and used by schools – speaking, mimicry and nursery rhymes – are embedded into the heart of symbolic issues and struggles, making the socialisation of children an arena in which new Protestantisms take the floor in an attempt to overturn ancestral traditions. Based on a field survey conducted in agrarian Aizo and lake Tofin communities in Southern Benin, using the Rapid Collective Identification Survey of Strategic Groups (ECRIS) method, this paper draws a micro sociology of awakening practices in child socialization. The paper shows how the collusion of public health, school education and religious reform discourse disrupts the traditional social order around speech as a stake in children’s socialization. It argues that the economy of child-awakening practices sheds light on a social arena of (non-)verbalization and signification, in which actors struggles around symbolic stakes is part of a confrontation between the categories of the modern and the traditional. |
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| ISSN: | 2427-9188 |