Ecologies of Childhood

The concept of the “Anthropocene” brought attention to the profound impact humans have had on our ecosystems, as mediated by cultural concepts of nature, while posthumanism rejects a dichotomy between nature and culture and understands the human as entangled with the environment. An intersectional focus on children’s literature and culture reveals how children are cast as both vulnerable to environmental destruction and as powerful agents of environmental change. As humankind faces environmental challenges of terrifying scale, the 2023 IRSCL Congress theme, “Ecologies of Childhood,” seeks to  bring out the ways in which childhood and ecology prove mutually imbricated in language, literature, and education.

From a historical perspective, ‘ecologies of childhood’ in literature are not new. In China, Japan, and Korea, the concept of the ‘child mind’ drove philosophers and poets to suggest ways of interacting with the world that were deemed more ‘natural.’  In Europe, Rousseau and Romanticism reconceptualized the child’s relationship to nature, which nonetheless remains problematic from an ecocritical perspective, while subsequent Robinsonades for children demonstrate an exploitative colonial attitude toward nature and Indigenous experience. Decolonial perspectives in the Global South reveal how environmental history is intertwined with colonial history, while Indigenous voices worldwide offer alternative childhood ecologies. Around the world, national literary traditions have unique formulations of children’s relationship to nature and the environment, rooted in philosophical traditions both steeped in the local and transformed by the transnational and global.

We invite papers that engage in historical and global perspectives on ‘ecologies of childhood’ in children’s literature and culture, as informed by environmentalism, ecocriticism, ecofeminism, decolonial environmentalism, posthumanism, environmental justice, environmental activism, and environmental education, or that explore the prehistory of the Anthropocene, energy humanities, or climate change. We suggest that ecologies of childhood are best approached from the vantage point of diverse international traditions, while our theme seeks to expand the critical conversation around contemporary issues along global parameters. This topic intends to be broadly inclusive over space and time, while tackling climate crisis as a contemporary and truly global problem. In this vein, we suggest, but are not restricted to, the following topics:

NATURE, PLANT, AND ANIMAL STUDIES:

• Childhood and nature in the history of children’s literature and culture
• Nature in genre writing (nonfiction, online, fantasy, dystopia, or cli-fi) for children
• Animal studies, overlapping child/adult or human/animal identity and their complications
• Critical plant studies or trees, plants, and seeds in children’s literature
• Water ecologies or drought in children’s literature and culture
• Fire and wildfire in children’s literature and culture
•  Pacific Coast ecologies and childhood (Americas, Asia, Oceania, and the Arctic)
• Discourses about children’s alienation from nature
•  Children and nature in the digital age 

ECOLOGY AND ENVIRONMENTALISM:

• Ecology and environmentalism in children’s literature and education
• Eco-criticism, eco-feminism, and children’s literature and culture
• Posthumanist views of the child as entangled with the environment
• The environment and global anthropologies of childhood culture
• Science and ecology in writings for children and children’s education
•  Environmental literacy and environmental education in children’s media
•  Island and oceanic ecologies and other endangered environments and ecosystems

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE AND ACTIVISM:

• Indigenous cultures and environmental themes  in children’s literature
• Environmental justice and decolonial environmentalism for children
• Globalization and sustainable social environments for children
• Children’s voices and agency in relation to environmentalism  or climate change
• Youth culture, environmental activism, and environmental education
• Social, emotional, and environmental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children
• Language ecologies, endangered languages, children’s literature, and language revitalization

THE ANTHROPOCENE AND CLIMATE CHANGE:

• Children’s literature and the Anthropocene
• Climate consciousness and climate change in children’s literature, culture, and media
• YA literature, speculative fiction, dystopias, cli-fi, and science fiction responding to environmental/climate crisis 
• Fictional landscapes of climate change
• Discourses about children and the climate crisis
• Climate literacy and literary and educational materials for children 

Proposals for complete panels and individual papers will be accepted beginning on 1 September 2022 until the submission deadline of 1 December 2022. 

Instructions: Proposals for complete panels (of three to four papers and a designated chair) and for individual papers will be accepted. Individual proposals for presenting a paper (20 min. max) will require an abstract (250 word max) and a brief presenter bio (100 word max). Panel proposals will require a panel description (100 words), abstracts (250 word max) for 3-4 papers (20 mins max), and brief bios (100 word max) for each presenter and a designated chair. Submission of complete panels is highly recommended and is likely to increase the acceptance rate. Submitters will be asked to indicate in which of the 4 streams above the paper or panel belongs. Individual presenters will be asked about their willingness to serve as a panel chair, if needed. 

Presentation Mode: Paper or panel submitters will be asked to indicate a presentation mode for the paper or entire panel. To accommodate scholars who know in advance that they will be unable to travel, we plan to offer a separate digital conference alternative, called a Green Stream,* which will allow accepted and registered participants the opportunity to upload pre-recorded presentations by July 15, 2023 for asynchronous viewing via a digital platform before and/or after the 2023 IRSCL Congress. This asynchronous pre-recorded format will offer less interactivity, however, so we highly recommend attending the on-site congress if you are able to travel. Commitment to presentation mode is binding after submission and switching from one mode to another at a later date will not be permitted. The two alternatives we are offering should be considered as separate and different experiences. The digital option will not allow virtual access to the on-site congress apart from a few selected highlights, such as keynotes, that we hope to share with all participants if possible. However, registered on-site participants will receive access to both on-site and digital components.

* Like organizers of other large conferences arranged by kindred scholarly organizations, IRSCL 2023 organizers have concluded that we are not able to offer a simultaneously virtual and in-person congress, because of the prohibitive cost, technological challenges, and organizational complexity of coordinating two types of large conferences at once, as well as the risk of delivering a compromised experience to both participant categories. After careful consideration, and a desire to offer accommodation to those who cannot travel, we have decided to offer this digital Green Stream, which we hope will still offer scholarly opportunities to those who cannot travel and even expand access to scholarship.