Theorizing the Sexual Child in Modernity

Abstract

'Theorizing the Sexual Child in Modernity' seeks to broaden the substantive landscape of sociology, sexuality studies, cultural studies, the history of sexuality, and childhood studies. Although the child and sexuality have been fertile sites of research, their intersection has been, for the most part, absent. This lack was particularly evident when we began our research and would type "childhood sexuality" or "children's sexuality" or "child + sexuality" into search engines in the national libraries of Australia, England, and the United States and come up with either nothing or materials that were restricted to the topic of sexual abuse. Given the lack of signposts we found at the start of our research - we employed Claude Levi-Strauss's (1968) concept of 'bricolage' to aide us in this endeavor. 'Bricolage' combines the unexpected with various theoretical and methodological tools at hand to make sense of a particularly complex social phenomenon. Discourse analysis, textual analysis, and techniques drawn from qualitative sociology provided the tools for engaging with our materials and an equally broad range of theoretical perspectives were drawn on to tease out their implications. The interweaving of these insights and methods provided the interdisciplinary framework for our analysis of medical, social reform and theoretical and empirical materials, and helped to shed light on the continuities and discontinuities shaping this history of ideas.