Contextualizing Child Rights Governance: Genealogical Study of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme
Biplaw Kumar Singh
Abstract
The experiences of three Childcare Institutions (CCIs) functioning in the programmatic setup of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) in India complicates and contextualizes some of the macro-social characterizations of child rights as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on Rights of Children (UNCRC). Following the anthropological approach to governance, this study captures the everyday practices and perceptions of actors and agencies running three CCIs. In doing so, it problematizes the discursive binary of universal and localized ideas of child rights. Although the three CCIs examined here are rooted in the same schematic (ICPS), temporal, and spatial (Karnataka) setting, surprisingly they interpret, understand, and materialize very different conceptualizations of child rights in their daily practices. These differences not merely reflect the turbulent ways in which the universal idea of child protection is being translated, contested, and indigenized, but also exhibit the ‘multiple identities of local’ competing, collaborating, and strategizing to construct a heterogeneous understanding of child rights governance.