Citation

Rafaely D. Child. Soc. 2017; 31(2): 110-119.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, National Children's Bureau of the United Kingdom, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/chso.12170

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which childhood mortality as an ideological tool is constituted as a shared moral order in modern society. The examination of record-keeping as an ideological practice that produces a governable and self-regulating population allows us to identify how and where it is incorporated into social life as an everyday morality. Under this moral order, death must be constituted as a medical necessity, rendering it culturally relevant, in order for social life to continue to be considered a meaningful and purposeful endeavour. The child's status in society as a sacred citizen ensures that children's deaths are constituted in even more particular ways, so that the possibility of medically 'unnecessary' child death remains morally unthinkable and thus does not expose the ideological underpinnings that continue to produce social life as a moral and thus meaningful affair.

Language: en

Keywords

categorisation; childhood; everyday moralities; ideology; mortality