Child abuse

The history of child abuse is an emerging field of scholarship, driven in part by the feminist and survivor activism that has seen the phenomena increasingly discussed in public life since the 1970s. Just as the concept of childhood itself has shifted over time and space, so too have understandings of child abuse. The distinctions between childhood and adulthood along with “norms” of parenting as well as definitions about what constitutes “discipline” as opposed to “cruelty,” “maltreatment,” “violence,” or “abuse” continue to be contested. Existing across disciplines rather than fitting neatly within a single category, the histories of child abuse are of interest to the professional groups that have a role in child welfare or child protection services: the physicians, psychiatric and social workers, as well as those engaged in childhood studies. Historians of medicine, childhood and youth, welfare and public services are also increasingly active in the field. Scholars grapple with key historiographical questions related to gender and sexuality, age and generation, race, ethnicity, and social class. Child abuse is currently understood as harm inflicted on a child, whether physical, emotional, or sexual, as well as neglect, by which is meant the persistent failure to meet a child’s physical and/or psychological needs. It is recognized that different forms of abuse often co-exist. However, as will be evident from the citations below, the historiography is somewhat uneven; for example, there is very little historically grounded research into certain categories of abuse such as child neglect or emotional abuse whereas the scholarship on sexual abuse is more developed. The English-language historiography is also heavily skewed to the United States, Britain, and Ireland, although some important scholarship has emerged from Australia and Scandinavia, particularly arising out of inquiries into historical abuses. Sources are often severely restricted due to cultural taboos, and, where histories involve the living or very recently deceased, concerns about confidentiality and safeguarding. Historians are increasingly naming and exploring the ethical and methodological challenges they face in archival research, in generating oral histories and in their writing about the recent past, whether it concerns those who were victim-survivors of abuse or the perpetrators of sexual offenses, or the professionals assessing or treating the people affected. In many countries, there are strict restrictions around the personal data available about individuals. The difficulties inherent in recovering children’s voices become more acute in seeking to uncover the experiences of those who have been ill-treated. To what extent should historians seek to locate and explore the experiences of specific children or perpetrators or those directly affected by the sexual abuse rather than exploring broader social, cultural, and political themes using aggregate data in bureaucratic sources?