The sociological and literary legacy of Yaşar Kemal in the study of childhoods

“Children are human beings” was a foundational motto underpinning the emergence of the new sociology of childhood movement in Western academia during the 1980s. Childhood sociologists engaged with the notion of children as “human becomings” versus “human beings,” aiming to sociologically problematise and reconceptualise children as social actors. This paper revisits the motto, as an emblem of recognition of children’s agency, through reflections of a world-known childhood author and interviewer from Türkiye, Yaşar Kemal. Drawing on his published autobiographical accounts and interviews, as well as his own interviews with children in 1975, it argues: (1) Yaşar Kemal’s unique ways of recognising children’s agency through his interviewing techniques, highlighting his contributions to the broader academic effort to decolonise the seemingly Western-dominated history of the sociology of childhood and make his earlier work visible; (2) novelties that Yaşar Kemal’s approach offers to contemporary childhood studies, from an “ethnographer” standpoint, advancing the field both theoretically and methodologically; (3) the significance of his work as sociological fiction for both children and adult readers.