Generational Power Relations in Rural Bolivia

Abstract

First paragraph: It can be argued that childhood is a relational concept which forms part of the generational order and that generational processes shape the nature of child–adult relations (Alanen 2001; Mayall 2002). When the social positions of ‘children’ and ‘adults’ are ‘constituted, reproduced and transformed through relational activity’ (Mayall 2002: 40), this can be referred to as practices of ‘generationing’ (Alanen 2001). Thus, as Alanen (2001: 21) argues, childhood and adulthood are connected and interdependent. However, children’s structural position in society means that generally they have less power than adults. Thus, adults’ generational location enables them to wield more power over children and this is an example of Lukes’s (2005) relational definition of power as one social group exercises ‘power over’ another.