Anthropology is regarded as scientific study of ‘man and his work’. it studies the network of social relationship. Then the two important questions which come to our mind: (1) Are children NOT human beings? (2) Are children NOT part of network of social relationships or social structure?
Children were not taken seriously by earlier ethnographers or cultural/social anthropologists with a conviction that ‘the study of ‘children’ comes under the domain of ’psychology‘ and therefore ‘children‘ should no be taken seriously by them. Further children were probably thought by them to be immature informants for providing relevant field data for ethnographic writings.
an other reason my be that ethnographers in the field were usually not married and did not have children, so their personal focus and awareness was not on children. This has changes since the 70thies when Ethnographers came with their wifes/husbands and their children and then the focus was also more on the children. Now there are several studies on childen and childhood (See David Lancy : Te Anthopology of childhood (2014))
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