Childhood and Biopolitics Studies in Childhood and Youth

Will the future be a climate disaster? Will biotechnologies bring huge improvements in lifespan and lifestyle? Predictions vary, but children's status as human embodiments of the future puts them at the centre of current attempts to shape the world. In this book, Nicholas Lee argues that, if it can adapt, the discipline of childhood studies can make a critical and creative contribution to future making. Childhood and Biopolitics develops new ways to navigate and analyse childhood as a biopolitical phenomenon that is intimately connected with today's major political and scientific challenges. It addresses cognitive enhancement and mental capital, preventable disease and vaccine development, epidemics, public order, climate change and sustainability. It argues that children should be seen as a reservoir of the creative human ability to 'reframe' and so to respond to challenges and opportunities.