TY - JOUR

T1 - Children for sail

T2 - British child migrants as colonial commodities

AU - von Benzon, N.

PY - 2022/11/2

Y1 - 2022/11/2

N2 - This paper addresses the historical geography of British child migration to New Zealand between 1949 and 1954; a period that marked the ‘beginning of the end’ of centuries of state-sanctioned emigration of unaccompanied, poor, British children. This particular child migration programme was executed under the dual motivations of boosting the New Zealand economy through population increase, whilst ‘rescuing’ British children living in poverty. This paper seeks to explore the concept of the commodification of children through an historical account based on thematic analysis of New Zealand newspaper articles published between 1910 and 2017. This analysis demonstrates the way newspaper stories both reflect social discourse–in this instance concerning the desirability of the hosting of British child migrants–and act as a socio-technical device that shapes them–marketing the children to potential host families. The paper demonstrates how transnational geo-political and geo-economic flows of unaccompanied children complicate biocommodification and caring relations. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

AB - This paper addresses the historical geography of British child migration to New Zealand between 1949 and 1954; a period that marked the ‘beginning of the end’ of centuries of state-sanctioned emigration of unaccompanied, poor, British children. This particular child migration programme was executed under the dual motivations of boosting the New Zealand economy through population increase, whilst ‘rescuing’ British children living in poverty. This paper seeks to explore the concept of the commodification of children through an historical account based on thematic analysis of New Zealand newspaper articles published between 1910 and 2017. This analysis demonstrates the way newspaper stories both reflect social discourse–in this instance concerning the desirability of the hosting of British child migrants–and act as a socio-technical device that shapes them–marketing the children to potential host families. The paper demonstrates how transnational geo-political and geo-economic flows of unaccompanied children complicate biocommodification and caring relations. © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

KW - British Empire

KW - care

KW - Child migration

KW - commodification

KW - international adoption

KW - New Zealand

U2 - 10.1080/14733285.2021.1992348

DO - 10.1080/14733285.2021.1992348

M3 - Journal article

VL - 20

SP - 918

EP - 930

JO - Children's Geographies

JF - Children's Geographies

SN - 1473-3285

IS - 6

ER -