Research Article
Year 2026,
Issue: 15, 131 - 150, 23.02.2026
Abstract
Bu makale, özellikle İngiliz Çocukluk Sosyolojisi geleneği içinde gelişen yeni çocukluk sosyolojisinin being (olmakta olan) / becoming (oluşmakta olan) çerçevesini, Agamben’in zoē (doğa) ve bios (söylem) ayrımıyla ilişkilendirerek, dünya sinemasındaki çocuk bakışını sosyolojik bir perspektiften tartışmaktadır. Sinemada çocukluk sıklıkla gelişimsel ya da nostaljik anlatılar içinde konumlandırılsa da, bu çalışma bazı filmlerin çocukluğu yetişkin beklentilerine ve kurumsal düzenlemelere direnen bir deneyim alanı olarak görünür kıldığını savunur. Farklı kültürel ve ulusal bağlamlardan dünya sineması örneklerine dayanarak çocukluk, kültürel olarak sınırlı bir figürden ziyade modern toplumsal düzenlerin müzakere edildiği ulusötesi bir sinemasal form olarak kavramsallaştırılmaktadır. Bu amaçla makale, being zoē ve becoming bios kavramlarını paralel biçimde kullanarak, sinemadaki çocuğun hem toplumsal düzenlemelerin içinde hem de ötesinde nasıl konumlandığını gösterir. Ekrandaki çocuk, açıklığı, tekinsizliği, taşkınlığı ve belirsizliğiyle modern sosyal düzenlerin gerilim noktalarını açığa çıkaran bir eşik figürü olarak ele alınır. Böylece makale, dünya sinemasındaki çocuk imgesine ilişkin özgün bir sosyolojik teorik çerçeve önermektedir.
References
- Abel, R. (1998). The cine goes town: French cinema (1896–1914). University of California.
- Agamben, G. (1993). Infancy and history: The destruction of experience (Trans. L. Heron). Verso.
- Agamben, G. (1995). Idea of prose (Trans. M. Sullivan & S. Whitsitt). SUNY.
- Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (Trans. D. Heller-Roazen). Stanford University.
- Alanen, L. (1988). Rethinking childhood. Acta sciologica, 31(1), 53-67.
- Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life (Trans. R. Baldick). Vintage Books.
- Arpacı, M. (2024). Building pious generations in Turkey: The Islamization of childhood in the children’s magazine of the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Sociology lens, 37(1), 69-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12449
- Atalay, G. E., & Muratoğlu Pehlivan, B. (2024). Aestheticizing the pain: A critical analysis of media representation of earthquake victim children in Turkey. Sociology lens, 37(1), 116-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12437
- Bachelard, G. (1994). The poetics of space (Trans. M. Jolas). Beacon.
- Bakioğlu, A. (2024). Digital capitalism and child labor exploitation on YouTube. Sociology lens, 37(1), 131-148. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12456
- Balanzategui, J. (2018). The child seer and the allegorical moment in millennial Spanish horror cinema (pp. 121-152). In The uncanny child in transnational cinema: Ghosts of futurity at the turn of the twenty-first century. Amsterdam University.
- Beckett, J. (2017). An allegorical childhood: Identity and coming of age in Terry Loane’s Mickeybo and Me. In S. H. Donald, E. Wilson, & S. Wright (Eds.), Childhood and nation in contemporary world cinema. Bloomsbury.
- Bettelheim, B. (1976). The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales. Knopf.
- Borgotallo, L. S. (2011). Beyond camps: The mythologem of the orphan child in the Italian neorealist experience of the 1940s (Doctoral dissertation). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Bruckner, P. (2000). The temptation of innocence: Living in the age of entitlement. Algora.
- Castañeda, C. (2002). Figurations: Child, bodies, worlds. Duke University.
- Certeau, M. de. (2002). The practice of everyday life (Trans. S. Rendall). University of California.
- Corsaro, W. A. (1997). The sociology of childhood. Pine Forge.
- Coveney, P. (1957). The image of childhood: The individual and society: A study of the theme in English literature. Penguin.
- Diken, B., & Laustsen, C. B. (2007). Sociology through the projector. Routledge.
- Donald, S. H., Wilson, E., & Wright, S. (Eds.). (2017). Childhood and nation in contemporary world cinema: Borders and encounters. Bloomsbury.
- Düzcan, E. (2022). Sinemanın doğuşunda çocukluk: Görsel bir eşik olarak erken sinema. Moment Dergi, 9(2), 567–584.
- Düzcan, B., & Bakioğlu, A. (2024). How to write successfully the children’s screen history? Sociology Lens, 37(1), 171-173.
- Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage.
- Freeman, M. (2004). The future of children’s rights. The international journal of children’s rights, 12(3), 245-259.
- Godard, J.-L. (1986). Godard on Godard (Ed. & Trans. T. Milne). Da Capo.
- Halbwachs, M. (1950). The collective memory (Trans. F. J. Ditter, Jr. & V. Y. Ditter). Harper & Row.
- Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory (Ed. & Trans. L. A. Coser). The University of Chicago.
- Hendrick, H. (1997). Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: An interpretative survey, 1800 to the present. In A. James & A. Prout (Eds.), Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (2nd ed., pp. 33-75). Falmer.
- Henzler, B. (2018). Shifting perspectives: The child as mediator in New German cinema. Screen, 59(2), 213-234.
- Heywood, C. (2001). A history of childhood. Polity.
- James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (1990). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. Falmer.
- James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (1997). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (2nd ed.). Falmer.
- James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Polity.
- Jenks, C. (1990). Childhood. Routledge.
- Jenks, C. (1996). Childhood (2nd ed.). Routledge.
- Kenkel, K. J. (1999). The adult children of early cinema. Women in German yearbook, 15, 137-160.
- Kiley, D. (1983). The Peter Pan syndrome: Men who have never grown up. Dodd, Mead & Company.
- Lebeau, V. (2008). Childhood and cinema. Reaktion.
- Leonard, M. (2005). Children, childhood and social capital: Exploring the links. Sociology, 39(4), 605-622. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038505052490
- Livingstone, S., & Haddon, L. (Eds.). (2009). Kids online: Opportunities and risks for children. Policy.
- Lury, K. (2010). The child in film: Tears, fears and fairy tales. Rutgers University.
- Lury, K. (2010a). Children in an open world: Mobility as ontology in New Iranian and Turkish cinema. Feminist theory, 11(3), 283-294.
- Mayall, B. (2013). A history of the sociology of childhood. Institute of Education.
- Mayall, B., Alanen, L., & Brooker, L. (2015). Childhood with Bourdieu. Palgrave Macmillan.
- McKernan, L. (2007). “Only the screen was silent…”: Memories of children’s cinema-going in London before the First World War. Film studies, 10(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.7227/fs.10.3
- O’Connor, J. C. (2010). The cultural significance of the child star. Routledge.
- Orme, N. (2001). Medieval children. Yale University.
- Pollock, L. A. (1983). Forgotten children: Parent–child relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge University.
- Postman, N. (1983). The disappearance of childhood. W. H. Allen.
- Qvortrup, J. (1990). Childhood as a social phenomenon. European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research.
- Sadr, H. R. (2002). Children in contemporary Iranian cinema: When we were children. In R. Tapper (Ed.), The new Iranian cinema: Politics, representation and identity (pp. 227-237). I. B. Tauris.
- Shahar, S. (1990). Childhood in the middle ages. Routledge.
- Shmidt, V. (2024). Public care for children in (post)socialist European films: On the side of sons and stepdaughters of the nation? Sociology lens, 37, 87-104. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12441
- UNICEF. (2017). The state of the world’s children 2017: Children in a digital world.
- Wells, K. (2015). Childhood in a global perspective (2nd ed.). Polity.
- Wells, K. (2020). The visual cultures of childhood: Film and television from the magic lantern to teen vloggers. Rowman & Littlefield International.
- Wells, K. (2021). Childhood in a global perspective (3rd ed.). Polity.
- Wells, K. (2024). Docudrama and the agential child: Treading a path between melodrama and National Geographic. Sociology lens, 37(1), 55-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12454
- Weng, M. (2016). “Franco’s children”: Childhood memory as national allegory. In Z. Millei & R. Imre (Eds.), Childhood and nation: Interdisciplinary engagements. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. Tavistock.
Year 2026,
Issue: 15, 131 - 150, 23.02.2026
Abstract
This article examines the cinematic gaze on childhood in world cinema from a sociological perspective by bringing the being / becoming framework of the new sociology of childhood—developed primarily within the British sociology of childhood tradition—into dialogue with Agamben’s distinction between zoē (nature) and bios (discourse). While childhood in cinema is often positioned within developmental or nostalgic narratives, this article argues that certain films render childhood visible as a domain of experience that resists adult expectations and institutional arrangements. Drawing on examples from world cinema across diverse cultural and national contexts, childhood is conceptualized not as a culturally bounded figure but as a transnational cinematic form through which modern social orders are negotiated. To this end, the article employs the analytic pair being zoē and becoming bios in parallel, demonstrating how the cinematic child is situated both within and beyond prevailing social regulations. The child on screen is approached as a threshold figure whose openness, uncanniness, excess, and indeterminacy bring into view the points of tension within modern social orders. In doing so, the article proposes an original sociological theoretical framework for understanding representations of childhood in world cinema.
References
- Abel, R. (1998). The cine goes town: French cinema (1896–1914). University of California.
- Agamben, G. (1993). Infancy and history: The destruction of experience (Trans. L. Heron). Verso.
- Agamben, G. (1995). Idea of prose (Trans. M. Sullivan & S. Whitsitt). SUNY.
- Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign power and bare life (Trans. D. Heller-Roazen). Stanford University.
- Alanen, L. (1988). Rethinking childhood. Acta sciologica, 31(1), 53-67.
- Ariès, P. (1962). Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life (Trans. R. Baldick). Vintage Books.
- Arpacı, M. (2024). Building pious generations in Turkey: The Islamization of childhood in the children’s magazine of the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Sociology lens, 37(1), 69-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12449
- Atalay, G. E., & Muratoğlu Pehlivan, B. (2024). Aestheticizing the pain: A critical analysis of media representation of earthquake victim children in Turkey. Sociology lens, 37(1), 116-130. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12437
- Bachelard, G. (1994). The poetics of space (Trans. M. Jolas). Beacon.
- Bakioğlu, A. (2024). Digital capitalism and child labor exploitation on YouTube. Sociology lens, 37(1), 131-148. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12456
- Balanzategui, J. (2018). The child seer and the allegorical moment in millennial Spanish horror cinema (pp. 121-152). In The uncanny child in transnational cinema: Ghosts of futurity at the turn of the twenty-first century. Amsterdam University.
- Beckett, J. (2017). An allegorical childhood: Identity and coming of age in Terry Loane’s Mickeybo and Me. In S. H. Donald, E. Wilson, & S. Wright (Eds.), Childhood and nation in contemporary world cinema. Bloomsbury.
- Bettelheim, B. (1976). The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairy tales. Knopf.
- Borgotallo, L. S. (2011). Beyond camps: The mythologem of the orphan child in the Italian neorealist experience of the 1940s (Doctoral dissertation). University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
- Bruckner, P. (2000). The temptation of innocence: Living in the age of entitlement. Algora.
- Castañeda, C. (2002). Figurations: Child, bodies, worlds. Duke University.
- Certeau, M. de. (2002). The practice of everyday life (Trans. S. Rendall). University of California.
- Corsaro, W. A. (1997). The sociology of childhood. Pine Forge.
- Coveney, P. (1957). The image of childhood: The individual and society: A study of the theme in English literature. Penguin.
- Diken, B., & Laustsen, C. B. (2007). Sociology through the projector. Routledge.
- Donald, S. H., Wilson, E., & Wright, S. (Eds.). (2017). Childhood and nation in contemporary world cinema: Borders and encounters. Bloomsbury.
- Düzcan, E. (2022). Sinemanın doğuşunda çocukluk: Görsel bir eşik olarak erken sinema. Moment Dergi, 9(2), 567–584.
- Düzcan, B., & Bakioğlu, A. (2024). How to write successfully the children’s screen history? Sociology Lens, 37(1), 171-173.
- Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Vintage.
- Freeman, M. (2004). The future of children’s rights. The international journal of children’s rights, 12(3), 245-259.
- Godard, J.-L. (1986). Godard on Godard (Ed. & Trans. T. Milne). Da Capo.
- Halbwachs, M. (1950). The collective memory (Trans. F. J. Ditter, Jr. & V. Y. Ditter). Harper & Row.
- Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory (Ed. & Trans. L. A. Coser). The University of Chicago.
- Hendrick, H. (1997). Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: An interpretative survey, 1800 to the present. In A. James & A. Prout (Eds.), Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (2nd ed., pp. 33-75). Falmer.
- Henzler, B. (2018). Shifting perspectives: The child as mediator in New German cinema. Screen, 59(2), 213-234.
- Heywood, C. (2001). A history of childhood. Polity.
- James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (1990). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood. Falmer.
- James, A., & Prout, A. (Eds.). (1997). Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (2nd ed.). Falmer.
- James, A., Jenks, C., & Prout, A. (1998). Theorizing childhood. Polity.
- Jenks, C. (1990). Childhood. Routledge.
- Jenks, C. (1996). Childhood (2nd ed.). Routledge.
- Kenkel, K. J. (1999). The adult children of early cinema. Women in German yearbook, 15, 137-160.
- Kiley, D. (1983). The Peter Pan syndrome: Men who have never grown up. Dodd, Mead & Company.
- Lebeau, V. (2008). Childhood and cinema. Reaktion.
- Leonard, M. (2005). Children, childhood and social capital: Exploring the links. Sociology, 39(4), 605-622. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038038505052490
- Livingstone, S., & Haddon, L. (Eds.). (2009). Kids online: Opportunities and risks for children. Policy.
- Lury, K. (2010). The child in film: Tears, fears and fairy tales. Rutgers University.
- Lury, K. (2010a). Children in an open world: Mobility as ontology in New Iranian and Turkish cinema. Feminist theory, 11(3), 283-294.
- Mayall, B. (2013). A history of the sociology of childhood. Institute of Education.
- Mayall, B., Alanen, L., & Brooker, L. (2015). Childhood with Bourdieu. Palgrave Macmillan.
- McKernan, L. (2007). “Only the screen was silent…”: Memories of children’s cinema-going in London before the First World War. Film studies, 10(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.7227/fs.10.3
- O’Connor, J. C. (2010). The cultural significance of the child star. Routledge.
- Orme, N. (2001). Medieval children. Yale University.
- Pollock, L. A. (1983). Forgotten children: Parent–child relations from 1500 to 1900. Cambridge University.
- Postman, N. (1983). The disappearance of childhood. W. H. Allen.
- Qvortrup, J. (1990). Childhood as a social phenomenon. European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research.
- Sadr, H. R. (2002). Children in contemporary Iranian cinema: When we were children. In R. Tapper (Ed.), The new Iranian cinema: Politics, representation and identity (pp. 227-237). I. B. Tauris.
- Shahar, S. (1990). Childhood in the middle ages. Routledge.
- Shmidt, V. (2024). Public care for children in (post)socialist European films: On the side of sons and stepdaughters of the nation? Sociology lens, 37, 87-104. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12441
- UNICEF. (2017). The state of the world’s children 2017: Children in a digital world.
- Wells, K. (2015). Childhood in a global perspective (2nd ed.). Polity.
- Wells, K. (2020). The visual cultures of childhood: Film and television from the magic lantern to teen vloggers. Rowman & Littlefield International.
- Wells, K. (2021). Childhood in a global perspective (3rd ed.). Polity.
- Wells, K. (2024). Docudrama and the agential child: Treading a path between melodrama and National Geographic. Sociology lens, 37(1), 55-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/johs.12454
- Weng, M. (2016). “Franco’s children”: Childhood memory as national allegory. In Z. Millei & R. Imre (Eds.), Childhood and nation: Interdisciplinary engagements. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Playing and reality. Tavistock.
There are 61 citations in total.
Details
| Primary Language | English |
|---|---|
| Subjects | Art Sociology |
| Journal Section | Research Article |
| Authors | |
| Submission Date | January 5, 2026 |
| Acceptance Date | February 18, 2026 |
| Publication Date | February 23, 2026 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.46372/arts.1856750 |
| IZ | https://izlik.org/JA88KB46WS |
| Published in Issue | Year 2026 Issue: 15 |
ARTS is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 
PUBLISHER | JOURNAL BOARDS | INDEXES | PRICE POLICY | STATISTICS | MIAR | SHERPA ROMEO