A collaboration between the Comics and Graphic Narratives Form and the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Forum, this panel examines migration in comics and graphic narratives for children and young adults. Images of children are frequently mobilized to solicit empathy for the plight of migrants and to call attention to the inhumane treatment they face on behalf of hostile borders and nation states. In the circulation of these sometimes sensational images, the narratives and perspectives of children themselves are often hidden from view. This panel seeks papers that explore complex representations of migrant youth in children’s and YA comics and graphic narratives. We are especially interested in works that do not simply represent migrant children and youth but also center their material realities, intersectional identities, and epistemological perspectives. We welcome papers that discuss comics and graphic narratives from a variety of time periods and national contexts. Some potential routes of inquiry might include:
- How children figure into ideas about citizenship and human rights
- The mobility of children, across national borders as well as other social and political borders
- The ways children forge their own identities on the move, specifically in relationship to migration
- How children understand family (family separation; found family; family across national, cultural, linguistic, and generational boundaries)
- The ethics of visually representing the violence and abuse many migrant children experience on behalf of borders and nation states
- How comics and graphic narratives capture and represent child and adolescent perspectives and epistemologies on the page
- How comics’ formal borders (panels and frames) represent and reframe national borders, particularly as they affect migrant children and youth
Please send 300-word abstracts + short bios to Katherine Kelp-Stebbins (kkelp@uoregon.edu), Philip Nel (philnel@ksu.edu); and Maite Urcaregui (maite.urcaregui@sjsu.edu) by Monday, March 16.
