Tarihyazımı

Yazarlar: Ali ÇAPAR

Konular:Tarih

Anahtar Kelimeler:Childhood,History of children,Childhood in the Ottoman Empire,Aries

Özet: This article delves into the construction of the concept of childhood and its evolution in the Ottoman Empire, and a wide range of primary sources provide a glimpse on concept of childhood on different social classes and communities belonging to various geographies, ethnicities and religions. The article also suggests methods and approaches to examine these materials, contributing to the understanding of the concept of childhood in the Ottoman period. Many scholars from diverse disciplines engaged in the subject of childhood in the past. As being a social construction developed by adults, various disciplines defined childhood differently and applied particular methods to study it. Following the groundbreaking work of Aries in the 1960s, the concept of childhood in the past become a prevalent research theme among scholars, which led to publication of several scholarly works defining, analyzing and reconstructing childhood in the past. Compared to childhood studies in the West, the number of scholarly works on the concept of childhood in the Ottoman Empire was scarce. Herein, this article proposes to guide researchers intending to conduct research on that topic. Western influenced normative ideas or concept of childhood should be challenged as they were not applicable in non-Western societies. Thus, this paper proposes that researchers should localize and periodize their researches on exploring childhood in the Ottoman Empire because of the multiplicity of childhood within the empire. In addition, researchers should explore the emergence and development of the concept of childhood in the Ottoman Empire within its own cultural, economic and political transformation. In the last part, the article emphasizes the usefulness of interdisciplinary approach and offers proposals to promote interdisciplinary research on the topic.

---