Date/Time
Date(s) - 04/03/2026
2:30 pm - 4:00 pm

Location
LRW 1003

Research in Progress Seminar (RIPS)

Developing citizens ‘at home’, combating enemies ‘abroad’: Childhood, Militarization, and the politics of child-soldiering by the United States

Marcos Araujo
PhD Student, State University of Rio de Janeiro

In contemporary global politics, “childhood” and “child” often evoke an imaginary that creates a supposedly unquestionable barrier between children and militarization. Politicizing this relationship, I focus on the fact that, in the United States, practices of recruitment and socialization of children with the Armed Forces are the most significant ways of the militarization of children. Based on the case of the Army Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (AJROTC), I argue that the constitution of these militarized subjectivities is articulated by what I call child-soldiering—a process of forming soldier-subjectivities in children through their attachment to identity, consciousness, and behavior to the ends of an Armed Force. Instead of the discourse of the child-soldier, I aim to demonstrate that child-soldiering opens space to critique how the program’s pedagogical practices (re)produce the US’s recruitment of children as the desired path for children to develop into future (adult) citizens.

Marcos Araujo is a Visiting Graduate Student at the Department of Political Science of McMaster University and is currently pursuing a PhD in International Relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (PPGRI-UERJ), where he also earned his Master’s degree in the same field. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Defense and International Strategic Management from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IRID-UFRJ). He also serves as an associate researcher at the Media, Culture, and International Relations Studies Laboratory (LEMCRI / CNPq / UERJ) and the Asia Studies Laboratory (LabÁsia / CNPq / UERJ). His current work focuses on the militarization of children and the politics surrounding the representation of child soldiers. His primary research interests encompass the areas of Critical Childhood Studies, Critical Military Studies, and Critical Security Studies. He also has experience in Peace Operations, Humanitarian Intervention, International Relations Theory, Brazilian Foreign Policy, and National Defense.