We live in a world where the resources are not equally divided and that is why charity work is needed. The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, is a global organization that works for children’s human rights around the world. But perhaps even charity work, which´s often glorified in the society, need to be looked at from different directions. Research about intercultural education, globalization and charity shows that even good deeds can end up reproducing the problem that was supposed to be solved in the first place. There is no research about UNICEF´s work from this perspective and since UNICEF is a global organization that focuses on children and education and has an important role in society, they are an interesting object for research. That is why this study has examined “UNICEF Annual Report 2013” based on the problem to draw attention to minorities exposure and discrimination, without reproducing the majorities global hegemony. The questions that drove this study were which knowledge that was spread about the children and UNICEF in UNICEF´s report, what agency this knowledge enabled and which voices that were heard in the report. “UNICEF Annual Report 2013” was examined based on Faircloughs (1992) critical discourse analysis and three-dimensional method and the text, discursive practice and social practice of the report were analyzed. As a theoretical framework postcolonial theory and especially Gayatri Spivak where used due to their focus on global inequalities and the idea that there is still an ongoing colonialism of human thoughts and intellects around the world, where the European epistemology has been spread as a universal truth (Andreotti, 2011; Spivak, 2004). In “UNICEF Annual Report 2013” three different discourses where located: “Childrendiscourse”, “Educationdiscourse” and “Charitydiscourse”. The result of the critical discourse analysis showed that children are portrayed as innocent victims that only get an ability to change their life through the education that charity organizations like UNICEF provide. The knowledge about the child that gets an agency and voice through education can be criticized from a postcolonial perspective. The picture of the educated child indicates that UNICEF are able to see the children that can´t be seen and hear the voices that can´t be heard, which may lead to a contra productive dream about a local hero created by a European epistemology. Research about the ability to draw attention to minorities exposure and discrimination, without reproducing the majorities global hegemonies indicates that there is no easy solution to this dilemma. As postcolonial theory and intercultural education promotes, everyone needs to approach this problem and question the position that they speak from, otherwise they may end up reproducing the majorities global hegemony and the dilemma that they wanted to solve in the first place.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-26061 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Greus, Lovisa |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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