BUKS - Tidsskrift for Børne- & Ungdomskultur

Building on the BIN (Børnekultur forskning i Norden) conference of 2025, the BUKS Journal of Child and Youth Cultures hereby presents the special issue: The Poetics and Politics of Child Culture(s). This issue highlights the aesthetic, practical, economic, and ideological possibilities and challenges facing child and youth cultures today, where »child and youth culture« refers to culture by, for, and among children and young people in the broadest sense. The conceptual framework for this issue is built on two pillars that are often pitted against each other yet remain deeply intertwined. Poetics serves as a collective term for the promises and opportunities created through culture, pointing to the material, artistic, sensuous, and semiotic side of form—the how of things. Politics, on the other hand, gestures at the why of things, referring to the conditioning and discursive nature of representation and cultural exchange that often hinders the full potential of child culture (Hall 2013, 6).

While talk of poetics often echoes the modernist distinction of art for art’s sake, in which the arts are seen as an autonomous field separate from moral or political goals, the addition of »politics« stresses that cultural expression never occurs in a vacuum. It is always interlaced with questions of power, a reality that children’s cultures exemplify perfectly as both terms trace their lineage back to Aristotle’s foundational works on Poetics and Politics and have been utilised widely across drama studies, anthropology, and cultural studies (Larkin 2013; Bernhart et al. 2018; Lidchi 2013).

Historically, the Nordic countries have been distinguished by a strong consensus regarding the rights of children and young people to express themselves and access diverse forms of culture, media, and art (Alminde & Warming 2024, Johanson 2010). In recent times, however, this field has undergone major changes and now faces significant challenges, including substantial funding cuts, the rise of AI, unequal access, and a growing disregard for leisure cultures. We are also seeing a rise in moral panics and increasing adult control, where conservative attitudes gain ground in times of crisis. The globally networked nature of cultural exchange has seen the spread of culture wars into the equality-oriented Nordic countries, deepening divides between liberal and conservative views and leading to »smokescreen« campaigns against minorities that instrumentalize culture and implement censorship and/or self-censorship in the name of protection. As noted in the 2025 BIN conference keynotes, this political climate directly impacts the production of children’s culture, specifically through politicians’ desire to cut funding for public service stations that serve as vital hubs for creative output. At the same time, the importance of child and youth culture is perhaps greatest in times of uncertainty marked by the climate crisis, the threat of war, and increasing violence. This raises questions about whether an educational »child-as-redeemer« stance is implied, or if the proclaimed importance of child and youth cultures points to the inherent value of culture in encouraging empathy, equity, and involvement. When we discuss poetics and politics in this context, we inevitably evoke a discussion of the Nordic values and public funding models for libraries, theaters, and museums that guide our practices.