Ways of Seeing: 2. Lynn Barnett

Whereas Anne Alvarez has provided a rich theoretical framework for “seeing” my task is to provide a practical framework, — namely setting the scene, describing the characters and explaining how the video was made — i.e. giving the material you will view a context through the eyes of both an anthropologist and a Child Psychotherapist. The first part of the scene is the wider world view of infancy. Having just returned from Nepal and Bangladesh, I must say how much I am struck by our good fortune, as Western Europeans, of being able to spend a day discussing the emotional development of infants. It is something which Third World countries, still battling with life and death issues are not able to afford to do — that they need to do it is clear — for example, the recently published UNICEF report “Children and Women in Nepal — a Situational Analysis” says (p. 51) “Very little attention has been given to child rearing practices and socialisation which … provides the key to understanding the conditions in which children in Nepal are living, and in too many instances dying.”

Whilst we in Great Britain can spend around £9 billion on four Trident nuclear submarines, each one of which has the destructive power to cause 500 Hiroshimas, and other countries can spend even more on their so-called “defence”, for one-sixth of humanity — 900 million people — “the march of progress has now become a retreat” … ½ million more children have died in the last year, millions more are malnourished and tens of thousands have dropped out of school as a result of a dramatic reversal of economic development in much of the Third World. These figures come from the latest world wide report from the United Nations Children's Fund launched at a press conference in New Delhi on 20th December 1988. Mr. Rajiv Gandhi appealed at the conference for “a fundamental restructuring of the world order”, a reordering of priorities to transfer 10% of defence spending to funding for children.”

If this is not done i