Slåss mot alla orättvisor: Katarina Taikon och föreställningen om barnets rättigheter runt 1968

Abstract

Title: Fighting All Injustice. Katarina Taikon and the Concept of Children’s
Rights Around ’68

During the 1960s the Swedish Romani author Katarina Taikon’s had become one of the most respected human rights activist in Sweden, fighting for the dignity, social conditions, and health equity of the Romani People. At the end of the decade she began writing books for children, hoping to change the prevailing attitudes and prejudices against the Romani people. In this article, I claim that her writing for children needs to be understood in connection to its immediate political and cultural context. Placing the overlooked children’s book Niki (1970) in center of attention, I argue that it questions the discrimination of the Romani people, but also rephrases the relationship between adults and children. Following this, Niki not only addresses minor shortcomings of an existing political system, it also targets the social order in a more essential way. Even though the narrative of the book takes place during the Second World War, it reveals the class struggle, interrogates traditional child/adult relationships, and attacks established power structures in ways that interact with the existing counterculture around 1968.