Children's drawings from Ukraine: Drawing life, drawing the world

In July 2023, we presented a paper at the International Auto/Biography Association Europe conference. We were invited to present our work-inprogress on Ukrainian children’s drawings as world literature. As we tried to lean into the various disciplines and scholarly work our thinking engaged with (life narrative, world literature, children’s literatures, and children’s drawings), members of the audience asked three provocative questions. The first asked us if we thought it was appropriate that we write on world literature considering we appear to be white Australians (a correct assumption, but perhaps a troubling one, nonetheless). The second was, what made us consider children’s drawings as world literature? Was it simply because they existed in the world as texts? The third was, what right did we have to “study” children’s drawings; what could we possibly come to understand about the experiences of Ukrainian children by doing so?