Resumo

REMORINI, Carolina. Estudios etnográficos sobre el desarrollo infantil en comunidades indígenas de América Latina: contribuciones, omisiones y desafíos. Perspectiva [online]. 2013, vol.31, n.03, pp.811-840. ISSN 0102-5473.

In recent decades, there has been substantial progress in the study of Early Childhood Development (ECD) from interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives. Several authors acknowledge the contribution of Anthropology to the debate about ECD, in dialogue with psychology, neuroscience, education and medicine. These studies stress the importance of ecological contexts in regard to physical growth and later health issues. Anthropology emphasizes the notion that children´s development is driven by the interactions they have with those in their immediate environments and the activities in which children participate. In this sense, the importance given to the environment from an ecological perspective recognizes the heuristic value of ethnographic studies. In this paper we characterize, first, the existing ethnographic production about infancy and early childhood development in Latin America, focusing on indigenous societies. Second, we analyze and discuss the possibilities of ethnography and interface between disciplines that traditionally have dealt with child development and reflect on their methodological contributions to the understanding of a multidimensional process, avoiding reductionism of each discipline. In relation to this, we discuss the challenges that ethnography face in the context of interdisciplinary research. To conclude, we would reflect on the need to recover the ECD as an object of ethnographic study, as it was in the beginning of the discipline.

Palavras-chave : Child Development; Ethnography; Latin America.

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