Abstract

PEREIRA, Rita Ribes; GOMES, Lisandra Ogg  and  SILVA, Conceição Firmina Seixas. Childhood on the razor's edge: theoretical construction as ethical action. ETD [online]. 2018, vol.20, n.3, pp.761-780. ISSN 1676-2592.  https://doi.org/10.20396/etd.v20i3.8649227.

The debate on ethics in Human and Social Science research, particularly research concerning children, is an important theme in the Brazilian context. The study of the conditions under which researchers interact with subjects participating in the research has also played a central role. Given this focus, our intention is to bring to the center of the debate the ethical dimension present in the theory itself. That is, our intention is to conceive theory as an ethical action. We assume that research in the Human Sciences always involves an other, even when no fieldwork is involved, or in what the systematized knowledge by humanity already offers us as a perspective, or in what we inaugurate with our own thinking. To think in this sense is an ethical action, in so far as it implies the other and the adoption of a position with respect to this other. Who is the other-child for childhood researchers? What ethical implications are necessary when we put ourselves to think about childhood? Why think of childhood? For what purpose? What is the place of children in the theory we produce about them? In this paper, we pursue these questions based on the tension that exists between participation and guardianship, protection and authorship. In addition we will reflect on experiences of alterity between children and adults in social life that are put in check in the theoretical make, since theorizing implies not only describing the social world, but also reinstating it.

Keywords : Childhood; Ethic; Participation of Children; Protection.

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