Resumen

LIBARDI, Suzana Santos  y  URSIN, Marit. Listening to adults about childhood protection and children in homeless situation in urban brazil. child.philo [online]. 2018, vol.14, n.29, pp.163-188. ISSN 1984-5987.  https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2018.30572.

This work is situated in the field of childhood studies, which conceives the child as an active subject in society and who is, among other factors, marked by its generational position in front of other generations. In this opportunity, we reflect about how Brazilian kids who live in the urban space and in a very specific adversity context (the streets) are perceived. The objective was to understand how adults perceive those children in homeless situation, and how do they face the duty of childhood protection once it is applied to those specific children. In order to do this, we present the results of two qualitative researches, separately developed by the authors, in three different cities in Brazil, from Northeastern and Southeastern, counting on a total number of 77 adults. They participated through individual and group interviews. The registers of the fieldwork were analyzed and generated categories which deal with the question of who carries the responsibility over children in homeless situation, as well as the protection of marginalized childhood. Based on the empirical work from two researches, we realized that the adults make a differentiation between children who have the streets as their home and those who don't. The participants elected the State as the major responsible for the children in homeless situation. For this marginalized childhood, part of the adults elected governmental institutions as the sole responsible for providing any kind of treatment to the children in homeless situation, which not necessarily means a measure of protection. "Accountability" and "punishment" were much more often mentioned by the adults than "protection". As a conclusion, we saw that the adults have not felt invited to protect marginalized childhood, since they primarily thought about their own protection and even went to a state of neglect towards those children. The acknowledgement of the "pickpockets" was given only by negative means, since the child in homeless situation was seen for some as an evil who acts deliberately, so that this was the only moment when those children were regarded in an active manner.

Palabras clave : children in homeless situation; childhood protection; childhood.

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