Children and adolescents in street situations – times, setbacks and confluences in the processes of (dis)enchantment of childhoods

Abstract

The social issues related to children and adolescents living on the streets and the processes that make them vulnerable, violating social rights, making it impossible for them to build their stories and denying the possibility of a future, as well as of the past and ancestry, are themes addressed in this essay. The aim was to deepen theoretical reflections by dialoguing with contributions from the Sociology of Childhood, considering the intersection between racism, adult-centrism and capitalism. The problematization of the generational marker in the colonial legacy points to a fragile process of universalization of children’s rights and demonstrates the insufficiency of legal determinations, when social inequalities come into play, which contributes to the production of unequal childhoods. Regarding boys, girls and non-binary children living in street situations, in contrast to a vision that makes them socially unviable and criminalizes their ways of life, ethical-political aspects of the incidence of their bodies-becoming-children in the territories are highlighted, which affirm the power of the connection between play and subalternized cultures in their gigantic and resistant ways of being. Faced with the unprecedented viability that urgently needs to be dreamed of and forged collectively, we bet on the resignification of vulnerable childhoods, in order to ensure space and time for their existence as Subjects.