Child circulation in and out of the secure zone of childhood: A view from the urban margins in Ecuador

Abstract

The article discusses informal child circulation in Latin America, as it is practiced by a marginalized urban mestizo population in the capital Quito, Ecuador. The practice of child circulation is contrasted to child welfare policies and interventions, and the author theorizes this contrast as a difference between rationales of relatedness – a fluidity rationale characterizing the care practices of the marginal urban population, and a fixity rationale characterizing child welfare governance. The contrast is explored through the case of child agency in what a modern and dominant discourse on child welfare and child rights would deem to be ‘non-ideal’ or ‘inappropriate’ contexts of childhood. A specific example of ‘chosen circulation’ looks at how child circulation has to be understood as movements in and out of the ‘safe zone’ of childhood, and this example also challenges ideas about childhood, the family and the social world external to the family. A main observation is that child agency and relatedness making tends to be ignored or disqualified as long as it happens outside proper childhood contexts. This lack of recognition has important consequences for the way policies are formulated and translated into welfare practices, and also for the way we construct social analysis of marginal childhoods.