Glimpses of Street Life: Representing Lived Experience Through Short Stories

Abstract

The author has been writing short stories about his experiences with kids who live on the streets of Campinas, Brazil, since his last field trip in 1996. At the beginning of this article, he briefly explains his rationale for using short story, a literary genre, to represent lived experience in social sciences texts. He also explains how he wrote the stories. The four short stories are the heart of this text, in which the author has attempted to show glimpses of the dominant narratives shaping these kids' lives and of the lived experiences he shared with them. The goal is to make stories of these lived experiences part of people's understanding of street kids and part of the cultural narratives that shape these kids' everyday lives.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Benson, P. (1993). Anthropology and literature Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Brodkey, L. (1987). Writing critical ethnographic narratives Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 18, 67-76.

Clifford, J. , & Marcus, G. (1986). Writing culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography Berkeley: University of California Press.

Clough, P.T. (1992). The end(s) of ethnography: From realism to social criticism Newbury Park, CA: Sage .

Collins, P. (1991). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment New York: Routledge.

Daily reality on the streets of Campinas, Brazil: Issues of cognitive and identity development In M. Raffaelli & R. Larson (Eds.), Developmental issues among homeless and working street youth: New directions in child development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Denison, J. (1996). Sport narratives Qualitative Inquiry, 2, 351-362.

Denzin, N. (1994). The art and politics of interpretation In N. Denzin & Y Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 500-515). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretive ethnography: Ethnographic practices for the 21st century Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

10.

Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y (Eds.). (1994). Handbook of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

11.

Diversi, M. (1996). Street children in Nikes: In search of humanization In D. Andrews & C. Cole (Eds.), Nike—Just doing what? Interrogating the production, circulation, and consumption of a post-industrial corporation. Manuscript in preparation.

12.

Diversi, M. (1998). Street kids in search of humanization: Expanding dominant narratives through critical ethnography and short stories of lived experience Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

13.

Diversi, M., Moraes, N., & Morelli, M. (in press).

14.

Ellis, C., & Bochner, A. (Eds.). (1996). Composing ethnography: Alternative forms of qualitative writing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira.

15.

Ellis, C., & Flaherty, M. (Eds.). (1992). Investigating subjectivity: Research on lived experience Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

16.

Freeman, M. (1993). Rewriting the self: History, memory, narrative New York: Routledge.

17.

Krieger, S. (1991). Social science and the self: Personal essays on an art form New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

18.

Marcus, G. (1994). What comes (just) after "post"? The case of ethnography In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 563-574). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

19.

Marcus, G. , & Fischer, M. (1986). Anthropology as cultural critique: An experimental moment in the human sciences Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

20.

Polkinghorne, D. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences Albany: State University of New York Press.

21.

Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

22.

Richardson, L. (1995). Writing-stories: Co-authoring "The Sea Monster," a writing-story Qualitative Inquiry , 1, 189-203.

23.

Van Maanen, J. (1988). Tales of the field Chicago : University of Chicago Press.