‘Bad Mothers’ and ‘Delinquent Children’: Unravelling anti-begging rhetoric in the Ecuadorian Andes

Abstract

In this paper I examine the rhetorics that circulate surrounding the lives of young indigenous women and children who beg on the streets of Quito, Ecuador. I focus particularly on rhetorics being produced and reproduced by urban planners, social workers, religious leaders and the media. Drawing on in-depth interviews, I reveal how these groups regularly imagine indigenous women and children in terms of child exploitation/child delinquency, false manipulation of public sympathies, ignorance, laziness and filth. Indigenous women and children are further understood as being fundamentally ‘out of place’ in the city. I unravel these rhetorics in order to draw attention to how begging is differentiated according to gender, race and age and to reveal how these rhetorics become inserted into exclusionary policies and practices. Moreover, and as a counterpoint to such rhetorics, I provide an alternative understanding of women's and children's involvement in begging by drawing upon the perspectives of indigenous women and children themselves. I argue that far from being passive victims, indigenous women and children work with and around oppressive conditions and mobilise them to their own advantage.

En este papel examino las retóricas que circulan alrededor de las vidas de las mujeres y los niños indígenas jóvenes que piden en las calles de Quito, Ecuador. Enfoco particularmente en las retóricas que son producidos y reproducidos por los planificadores urbanos, los trabajadores sociales, los líderes religiosos y los medios de comunicación. Haciendo uso de entrevistas profundizadas, revelo cómo estos grupos imaginan regularmente las mujeres y los niños indígenas en términos de la explotación infantil/la delincuencia infantil, la manipulación falsa de compasiones públicas, la ignorancia, la pereza, y la mugre. A las mujeres y a los niños indígenas se les entiende fundamentalmente como ‘fuera de lugar’ en la ciudad. Desenmaraño esta retórica para llamar la atención a cómo la acción de pedir limosnas se distingue según género, raza y edad, y también para revelar cómo estas retóricas se insertan en políticas y prácticas exclusionarias. Además, y como contrapunto a tales retóricas, proporciono una comprensión alternativa de las mujeres y de los niños que mendigan desde las perspectivas de las mujeres y de los niños indígenas. Discuto que lejos de ser víctimas pasivas, las mujeres y los niños indígenas trabajan con y alrededor de condiciones opresivas y las movilizan para su propia ventaja.

Keywords:

• Beggars
• indigenous
• children
• informal sector
• Ecuador

Keywords:

• Mendigos
• indígenas
• niños
• sector informal
• Ecuador

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the indigenous women and children who participated in this research. I would also like to thank Deborah Cowen, Leah Gibbs, Joe Hermer, Sharlene Mollett, Chris Philo, Sue Ruddick and three anonymous reviewers for very helpful comments and suggestions on earlier versions of this paper. Special thanks go to Linda Peake and to Deborah Dixon, in particular, for fantastic editorial assistance.

Notes

 1. The community has a population of approximately 1,250 individuals divided among 255 families.

 2. The sign states, ‘When you buy in the streets, you put your safety in danger. When you pay delinquents, they see your money, your items of value, your car. For this reason, don't buy in the streets!'

 3. I conducted all interviews in Spanish and all translations are mine. All names in this paper are pseudonyms. Funding for this research was provided by the International Development Research Council (IDRC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

 4. White-mestizos are individuals who generally self-identify as white but are described within the nationalist ideology of mestizaje as mestizo. Mestizaje is understood as a process of racial and cultural mixing which involves the blending of Spanish, African and indigenous ancestry; yet this is not an equal mixture. Those with more Spanish ancestry are deemed more worthy than those without. Marisol de la Cadena (2000) describes mestizaje as a process wherein individuals are perceived to gradually evolve from ‘primitive’ Indianness into more ‘civilised’ states of being—states that eventually become incompatible with indigenous ways. In this view, the process of mestizaje is not so much about ‘mixing’ as it is about a progressive ‘whitening’ of the population—often referred to as the process of blanqueamiento (see also Bonnett, 2000).

 5. Afro-Ecuadorians are also widely discriminated against in Ecuador but an analysis of this issue is beyond the scope of this paper. See de la Torre (2002b), Rahier (1998), Walmsley (2004) and Whitten (1974) for further analysis.

 6. Many thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

 7. This is with the exception of beggars from ethnic minority groups such as Gypsies/Travellers or Romas (see Gmelch, 1979; Helleiner, 2003).

 8. For instance, individuals 65 years of age and above who worked outside of the formal sector (such as in agriculture or in street sales) are entitled to US $7.50/month through the Bono Solidario. Disabled individuals are also entitled to this amount. Considering that the average urban family currently needs approximately $450/month to meet basic food and shelter needs (INEC, 2006), this supplement is very low.

 9. See also Weismantel (2001, pp. 154–159) for similar conclusions.

10. I recognise that Valentine's argument is based upon evidence in the Global North. However, due to high levels of domestic violence in Ecuador (see Pitkin & Bedoya, 1997), I believe this insight carries over.

11. Thanks to the same anonymous reviewer for the wording of this sentence.