The street, children and parents: the views of children from Santiago de Chile

ABSTRACT

In this article, we present the partial results of a broader qualitative study carried out in the city of Santiago de Chile between 2016 and early 2020. In particular, we analyse the discourses found in 12 group interviews with Chilean children – aged 10 and 11, and of three socioeconomic strata (upper-middle, middle and low) – about the relationship they establish with the street’s space and the negotiations they conduct with their parents about it. The results show that the street evokes a feeling of menace and moral downfall for the children, while parents are called on to play the role of protectors and moralisers. At the same time, the street is signified as a space of relative freedom, of peer sociability and play, to which they insist that parents give them access even though restricted. These results are closely linked to the socio-historical context in which modern childhood is constructed, the more recent media and political inflation of urban insecurity and the objectively hostile nature of urban environments for children.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood studies
• children’s geographies
• children’s discourses
• parent-child relationship
• Latin American childhoods
• Chile

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Santiago is the capital of Chile and has more than 7 million inhabitants; other Latin American capitals, such as Mexico City and Sao Paulo, are among the most populated in the world, with figures approaching 22 million people.

2 It is estimated that, between 2017 and 2021, 61 children were killed by stray bullets in Santiago de Chile (Project for Resolution 1731 of 12/10/2021, Chamber of Deputies of Chile).

3 The public nature of a place can be defined not only in terms of ownership, but also its accessibility and the social interaction it enables. In practice, when using these criteria, it is observed that there are continuing difficulties in categorising different places according to these factors (Scott and Walters, 2015).

4 That is, ‘street children’ or children who were part of the ambivalent binomial ‘abandoned child-delinquent child’ (García Méndez 1991) that justified state action. Although, strictly speaking, the category ‘minor’ can be applied to any person who has not reached the age of majority, in Latin America it has been applied, in practice, to children from the lowest strata. As Carli (2002) points out, the category of ‘minor’ acquires an extra meaning when it refers to situations of child poverty, abandonment or child marginality.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ANID-Chile, project “La relación entre padres e hijos(as) en la perspectiva de niños(as) y adultos”. Un estudio discursivo en Santiago de Chile (FONDECYT Regular 1160650, 2016-2020).