“The Street Can’t Give Birth !”
Champy, Muriel
“The Street Can’t Give Birth !” - 2015.
7
While street children have been well described by scholars and been targeted by many development programs, the population of street children continues to grow and the attempts to reintegrate them mostly fail. Based on a research conducted in the capital of Burkina Faso, this article seeks to revive the debate through an ethnographic approach developed outside development projects. Thoroughly examining the different categories that are commonly used to describe street children, the author shows how these various designations, that the children appropriate and with which they play, paradoxically induces their marginalisation. Considering the local representations of childhood and the discourse of the individuals in question, the article finally explores an alternative categorization by considering them as young migrants struggling to enter the employment market rather than street children.
“The Street Can’t Give Birth !” - 2015.
7
While street children have been well described by scholars and been targeted by many development programs, the population of street children continues to grow and the attempts to reintegrate them mostly fail. Based on a research conducted in the capital of Burkina Faso, this article seeks to revive the debate through an ethnographic approach developed outside development projects. Thoroughly examining the different categories that are commonly used to describe street children, the author shows how these various designations, that the children appropriate and with which they play, paradoxically induces their marginalisation. Considering the local representations of childhood and the discourse of the individuals in question, the article finally explores an alternative categorization by considering them as young migrants struggling to enter the employment market rather than street children.
Réseaux sociaux