Aquelas infâncias que nao parecem crianças: hablando de los Pivetes de Brasil y los Gamines de Colombia

Abstract

The cultural notion of childhood is influenced by social and political experience, in which the ways of thinking and acting towards children are defined. In addition, it expresses how children comprehend both each other and themselves, and this perception is the key point in differentiating the adult universe from the childlike one. The concept of childhood in the present days cannot be dissociated from the history of different views on children and their contribution to the current status, that is, the concept of childhood has historically evolved as much as the role played by adults in the different periods of child development. This work has sought to analyse the historical process of childhood representation, regarding the social, political and cultural relations that produce changes in the construction of the concept of childhood, reviewing the laws about the concept of age minority and the paradigm on which the social politics that affects children in Brazil and Colombia has been structured. Therefore, one must perceive that the questions hereby raised focus on reflection about children who don’t meet the proper conditions each child should be set in, which is a constant reality for the 70s and 80s in Brazil, with the so-called pivetes, and in Colombia, with the so-called gamines. In other words, the present work approaches other forms of childhood that have been ever-present in our society’s daily routine: the street children. Concerning the methodological process, it has sought to achieve certain investigation methods, proposing historiography throughout the analysis of documental and digital written sources, official papers and laws that take into account theoretical considerations to support the analysis of the gathered information, aiming to reach and describe the means by which the conditions of street children have developed, especially in the considered period.