Paper long abstract:

What is a child? What are its rights? Should a child be free to choose its life? These are the most troubling questions and moral conundrums we face as social scientists when dealing with children and adolescents in our researches. These issues are even more embarrassing when we work with children who live in situation of marginality and exclusion – whose lives are far away from ‘European’ models of ‘normal’ childhood. It is the case of the street children I had the chance to work with in Cape Verde. In this paper I will contest a picture of street children as victims, claiming instead that the majority of younger street dwellers in Cape Verde are fully aware of their choice, self reflexive and autonomous. Street children contradict a notion of the child as vulnerable, dependent and non-autonomous being – and as such needing adults’ protection and authority. Without overlooking social constraints or romanticizing street life, I want to give a picture of street children as self-conscious agents. I will not claim that street children are absolutely free actors living in idyllic conditions. Yet, I want to emphasize their tactical capacity and self-reflexivity – and argue that the normative idea of childhood upon which most humanitarian interventions are based upon is unsuitable for street children in Cape Verde.