Overview

What does it mean to be a child or an adolescent growing up on the streets or in a state institution? How do children define their everyday lives in the midst of global processes? This ethnographic study situates childhood and adolescence as social forms within the changing family and political structures of the complex urban world of Caracas, Venezuela. The presence of youngsters on the streets of Caracas embodies social contradictions at the national level, and this book discusses how these contradictions are played out in an oil-producing nation afflicted with hyperinflation, generalized corruption, the deterioration of public services, increasing poverty, and violence. Vivid life stories told by street children themselves portray their relations with family, friends, police officers, journalists and social workers. The book also describes and analyzes the justice system and institutions for minors, illustrating the constant failures to respond to, contain, or lessen youth violence.

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9780804734530

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Reviews

Centering on a series of dramatic life histories and interviews in which the street children provide stunningly insightful and poetically expressed analyses of their own situations, Marquez's book is compellingly written and excellently thought out, makes theoretical contributions, and portrays a fascinating situation with insights that will be useful to scholars in a variety of fields. -Linda-Anne Rebhun, Yale University The book's strength lies in the extraordinarily detailed and up-close look the reader receives of street life and its fragilities ... in telling and at times graphic detail... One of the most recent and best examples of what empirical studies of the Third World informal sector can be. -Qualitative Sociology

'Centering on a series of dramatic life histories and interviews in which the street children provide stunningly insightful and poetically expressed analyses of their own situations, M rquez's book is compellingly written and excellently thought out, makes important theoretical contributions, and portrays a fascinating situation with insights that will be useful to scholars in a variety of fields.'Linda-Anne Rebhuhn, Yale University

Centering on a series of dramatic life histories and interviews in which the street children provide stunningly insightful and poetically expressed analyses of their own situations, Marquez's book is compellingly written and excellently thought out, makes theoretical contributions, and portrays a fascinating situation with insights that will be useful to scholars in a variety of fields. --Linda-Anne Rebhun, Yale University The book's strength lies in the extraordinarily detailed and up-close look the reader receives of street life and its fragilities ... in telling and at times graphic detail... One of the most recent and best examples of what empirical studies of the Third World informal sector can be. --Qualitative Sociology

Author Information

Patricia C. Márquez is Associate Professor in the Department of Organizational Behavior at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA), Caracas.

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