A vida não é descartável: o olhar de crianças sobre a própria infância

Abstract

This work describes and therefore interprets, as the central objective, the life of a group of children, the meaning they offer about being a child and the various meanings that emerge from their activities, relationships among themselves (among children), with the other people they live with, as well as the relationship they establish with the space where they live, including the storage space of discarded materials and objects near their homes, located in an urban area of the city of Montes Claros / MG. In a complementary way, the descriptions achieved reached the other residents of the researched region, their activities and the environment, considering that everything is context and an integral part of the life of said children. Within the objectives of this work, this one also describes and analyzes theoretical and historical productions regarding the meanings attributed to the child and to the childhood: speeches delivered by sociology, anthropology and psychology; the social-historical trajectory of abandoned children, the poor and the looks that were being built on them, mainly by the legal discourses and state authorities that determined how they should be assisted and treated in Brazil. Fieldwork was developed between July 2017 and January 2018, conducted through ethnographic research, including participant observation and interviews (informal and semi-structured). The children interviewed are between 6 and 9 years of age. The data presented show particularities regarding the way of life of the children studied, since they include the specificities of their experiences, activities, gestures, interactions and relations with the people of the region, with space, with the environment, with school and with objects who are dumped near their homes. A life concretized in the present moment, demanding looks and presences that value the singularities, the conditions and the current context of life.