Abstract

CIORDIA, Carolina. Modalities of Agency Assumed by Children and Young People in Protection Policies in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2021, n.42, pp.133-153. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda42.2021.06.

The purpose of this article is to analyze different forms of agency assumed by children and young people with respect to child protection policies, specifically, in terms of adoption or foster care processes. To this end, I apply an ethnographic approach to describe and analyze the institutional logic behind the operation of certain residential homes, the guidelines and sanctions that regulate the behavior of the children and young people housed there, and how they, in turn, make sense of and heighten the monitoring and control of these institutions. Secondly, I examine the ways in which children and young people develop their capacity for agency by engaging in dialogue or confronting the officials of the entities that promote and protect their rights; how they attribute meaning to the official’s decisions, and how they seek to avoid them or propose alternatives. This paper supports the production of knowledge on how children and young people contribute to shaping social life and, at the same time, is intended to deepen the government's analysis of this sector of the population. I maintain that far from considering state intervention on children and young people as homogeneous and totalizing, the cases reveal the different nuances assumed by child government and how this variability creates the conditions to enable them to carry out their projects. The materials I present and analyze here are the result of field work, carried out over ten years, between 2009 and 2019, in households and entities that promote and protect rights, in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Keywords : Adoption; agency; childhood; protection policies; youth.

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