Young people living and working on the streets of Brazil: Revisiting the literature

Summary

Young people living and working on the street can be seen as a bitter fruit in a complex tree of poverty and inequality, and a conspicuously visible fruit for reasons we will relate in this paper. Children and adolescents living on the street outside parental supervision is not in itself new, equally, though there are constant reports referring to the increasing number of this population there is little evidence, apart from periods of acute economic and social stability such as that between the late 70’s and early 80’s, that this is indeed the case. What instead has changed is the way this phenomena is viewed, interpreted and acted upon by wider society. This paper is an attempt to trace how this understanding has transformed in Brazil from a period two decades ago, when the phenomena can be said to have become the concern of society at large, up to the present. In seeking out this trajectory this paper focuses upon academic research produced between 1980 and 2000, pointing out how research focuses, concepts and terminology has changed over this period.