Children and the streets of Medellín

Resumo

There are now fewer and fewer non-designed spaces where children can play. They move from closed spaces to others equally limited and controlled as devices and strategies for the domestication of contemporary childhood. The street is seen as dangerous and risky, so it should be avoided at all costs. The only people we “accept” on the street are street dwellers, a situation that creates a gap between the bonds and meanings that children construct from, with and on the street when they live in the street, as opposed to when they habitually traverse it or only occasionally inhabit it. Through interviews, games and narratives of 5 to 12 year old children, reflections are made about the configuration and representation which, according to their daily practices, these children construct of the street space, playing, training, buying and selling.