Children and Young People’s Participation in Public Action in Brazil: Genealogies and Recent Innovations

Abstract

In this chapter we will give a historical overview of the changing dynamics of children and young people’s participation in Brazil and point to emerging innovations in this field. We argue that particular historical moments impose specific challenges that are in turn faced through particular forms of participative organization and mobilization. As a result, there is not a ‘participation in itself’: that is, a category that is removed from the historical relations that produced it, nor even an ideal state of participation to be reached. Instead participation is made anew, influenced by the past but also re-emerging constantly to meet new challenges. In this chapter, we take a genealogical approach to investigate particular understandings of childhood that are found behind these policies and practices towards this group at different historical moments. Our focus here is on forums and institutions that make claims, deliberate, make decisions and regulate the worlds of childhood and young people within the state as well as the forms of public action that have mobilized children and young people around issues of rights and policies (see Butler and Princeswal, 2008, 2010; see also Chapter 2).