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Laboring and Learning pp 497–521Cite as

Young People’s Marginal Livelihoods and Social Transitions in Urban Brazil: Tale of Four Lives

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Part of the book series: Geographies of Children and Young People ((GCYP,volume 10))

Abstract

In this chapter, the contextualized narratives of four boys coming of age in a street environment in urban Brazil will be analyzed, and the socio-spatial dynamics shaping their livelihood paths from vending on the city buses and begging in early childhood to minding cars and assaulting in young adulthood will be explored. The analysis reveals how the livelihood choices alter throughout their street careers – influenced by past encounters, present situation, and future aspirations – all tightly connected to numerous spatial, temporal, and relational processes. In this sense, the data shows how livelihood trajectories emerge in the intersection between individual experiences and attitudes and wider social, cultural, and economic contexts. Recent debates on young people, livelihoods, and conventional models of youth transitions are discussed against the backdrop of three key perspectives from the empirical material: the significance of social networks in earning livelihoods, the negotiations of risk and blurred moralities in involvement in illegal livelihoods, and the occurrence of vital transitions throughout the life course. The study indicates how social transitions for marginalised youth are rarely unidirectional, but instead fluid and dynamic processes underpinned by structural constraints within which their lives unfold.

Although young people’s livelihoods are marked by and are responses to inequality and marginality, they are part and parcel of the wider urban environment, as they draw on great spatial mobility and broad socioeconomic networks.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Centre for Child Research (NOSEB), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Marit Ursin

  2. Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Tatek Abebe

Authors
  1. Marit Ursin
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  2. Tatek Abebe
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Correspondence to Marit Ursin .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Education and Lifelong Learning, Norwegian University of Sciences and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Tatek Abebe

  2. Department for Continuing Education and School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

    Johanna Waters

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Ursin, M., Abebe, T. (2017). Young People’s Marginal Livelihoods and Social Transitions in Urban Brazil: Tale of Four Lives. In: Abebe, T., Waters, J. (eds) Laboring and Learning. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 10. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-032-2_16

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