The House, the Street, Global Society: Latin American Families and Childhood in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

Globalization has produced a common vision of the experience of childhood, a kind of morality. However, this global notion fails to coincide with the experience of childhood Latin America. In Latin America family and kinship have served as critical institutions for social stability. Perhaps the starkest example of the impact of globalization on Latin America is the growing number of so-called children. While the nuclear family is widely seen as ideal, it is not prevalent. Latin American families which are often extended and matrifocal often appear the media or popular literature as being deviant or in crisis. Neoliberal reforms restrict social programs that support education, welfare, housing, and medical care. Nevertheless, still utilize kinship and family relations creative and adaptive ways. Structures of dependence and reciprocity sustain the wake of economic crisis, marital strife, and parental death or disappearance. Parents also depend upon children. The majority of street children are working the to bring resources to their families. Globalization has limited the ability of popular families Latin America to participate the formal society and economy; what it has not done is to destroy the family.