Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The ideas conveyed in these drawings, as the ones expressed in role-playing activities,
are not immature, nor do they lack an understanding of what “really happens.” Neither
are the Guarani children's critique of human society merely an “inversion” of the
ideas contended by their parents and other adults, as Toren (1993:463) proposes. More
and more attention has been paid to infant perceptions of the world, because ideas
that traditionally trickled down from the ruling or middle classes are now emanating
from the bottom - from teenagers, preteens, and even younger children. Escalating
economic woes in many poor nations, such as Ecuador, Colombia, Rwanda, and
Zambia, have spurred the formation of children's councils, a major movement that is
taking a lot of different forms in different countries (Wright 2000: 2).
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Three role-playing activities selected for this chapter, performed in 1998 and
1999 by children between the ages of 2 and 12, illuminate the relevance of childhood
agency in recreating Tupi-Guarani apocalyptic visions of time and the body. The
performances, presented ahead as texts describing the role-playing activity or
game itself, are (1) the singer, the cook, and the tin can gatherer; (2) the doctor,
the Indian, and the ambulance driver; and (3) travelers, missionaries, and Guarani
warriors. Ethnographic, empirical research among children has the power to reveal
“a completely different world, so different that we seem to be confronted by a
different order of being” (Reynolds 1974:34).
I was able to observe and talk to Guarani Mbyá and Guarani Nhandeva children at
the Itaóca Indigenous Land, in the city of Mongaguá, and nearby sites on the southern
coast of the state of São Paulo, between March 1997 and October 1999. Boys and
girls were observed and interviewed at spaces where they predominantly play and
work: water spigots where they actually wash family clothing, but with make-believe
foam because very rarely can they afford real soap; house patios in which they cook
scraps of food from the Mongaguá dumpsite, while dreaming it is their much awaited
feijoada
(black beans with pork),
frango assado
(roasted chicken) and
churrasquinho
(barbecued meat); barren sandy fields plagued with ants and other insects where the
kids plant miniature gardens and sometimes pretend to harvest basketfuls of juicy
mangos, tangerines, avocados, and bananas; and the opy or prayer house in which
they sing and dance to the sound of violins and drums played by young shaman
apprentices. These are a few spaces over which the children have some degree of
power and control, and where the choices they make impact first and foremost their
present situation, and also yield predictive power over the future.
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I was able to follow the children around in hospitals, health centers, banana
farms, and at the city of Mongaguá's garbage dump and cemetery. The dump and
the cemetery are located side-by-side on the northernmost border of the Itaóca
Indigenous Land, in the municipality of Mongaguá. The various health facilities and
banana farms are situated in what is known as the
Baixada Santista
- the metropolitan
and the suburban areas located near the city - and the Port of Santos, advertised as
“the door to the main Latin American market” by the Brazilian government.
Two of my own children, Pedro and Djuni, who were 8 and 13 the first time they
accompanied me to the Itaóca Village in 1998, helped me envision intricacies of
