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Children and the Politics of Violence in Haitian Context

Statist violence, scarcity and street child agency in Port-au-Prince

Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

An anthropology of children and violence must address the specific conditions under which children are more (or less) likely to be nurtured and protected, rather than abused, battered or exposed. The Lafanmi Selavi orphanage project in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, provides a useful focal point for the anthropological reckoning of both concerns. Founded by Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1986, the program was instituted in order to provide housing, food, education and a political safe haven for numerous street children who had found themselves targeted for state violence. Soundly based in liberation theology, Lafanmi Selavi includes both Christian social ethics and democratic mobilization in its curriculum, drawing the often violent ire of rightist Haitian state polities and their civil proxies. This article is a study of past and continuing state violence against the children of Lafanmi Selavi, and it situates the Haitian street child as a cultural and political agent of national discourse.

Key Words: child agency • civil society • education • Haiti • human rights • liberation theology • political violence • poverty • state violence • street children • youth politics

Critique of Anthropology, Vol. 19, No. 2, 121-138 (1999)
DOI: 10.1177/0308275X9901900202


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