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A Childish Culture?

Shared understandings, agency and intervention: an anthropological study of street children in northwest Kenya

St Hugh's College, Oxford, matthew.davies{at}arch.ox.ac.uk

Street children in Makutano, northwest Kenya, form strong, stable social groups. Group activity functions through a well-defined structure involving leadership and close personal and economic relationships. This article shows how group solidarity is maintained through the sharing of a common subculture of spatial understandings, games, activities, dress, language and bodily actions. Through the group, the children experience a quality of life that negates the validity of common interventionist strategies. Moreover, given their high levels of competency, policies for working with these street children should be based on dialogue and should act to empower them through expanding the choices available to them.

Key Words: agency • Kenya • policy • street children • subculture

Childhood, Vol. 15, No. 3, 309-330 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0907568208091666


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