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Social Actors and Victims of Exploitation

Working children in the cash economy of Ethiopia's South

Norwegian Centre for Child Research, tatek.abebe{at}svt.ntnu.no

Anne Trine Kjørholt

Norwegian Centre for Child Research

This article explores the role of children in household livelihoods among the Gedeo ethnic community in Ethiopia. Three themes are discussed — reproductive activities, entrepreneurial work in marketplaces and sociospatial mobility — in the context of recent theoretical debates over children's agency and social competence. With shifts in rural livelihoods, children have developed new agentic and entrepreneurial skills in domestic work, trade and migration. This agency is negotiated in everyday life, but it is also structurally highly circumscribed. Situating children's work within post-rural economic development offers insight into the ways in which regional and global political economy shape their local livelihoods.

Key Words: agency • children's work • development • Ethiopia • livelihoods • sociospatial mobility

Childhood, Vol. 16, No. 2, 175-194 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0907568209104400


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