Transiciones conceptuales y discursivas del trabajo infantil a partir del caso mexicano

Abstract

The following article documents my observations and reflections acquired during two years of ethnographic studies with working girls in Mexico City (Leyra, 2009), as a part of my PHD in Social Anthropology. This article introduces concepts of informal labor and child labor; concepts that are systematically linked together by researchers, simplifying the complexities of these two different forms of labor that have been taking place since ancient times trough different cultures. Taking Mexico as a case study, I analyze the need of deconstructing the mentioned simplification, rethinking the concepts that have been traditional target of social policies without taking into account the multiple complexities of this social phenomenon. From a feminist point of view, it is necessary to recognize the talents of the girls as workers and as women that in many ways don’t hold their rights and are treated as second-class citizens. I will also analyze the limits of the public and the private, and collective mindsets about childhood and about what children «should be».