The Street and the Neighborhood as violent Places and as Spaces of political Subjectivity of Children and young People in the border City of Cúcuta (Colombia)

Abstract

This article aims to understand the processes involved in the political subjectivity of children and young people in a context of armed violence. Public streets and the local neighborhood are recognized as being the setting of this subjectivity, where the children come into contact with other actors, especially armed actors; as a result of this interaction, they recreate and redefine violence, which ultimately becomes part of their way of building community. We note that, in communities affected by this armed violence in which children have been forced to retreat from public spaces owing to the control and pressure exerted by violent actors, children have bodily become protagonists in the dispute for public spaces and an important element in avoiding the total loss of sociality and the public nature of these spaces.