Neither villains nor heroines: discourses on vulnerable children

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the ideological elements that cross intervention policies with vulnerable children through the critical consideration of the very concept of vulnerability. We refer to the debates on the subject that allow us to analyze the hegemonic mode of recognition of childhood as dependent, vulnerable and lacked of agency. Childhood is built in a relational way to that of social intervention agents (protection and humanitarian aid system) who will be responsible for rescuing children from their vulnerable situation. Two cases of construction of vulnerable childhood are studied: that of boys (in masculine) who migrate alone from the South to the global North, and that of girls (in feminine) that occupy the stories of the development campaigns of impoverished countries. We find two generized constructions of childhood to which differentiated attributes are applied regarding their agent capacity and the interpretation and limits of their vulnerability. On one hand, migrant boys are constructed as annoying for the system, on the other girls in developing countries are constructed as inspiring references.