Children and childhood within ethnographic studies about Argentinian indigenous communities (Qom and Mbyá)

GARCÍA PALACIOS, MARIANA; HECHT, ANA CAROLINA; ENRIZ, NOELIA

Viena

Congreso; Eleventh Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies; 2015

Universidad de Viena

The paper points out the ways that indigenous childhood was mentioned in Argentinian ethnographic studies. With this aim, we will review the core characteristics of the ethnographic approaches that directly or indirectly refers to mbyà-guaraní and tobas/qom children, both indigenous communities in the lowlands and highlands of South America that were hunter-gatherer. These indigenous group respectively live in Misiones and Chaco Provinces, in the northeast of the country. As with the approaches to childhood and the teaching-learning processes, the conceptualization marks that one has of adults of the societies that one study can also be observed. In this regard, we will analyse the different ways that children appeared in these approaches, including how children's voices are presented in dialogue with the ethnographic researcher. Specifically, we will focus in two areas. First, we will analyse the conceptualization of the child as part of the life cycle. Second, we will study teaching and learning processes that involves at children. We also pay attention to the role of the children in the relationship between ethnographic texts classic and the recent ones. Methodologically, this paper draws on documentary sources of ethnographers and travelers whose texts have been published. These societies have been earlier studied by ethnographers and travelers. In this paper we argue that the reflections about children have been circumvented, but more that that the voices of children themselves.