At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil [Hardcover]

Tobias Hecht (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 13, 1998

Through innovative fieldwork and ethnographic writing, Hecht lays bare the received truths about the lives of Brazilian street children. This book changes the terms of the debate, asking not why there are so many homeless children in Brazil but why - given the oppressive alternative of home life in the shantytowns - there are in fact so few. Speaking in recorded sessions that participants called "radio workshops," street children asked one another questions that even the most experienced researchers would be unlikely to pose. At the center of this study are children who play, steal, sleep, dance, and die in the streets of a Brazilian city. But all around them figure activists, politicians, researchers, "home" children, and a global crisis of childhood.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

During the past few years the street children of Brazil have drawn the attention of international groups and the media. Much of this attention has focused on what has been described as death-squad murders and exploitation by the police and the underworld of these youths. The attention has been so significant that street children have become a cultural symbol of Brazil as viewed by the world community. Hecht, an anthropologist, has published a study that is the result of fieldwork done in Recife and Olinda Pernambuco, Brazil, between 1992 and 1995. Using a variety of research tools, the author details the children's difficult lives, examining violence perpetrated against them and suggesting that mistreatment by police and family is of greater importance than that by the death squads. This book will be of value to libraries with strong Latin American collections and interest in international social issues.AMark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ., Provo, UT
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This is a powerful ethnography which puts children's reports at the centre of its analysis. We learn how street children speak about their families, the violence in their everyday lives, their bleak futures, and interventions from welfare organizations." Catherine Panter-Brick,Durham University

"Hecht has been very lucky in the appropriation of the ethnographer's tape recorder by the street children themselves to hold their own 'radio workshops.' As a result, this work achieves something very special: the children themselves set the frame and limits of the otherwise inevitable and predictable outsider's sympathetic discourse on their plight. Never in ethnography has the agency of the subject's voice been so creatively present; never have the stories of such children who partly stand for contemporary Brazil been so plainly compelling." George Marcus, Rice University

"A moving, provocative study that probes below the surface of everyday Brazilian life. Tobias Hecht...gives voice to the country's marginalized street children, tens of thousands of whom roam the cities, orphaned or abandoned by their families, seeking through petty crime and by living by their wits to avoid being sent to the repellent state institutions. This is ethnography at its best: riveting, compassionate, pithy, handsomely illustrated with photographs, always aware of the larger social and political context." Robert M. Levine, University of Miami

"Hecht's work is graceful, thorough, and level-headed. The power of his analysis is magnified by its compassion, and by the clarity and elegance of his completely approachable writing. This book is a much-needed contribution to the literature of Brazil, of children, and of anthropology. It will no doubt be read and argued for years to come." Robin Nagle, author of Claiming the Virgin: The Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil (Routledge, 1997)

"In the 1980s and '90s, the world was shaken by images of Brazilian street children, children who came to symbolize the inhuman and unjust side of Brazilian society. At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil, by Tobias Hecht, is an important contribution to our understanding of the topic. Hecht's analysis is marked by sensitivity to children for whom the streets have become home and who daily suffer from scorn, abandonment, neglect, and violence. The care with which Hecht carried out his research, enriched by coexistence with the children, resulted in a document that offers Brazilians and foreigners a better understanding of the challenges faced worldwide by young and socially excluded populations." Irene Rizzini, Director, Center for Research on Childhood, Universidade Santa Ursula, Rio de Janeiro

"In reading Hecht's powerful and accessible book, we become familiar with a dozen children of the street. If you want to know what happened to them, read the book. You will not be the same." Donna J. Karen, Luso-Brazilian Review

"Hecht's research on the street children of Recife and Olinda and the activist organizations that deal with them provides richly detailed observations and a well-studied challenge to the popular image of Brazilian street children and their suffering at the hands of the police. Recommended for undergraduates and above." Choice

"Hecht affirms that the decisions that lead children to the streets are understood by knowing them, and their families over time, and need to be understood with a home based childhood examination." Child Development Abstracts & Bibliography

"This is one of the rare books that touches on the social constructions of childhood as it relates to class in Brazil." Marcia Mikulak, Journal of Anthropological Research

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (May 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521591325
• ISBN-13: 978-0521591324
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,294,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent, Intriguing Book, December 22, 2000

By 

"naomiii" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil (Paperback)

I bought this book to use for research for my term paper on Brazilian Street Children. Although I was already interested in this subject, I didn't really get into it until I started reading this book. It is very intriguing because it isn't just an outsider's point of view- Tobias Hecht includes numerous interviews with street children he knew well, and stories about the time he spent with these children getting to know them. He also looks at the issues concerning street children from many angles, not from a biased point-of-view, so as to make it more interesting. It's a fascinating topic and I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this subject, even if it isn't for a term paper.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A harrowing look at street children in Brazil, July 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil (Hardcover)

It has been said that there are two Brazils--the"firstworld" modern archipelago where the rich lived behindwalled compounds, own several houses and apartments, and buy consumer items without regard for price. The rest of the country lives in the Third World--in poverty. Anthropologist Tobias Hecht applies careful, compassionate research and study to the urban dimension of lower class life. On par with Nancy Scheper-Hughes, the book brilliantly brings the tribulations and small triumphs of homeless children to life.

4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Few moral judgements, October 22, 2003

By 

Jennifer Herron (Birmingham, AL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil (Paperback)

It was helpful to read a non-Christian study on street children. It was definitely more sociological and anthropological than most books I've read concerning children at risk, but I appreciated the objectivity. Hecht makes few moral judgments, but paints a picture of a daily reality for street children of northeast Brazil.