Infâncias na cidade: invisibilidades, disputas e possibilidades

Abstract

This dissertation aims to understand how the recognition or invisibility of childhoods is produced in the city, articulating theoretical-critical debates, counter-hegemonic practices, and cartographic paths carried out in urban spaces intended for children. It starts from the understanding that cities have historically been planned by and for adults, guided by productivist, privatist, adult-centered, and technocratic rationalities that tend to restrict children’s modes of presence, circulation, play, and participation in urban territories. In this context, the distance between the normative recognition of childhoods as subjects of rights and the concrete conditions of their presence in urban territories is problematized. The research is guided by a qualitative approach, assuming reflexivity and the implication of the researcher-body in the production of knowledge. The methodological path unfolds into two complementary fronts, articulating the theoretical-critical analysis of the literature, inspired by the benjaminian montage of conceptual fragments, with the mapping and analysis of public spaces designed for childhoods in Uberlândia/MG, under the inspiration of the cartographic method. The theoretical-critical analysis highlights play as a counter-hegemonic practice and identifies experiences such as tactical urbanism, participatory budgeting and participatory methodologies in university extension as possible fissures in the hegemonic model of city production. The results show that the recognition of childhoods in the city remains marked by tensions between formally guaranteed rights and concrete conditions of existence. The research therefore argues for the need to strengthen public policies and urban practices that recognize children as subjects of rights and legitimate agents in the production of urban space.