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Mana 2012
Crescendo em catingueira: crian?a, família e organiza??o social no semiárido nordestinoDOI: 10.1590/S0104-93132012000300005 Keywords: children, infancy, child labor, socialization, family, peasantry. Abstract: the focus of the present article is ethnographic, aiming to describe the children of the catingueira (a semiarid region in paraíba state), highlighting their participation in social and family life. i reveal the contingencies these children face an daily life as well as adults' expectations regarding them, focusing on three ethnographic memories: an event in church involving a three year old child; the ritual presentation of new members to the community and a funeral procession for a "little angel" (a dead child). here i propose to think of small children as laughable, of older children apprentices and of childhood as a period of work and moral learning. the text reveals a universe in which children become agents who are essential for the proper functioning of the family unit and, more generally, of the whole community.
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