This edited volume concerns childhood throughout South America after the 1990s, a period and territory of special complexity marked by the beginning—or intensification of—political neoliberalisation throughout the region. The decade also saw the ratification of the International Convention on Rights of the Child and post-dictatorial processes of political and social democratisation. The editors of this book explore the tension this juxtaposition has generated between logics and processes of dissimilar orientations. Within this framework, chapters investigate the neoliberalisation and institutionalisation of children’s rights and consider similarities and differences with respect to other regions. They also explore changes in schools and educational systems, as well as the phenomenon of the internal and external child and family migration.

“Children do not belong to another species, nor do they live in another world. On the contrary, they share risks and advantages with other human beings at the same historical moment. This book looks at South American childhoods starting from analysis of the social, political, and economic structures of the last thirty years, providing a great contribution for the study of children’s lives traversed by structural conditions, be it on some or on other continents.”
—Lourdes Gaitán, Founding Member of Sociology of Childhood and Adolescence Group (GSIA) and Co-Director of Sociedad e Infancias

“This book represents a landmark publication in childhood studies. The social study of childhood, based on the recognition of children as social actors with agency, is a field of study that has hitherto been dominated by Western European research and thinking, which sought to challenge the false dichotomy between childhood and adulthood. This volume makes a valuable contribution to this important field of study by applying these perspectives to South American childhoods.”
—Adrian L. James, Emeritus Professor, Applied Social Sciences, University of Sheffield, UK

“An exciting and significant intervention into childhood studies. The volume at once offers rich, textured, and vivid accounts of processes of neoliberalisation as they shape South American children and childhoods—and their unequal, violent, and punitive effect—at the same time as extending and complicating childhood studies, animated by the rich history of South American socio-cultural approaches to childhood. In the process, contributors offer novel ways of understanding human rights, nation, social reproduction, and generation in neoliberal contexts.”
—Rachel Rosen, Associate Professor of Childhood, UCL Social Research Institute, UK

"This book seizes new spaces to critique neo-liberalism from the vantage point of Latin American children. This continent experienced devastating swings between authoritarian regimes and the authors describe superbly the impacts on children on such crucial issues as child labour, migration, and children out of school. Children are often omitted from the Latin American political analyses. This book, with great skill and insight, gets them back into the picture."
—Irene Rizzini, Professor, Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and President of the International Center for Research and Policy on Childhood (CIESPI), Brazil

Presents chapters on several South American countries across a range of disciplines Explores childhoods from 1990 to the present day Stresses the importance of linking neoliberalisation processes in the region with the exercising of children's rights

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