Children's Strategies for Creating Playspaces: Negotiating Independence in Rural Bolivia

Abstract

First paragraph: Recent research in the new social studies of childhood recognises that children are competent social actors who play an active part in their social worlds (Waksler 1991; Mayall 1994; Caputo 1995; Waksler 1996). Yet there are still relatively few studies which document the ways in which children devise ways to counteract adult's power and control over their lives. However, although the agency of children is important in understanding their capacities (Sibley 1991), it must be acknowledged that children also face limitations. The aim of this chapter is to consider how rural children in Bolivia actively negotiate ways to assert their autonomy despite being constrained by adults who enforce boundaries of time and space (James 1993; Ennew 1994; Sibley 1995). Adult-imposed limits confine children, yet children's resourcefulness and competencies enable them to create strategies for controlling their own use of time and space.