Where the sidewalk ends : a theoretical model to reimagining care in the lives of children working on Beirut’s streets -

Abstract

The number of children working in the street in Lebanon is difficult to determine. In recent years the influx of families seeking asylum and refuge in Lebanon from the on-going Syrian crisis has made the visibility and plight of children on the street increasingly difficult to ignore. Despite the growing concern with the rising number of street children in Lebanon relatively little is known about the full context of their lives and much more research is needed to understand their social worlds to assess possible solutions or interventions. Street children continue to be a heated social and moral debate. The discourse surrounding street children in Lebanon over the last two decades participates in the discourse about street children found in other places around the world. It is a story filled with exaggerated numbers, descriptions of ill-cared for and abandoned children, juvenile delinquency, and future criminality. Humanitarian and NGOs reports focus on the urgency to deal with the issue of street children while little, or no attention is paid to the complexities of agency, the value, and meaning assigned to work, and the manner in which work can foster an opportunity to be cared for and to take care of others. Activists and the media use photography, rapid assessments, and short quotations to highlight the perceived careless and criminality of children and their parents to relieve social responsibility in caring for others. Designing better interventions in these children’s lives and changing negative social perceptions about them hinges on a better understanding of their social world and of how they orient themselves within these worlds. It depends, in other terms, on learning to look at street-working children not just as victims but also as worthy society members who are creators of value, in the form of income, social networks, and existential meaning. The following study was based on ten ethnographic interviews with children working attempts to add new variables into the current discourse surroundin