Chalenges of ethnograpy with street children: access / Desafios da etnografia com jovens em situação de rua: a entrada em campo

Abstract

Recently, researches with street children have dedicated more attention to the socialization processes which structure their daily lives and to the meaning of their social practices, leading to the need of new methods as the ethnographic alternative, for instance. This paper reports the field access process occurred in an ethnographic research - performed with a group of about 11 street children, aged between 16 and 18 years old - in order to emphasize the complexity of that process. The access negotiation determines many displacements and requires researcher's flexibility, under several demands concerning the form of participation and involvement with the group. Negotiations of meaning, in such situations, are a challenge for ethnographic researches done with the mentioned population, besides offering new opportunities for technical invention and ethics experience.