Vaulting the turnstiles: dialoguing and translating childhood and agencies from Chile, Latin America

Abstract

ABSTRACT When aiming to create spaces for dialogue between social studies of childhood in the Global North and South, there are many aspects to consider. One of them is the complexities of bringing together different histories and languages as they shape differentiated understandings of the field. In this article, we focus on agency, one of the main concepts that has shaped the New Social Studies of Childhood (NSSC). We discuss how childhood studies in the Global South have contributed to the development of agency in NSSC within English-speaking dialogues. We introduce the notion of agencia, the Spanish equivalent of agency, exploring its connotations in childhood studies and advocacy groups in Latin America. Finally, we bring together the different aspects of agency and agencia as they have been discussed throughout the paper, exploring how from these perspectives we can approach one specific event: secondary school students vaulting over the turnstiles at the metro stations in Santiago, Chile. This event initiated what has been known as the Chilean outbreak of October 2019, and the origin of the current constitutional process from which children have been ambiguously included/excluded.