Voices from the Street: An Ethnography of India’s Street Children

Past studies about India’s street children have been positioned within a universal construct of childhood, whereby children are perceived to be vulnerable and innocent, and have focused on shared similarities rather than cultural differences or distinguishing attributes. They way in which culture, societal values, family circumstances, lived experiences, and individual contexts affect the choices street children make is often overlooked. The present study does the work differently. It seeks to understand how street children in India’s capital, New Delhi, contend with the obstacles placed before them, and how they, as social agents, go about making life choices. At the same time, this study investigates the way in which children construct their social organizations, make important life decisions, and identify themselves in respect to the public urban spaces in which they exist. The specialists, activists and generalists interested in the subject will, it is believed, find the study informative and useful.