Continually Redefining Protagonismo: The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political Change, 1976–2015

• Author: Jessica K. Taft
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17736037
• Date: 01 September 2019
• Published date: 01 September 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 228, Vol. 46 No. 5, September 2019, 90–110

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17736037

© 2017 Latin American Perspectives

90

Continually Redefining Protagonismo

The Peruvian Movement of Working Children and Political

Change, 1976–2015

by

Jessica K. Taft

Activists in the Peruvian working children’s movement have been theorizing about

“children’s protagonismo” for nearly 40 years. Changing political contexts and the infu-

sion of discourses from other social movements have produced three major sets of mean-

ings for this concept, each reflecting different dynamics in Peruvian social movement

history. First, the concept, infused with ideas from liberation theology and Latin American

engagements with Marxism, was primarily understood in terms of class struggle and

collective organization. Second, because of opportunities and threats in the 1980s and

1990s, it became more closely associated with children’s rights frameworks. Third, since

the early 2000s, the movement’s approach to protagonismo has drawn on indigenous

theories of interdependence and relationality to challenge the individualism of neoliberal

capitalism and governmentality. In holding these diverse ideological commitments

together, the concept has allowed the movement of working children to communicate

across multiple discursive communities.

Los activistas del movimiento de los niños trabajadores peruanos han teorizado sobre el

“protagonismo infantil” durante casi 40 años. Los cambios en el contexto político y la influ-

encia de discursos pertenecientes a otros movimientos sociales han generado tres grandes

conjuntos de significado alrededor de este concepto, cada uno de los cuales reflejando dis-

tintas dinámicas en la historia del movimiento social peruano. Primero, el concepto se

entendió en términos de clase imbuidos por ideas de la teología de la liberación, así como

actitudes latinoamericanas de compromiso con el marxismo y la organización colectiva.

Posteriormente, a raíz de las oportunidades y amenazas de las décadas de 1980 y 90, se rela-

cionó de manera más estrecha con el marco de los derechos del niño. Desde principios de la

década del 2000, el enfoque del protagonismo se ha ligado a teorías indígenas de la interde-

pendencia y la relacionalidad para desafiar el individualismo del capitalismo neoliberal y la

gobernabilidad. Al unir tal diversidad de compromisos ideológicos, el concepto ha permitido

que el movimiento de los niños trabajadores tenga voz en múltiples comunidades discursi-

vas.

Jessica K. Taft is an associate professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of

California at Santa Cruz. She is the author of Rebel Girls: Youth Activism and Social Change Across

the Americas (2010) and is currently developing a book manuscript on intergenerational relation-

ships in Peru’s movement of working children. She thanks the LAP reviewers for their insightful

and generative feedback. Support for this research was provided by the American Sociological

Association’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline, the Kellogg Institute for International

Studies at the University of Notre Dame, the Davidson College Faculty Study and Research Grant

program, and the Committee on Research at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

736037LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X17736037Latin American PerspectivesTaft / Working Children and Political Change in Peru

research-article2017

Taft / WORKING CHILDREN AND POLITICAL CHANGE IN PERU 91

Keywords: Social movements, Children’s rights, Participation, Political discourse,

Peru

Pamphlets, banners, posters, and buttons produced by the organizations

and networks that make up the Peruvian movement of working children all

proclaim the importance of “children’s protagonismo.” Child and adult move-

ment participants encourage each other to “be protagonists,” and enhancing

children’s protagonismo is one of the movement’s enduring goals. Children in

the movement today define protagonismo as “being able to express myself

without fear,” “having the power to create social change,” “being respected as

social actors,” “making decisions,” “being equals together,” “claiming our

rights,” and “participating and encouraging others to participate.”1 The mean-

ings that movement participants attach to this concept form a constellation

around the idea of children’s collective agency but are also highly varied and

have developed substantially over its nearly 40-year history. This article out-

lines the circumstances that have given the concept its interlocking meanings

and situates these meanings in Peru’s changing political contexts and in the

discursive landscapes of social movements across Latin America.

I build my analysis from 11 months of extensive ethnographic participant

observation, conducted from 2012 to 2015, in-depth interviews with 10 adults

and 14 children involved in the movement,2 and a plethora of printed materials

written and produced by activists in the movement. This includes pamphlets,

proclamations, organizational statements of principles, founding documents,

training materials for adults and children, web sites, flyers, press releases, and

all of the issues of the RevistaNATs, a semiacademic journal produced by one of

the movement organizations. This combination of sources provides a rich

understanding of how movement participants articulate the concept of pro-

tagonismo in the daily life of the movement and in more formalized public

expressions.

Protagonismo is a multifaceted concept whose meanings have morphed

over time in relation to political changes and in conversation with other social

movements. Although it is specifically applied to children in this case, it rep-

resents a more expansive theory of collective agency and deserves the ana-

lytic attention of scholars of Latin American social movements because it

brings together elements from different historical moments and movement

traditions. While many social movements in Peru and across the region have

used the concept at different times over the past 40 years (Colectivo

Situaciones, 2002; Montoya, 2003), the movement of working children has

maintained an ongoing deep engagement with it. This has enabled theoretical

continuity but also theoretical flexibility as the movement responded to new

dynamics and challenges and incorporated knowledge and theory being pro-

duced in other social movements from across Latin America. While rooted in

liberation theology and the popular movements of the 1970s (Adrianzen

García, 2008; Montoya, 2003), the movement of working children has taken

protagonismo beyond the foundational assumptions and commonsense

meanings of this initial period. Influenced by the children’s rights frame-

works of the 1990s, protagonismo became increasingly connected to ideas