Faces of inequality: the effects of the circulation of missing children posters in Brazil

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Published 28-02-2017
Leticia Carvalho de Mesquita Ferreira

Abstract

In 1996, a public service specialized in missing children was created in Rio de Janeiro: "SOS Crianças Desaparecidas". The creation of SOS met the requirements of the Brazilian federal law known as the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, and responded to the growing relevance assigned to the phenomenon of missing people in Brazil, especially through the activism of relatives of victims. Drawing from ethnographic research, the paper focuses on the multiple effects caused by one of the main actions carried out by social workers working in SOS: the systematic dissemination of portraits of missing girls and boys, carried out through agreements with NGOs, associations of relatives of missing persons, companies and other partners. I argue that the dissemination of photographs of missing persons has effects not only on the particular trajectory of each case of disappearance thus disseminated, but also on the biographies of other children and adolescents that, though not directly involved in the cases, end up being submitted to interventions by public services and agencies. More specifically, I try to unveil the subtle and determinant role of certain categories and moral judgments in the definition of which other children and adolescents other than victims of disappearance may end up suffering those interventions as a result of the circulation of missing girls and boys portraits

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Keywords

disappearance, children and adolescents, portraits, intervention

Section
Single Topic Issues