Begging as a Path to Progress: Indigenous Women and Children and the Struggle for Ecuador's Urban Spaces (review)

The cover image for Begging as Path to Progress is captivating. Caught on camera are the smiling faces of two young children peering through a broken window in a moment that captures the pure joy of childhood. In Chapter Two we learn that these students are attending class at a school that is frequently understaffed, where cancellations are common (especially on Fridays because teachers choose to play soccer instead), where failure rates are high, and where broken windows and desks are the norm. The setting is Calhuasí, a small Andean town located 150 kilometers from Quito, Ecuador. It is a place that has recently been spatially and socially transformed. According to the author, the precise moment of alteration can be dated to 1992 when a new road construction project drew Calhuasí into the periphery of Ecuador's urban hierarchy. Swanson seizes the opportunity to use Calhuasí's new connectivity to ask a series of simple but penetrating questions.

How did the road alter Calhuasí? Beyond providing better access to medical facilities and improving the ease of moving agricultural and commercial goods, the road made it easier to leave the isolated Andean town. When faced with periods of economic indeterminacy, Calhuaseños began to adopt patterns of temporary rural-to-urban migration in order to secure an income. While this migration was not often permanent—usually only occurring over holiday seasons or during the agricultural offseason—the impacts proved lasting. The temporary dislocations had two critical effects. First, many of the women and children (often brought along because of nourishment requirements or because of issues of safety) who migrated to urban centers to become workers in the informal economy earned more money in the city than they did from their labor in Calhuasí. Second, the Calhuaseños became more cognizant of their poverty. Their presence on the streets of Quito made them aware of their social and spatial isolation and they returned to the highlands with mixed emotions, ideologies, economic pressures and unsettled identities.

Swanson introduces several critical research themes including the construction of identities, the influence of media, the masculinization of the countryside, the economies of caring, the meaning of work, and the politics of exclusion. At times these themes compete for attention and the reader struggles to keep track of the smaller critical points when new ideas are introduced but not fully developed. Fortunately, Swanson's two most critical themes, the rites and rights of childhood (youth geographies) and the politics of begging, are not diminished by her attempt to add breadth.

What are our attitudes towards child labor? According to Swanson, children in Calhuasí have traditionally been involved with rural labor at a very young age. It is a practice that ensures the transmission of environmental knowledge and helps to forge their relationship with the land. Swanson notes that "[i]n Calhuasí individuals are considered more or less capable of heading a household by age ten" (p. 32). It is a model that does not mesh well with the experience of childhood by those from the Global North where an emphasis has been placed on the necessity of play and education. For Swanson, the modern Western construction of childhood has begun to "infiltrate Ecuador's indigenous communities through education, media, and rural-to-urban migration" (p. 29). It is a messy scenario that has revealed the power of advancement through formal education to a community (and country) that struggles to provide this opportunity. The situation is particularly difficult for children because they are cognizant of the fact that in order to escape the constraints of poverty, and to be able to afford school fees (equipment, uniforms, etc.) and material goods, they must work. Nevertheless, they are also told "through education, the media, and interactions in the city...