How Latin America's History of Childhood Came of Age

Bianca Premo introduces readers in her complex, challenging essay to the field of childhood studies that emerged officially in Latin America in the 1990s. But, reiterating the theme of Joseph Hawes's "Hidden in Plain Sight," Premo lays out the substantially longer history of the field as scholars of family history, of slavery, of illegitimacy, and of gender have been actually tracking childhood and children for many decades. Premo delineates the interactions among these disciplines while also indicating some of the distinguishing characteristics of Latin American childhood. She introduces notions of "circulating" childhoods passed in a variety of institutions and contexts rather than within one family, and of children adjusting to the economic pressures of globalization by multiplying the meanings of family and in the process, gaining more mothers.-M.S.