Photos, narratives, and impressions about the city of children living in the periphery of São Paulo^1,2

Abstract

Children in vulnerable conditions represent the social group most exposed to constraints that make it difficult to know and belong to the city where they live. The objective of this research was to know and understand the perceptions of children living in complex vulnerable conditions, living in the periphery, about their neighborhood in the city of São Paulo, as well as to identify the relations they establish with these spaces. It was collaborative participatory research through photovoice. Seven meetings were held with a group of five children between 08 and 10 years old, without severe mental disorders, being followed up at a Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Care Center (CAPSij). The verbal and visual narratives underwent a thematic analysis in dialogue with the researcher's field diary, which resulted in the following categories: (1) Body: experimenting with oneself and forming a group, (2) CAPSij: revisiting a known space through photography, (3) The territory as a place of desire and consumption, (4) Everyday life paths and life histories at a physical and existential territory and (5) The subtleties amidst the concrete of the city: territory and nature. The research revealed that children have a detailed and critical view of their spaces of circulation and their relationships with them. A view permeated by their singularities of life, attending to the beautiful and the subtlety of nature amid the gray concrete of the city, constantly dialoguing with mass cultures and hegemonic social values.

Keywords:
Childhood; Occupational Therapy; Social Participation; Social Vulnerability; Culture