Dissertation Research: Leaving Home: Children

University Of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder CO

Investigators

Abstract

This proposal will examine how rural children are migrating to cities alone and swelling the ranks of urban street children in Tanzania; these children leave school and take up informal sector work in the city, developing new survival strategies. There is little information on child migrants in the anthropological literature and this phenomenon is poorly understood. The author notes that it is important to differentiate between working street children and those who beg or who are runaways. This project would shed light on the African informal economy, on the process of child migration (and decision-making) and on the role of kinship/community in the child migration situation. Previous studies have indicated that "wealth in children" is an important ideal among Tanzanian families and child fosterage common. The increase in lone child migration appears to contradict what has been understood about the social organization of these societies. Methods include a survey of 200 vendors, structured interviews and participant observation in both urban and rural communities.