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3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Good Kids: The Politics of Child Labor in the Global South

Good Kids: The Politics of Child Labor in the Global South

Paperback

Series: Culture and Economic Life

AnthropologyGeneral Racism & Ethnic Studies

ISBN10: 1503643069
ISBN13: 9781503643062
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: Jul 29 2025
Pages: 190
Weight: 0.58
Height: 0.44 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English

One in ten children worldwide is involved in some form of child labor. While almost half are in occupations that put their safety at risk, the other half have gray jobs like industrial farming or selling candy on the street. Children in these positions often defend the value of their work, and some even join social movements to demand the legalization of child labor. In Good Kids, Isabel Jijon reveals how global campaigns against child labor are often met with resistance from the very children they are meant to protect. Conducting interviews in Bolivia and Ecuador with children who defend their work, Jijon explores how children give work moral, not just economic, value. She finds that working children seek a sense of self-worth, as well as worthiness in their closest relationships; they use work to prove that they are good sons/daughters, good friends, or simply good kids. Drawing, also, on interviews with reformers invested in ending child labor, Jijon produces a nuanced picture of the ways that global campaigns can, unintentionally, undermine these relationships and make working children feel stigmatized rather than protected. This fascinating and challenging study of moral meaning-making upends simple understandings of harm and worthiness in a vast but poorly understood labor market.

Also from

Jijon, Isabel

Also in

General Racism & Ethnic Studies