The house, the roads and the enclosures: the peasant ranch according to Capuxu children’s classification

Abstract

This article is an ethnography of the peasant ranch (sítio) as classified by Capuxu children, inhabitants of the hinterlands of the Brazilian state of Paraíba. Through participant observation, informal conversations, and the drawings produced by children, they revealed classifications of the ranch that blur the classic house/garden dichotomy established by rural studies (Woortman, 1983; Heredia, 1988; Santos, 1984; Garcia Junior, 1983; Godoi, 1999), revealing the triptych of houses, roads (and their shortcuts), and enclosures. In this sense, this article contributes to childhood studies and the anthropology of children, as well as to peasant studies in Brazil. It starts from the hypothesis that rural studies have elected the house/garden dichotomy as representative of the spaces of the ranch because they have generally heard men and women. Following Schildkrout (1978), it arghues that children should always be heard lest we end up with an incomplete view of the subject under study.