Indigenous children and adolescents in an anthropological perspective: rethinking intercultural ethnical conflicts

Abstract

This article presents anthropological approaches about the cultural reality of indigenous children and adolescents and their differentiated cultural rights in Brazil. The aim is to outline the anthropological perspective on different representations that indigenous people have on children and youth, as well as the social problems faced by them, in order to discuss about the ethical conflicts and the attempts to legislate such issues in Brazil. The article also emphasizes the way how issues related to child labor, poverty and infanticide among indigenous people suffer distortions as they are targeted by non-indigenous universalistic morality from a Christian influence. It also points out how some initiatives are starting to appear in anthropology and bioethics fields, in order to interfere in practices considered morally wrong, although accepted by indigenous populations.