Body and illness: considering Visayan Filipino children's perspectives within local and global relationships of inequality.
Despite a plethora of studies counting, examining, assessing, and diagnosing Filipino children living in poverty, children's own perceptions and concerns about their health and security are rarely elicited. This article draws from fieldwork in an urban neighbourhood in the Visayan Philippines among children who, every day, face a complex and precarious landscape dominated by multigenerational poverty, social marginalization, recurring hunger, and the hazards of living and playing amidst mounting garbage and effluent. I discuss children's perspectives on body and illness in this challenging environment and examine their ideas within the larger context of adult-child, hierarchical relationships, and colonial and contemporary government discourses on children, health, and citizenship. I also examine children's sense of place, agency, and vulnerability, and I discuss the view held by many adults in this community: their children's ideas hold little value.
Mitchell
Lisa M
LM
Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia. lmm@uvic.ca
D000293:Adolescent; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001828:Body Image; D002648:Child; D002662:Child Health Services; D017281:Cost of Illness; D005260:Female; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010679:Philippines; D002666:Psychology, Child; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors