Abstract:
This article describes the work of boys, aged 7 to 13, in a quarry in the Grand'Anse region of Haiti. The boys, whose families are considered very poor, engage in this activity on their own initiative and carry it out with very little adult supervision. Entering what I call a “capitalization cycle”, they save most of the money to buy and breed animals – chickens, goats, an ox – and by proceeding this way, after 8 to 10 years, they can manage to buy a plot of land, which is perceived by the local peasants as the gateway to adulthood.
Keywords:
Children; Haiti; Work; Sand quarries; Economical anthropology
