Infancia en La Guajira: experiencias infantiles a través del análisis conversacional

Abstract

This research sought to understand how girls and boys from Camarones and Villanueva in La Guajira shape their childhood experiences in relation to the cultural, historical, and socioeconomic dynamics of their territory. Through the analysis of conversational fragments gathered during participatory workshops specifically designed to center their voices, an ethnomethodological approach was adopted, grounded in Detailed Conversational Mechanisms (DCM): membership categorization, adjacency pairs, and conversational asymmetries. The findings highlight that play functions as a symbolic realm where children negotiate between societal expectations and forms of agency. Children’s games operate as expressive spaces in which they both reproduce and transform social norms, giving rise to distinct agentic practices. This study contributes to a situated understanding of childhood within contexts of cultural hybridity, while amplifying children’s voices in the co-construction of meaning about their lived experiences.