Institutionalized children: Coping with liminality in the context of a foster care institution in the south of Brazil

This research aims at reflecting upon the situation of institutionalizedchildren, focusing on practices and discourses articulated within a Brazilianabrigo, a type of foster care institution for children between the ages of zero andeighteen years old whose safety was threatened in their environments of origin.Within a theoretical framework that casts light over the liminal condition ofinstitutionalized children, this research is the product of five months of participantobservation conducted in 2006 within a foster care institution in the south ofBrazil. The analysis demonstrates that the children are submitted to a process ofclassification which intends to identify their potential to develop deviant behaviorand to replicating the 'negative' examples of their parents. At this point, the fostercare institution and its agents function as a space where liminal?and therefore'dangerous'?beings are submitted to practices that are meant to turn them into ablank slate, where the values of the Brazilian middle and upper classes areattempted to be reproduced.