Autor: Berckmans, I., Losantos Velasco M. & Loots, G
SUMMARY:
In November 2012, a researcher, two social workers and five mothers embarked on a participatory
action research journey with the aim to develop new ideas for interventions for children and young
people in street situations of the city of El Alto in Bolivia. In this paper we attend to the topic of
personal and social transformation in participatory action research. We explore how the mothers of
young people in street situations perform and negotiate their subjectivities as mothers in their
everyday life; how they create (new) subjectivities in exchange and in interaction with each other
during the mother project; and how the performance of their (new) subjectivities can bring social
change. The mothers in our group shared stories of being silenced by social services in their
everyday lives, as their motherhood is declared not good enough or as they are perceived too
guilty to claim for help. It was the first time the mothers shared their stories with other mothers of
their lives with their children in street situations. By noticing that they all experienced or heard of
similar events that their children were subjected to in the streets, the mothers grew confident
enough to talk back. Mothers talked back silence by denouncing injustice and by transforming
doubts into questions, providing them with more knowledge. Finally, as the mothers reached out to
social services, mothers’ presence, questions and stories confronted aid workers with their own
flaws, and their comfortable discourse of blaming families, creating new paths towards social
transformation.
