The precarity of the social and the grammars of existence of transgressive adolescence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5212/PraxEduc.v.21.26272.071Abstract
This article examines the precarity of the social as a historical, political, and subjective matrix shaping the trajectories of adolescents in conflict with the law in Brazil. Drawing on a genealogical reading of child and adolescent welfare policies, from the Minors Code to the Statute of the Child and Adolescent, it highlights the persistence of punitive practices beneath the rhetoric of protection. It problematizes the social, racial, and economic conditions that shape the early criminalization of poor and Black adolescents. Focusing on Rio de Janeiro’s socio-educational system, it examines the gap between legal frameworks and the lived experience of institutional confinement. The methodological approach is grounded in a psychoanalytic and interdisciplinary perspective and draws on listening circles with adolescents deprived of liberty. The findings point to experiences of helplessness, subjective depletion, intense psychological distress, and a diminished capacity for symbolization. The article argues that transgression constitutes a subjective response embedded in contexts of structural exclusion and underscores the central role of clinical and ethical listening.
Keywords: Social precarity. Transgressive adolescence. Socio-education.
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