"I was about six years old and didn't know what was going on": memory and childhood in disaster

Abstract

This article aims to trace the experiences of childhood during disasters. It explores the agency of children in disasters through the testimonies of survivors of the August 5, 1949 earthquake in the Central Highlands of Ecuador. Unlike other studies that examine the decisions made by family members and authorities, this study offers a child's perspective. To do so, it includes testimonies and employs the methodological recommendations of Alessandro Portelli for its analysis. These accounts are complemented by other written sources such as the press and official reports, studied from their place of enunciation. This study reveals that children use their own strategies to manage the social drama of disaster. Among these actions are: reproducing gestures by instinct for self-preservation, relating the earthquake to previous records and knowledge such as disobedience and guilt, play, and flight and escape as mechanisms to cope with disaster. Finally, through this initial approach to the testimonies, it is proposed that the categories of class, gender, and ethnicity enrich the analysis of children's agency in disasters.

Keywords

• infancia
• desastre
• terremoto
• niñez
• ecuador