My research focuses on understanding and re-conceptualizing poverty. Currently, I am examining
child poverty in Peru, looking at how street children in Lima and Cusco experience, define, and respond to that poverty. Dominant understandings of childhood are intricately connected to narratives
of international development and poverty reduction strategies. A focus on the everyday lives of
street children, who in many ways are on the margins of society, can deepen understandings of the
reproduction of dominant discourses about development, poverty, and childhood while offering spaces for alternative interpretations and interventions. Other related topics central to my research include debates about the uses of public space, the role of education and child labor in promoting or hindering social mobility and development, and the importance of centering an ethic of care in definitions of, and responses to, child poverty.