Child labour or child work? Complexities of socio-cultural life of the Wataturu community of Igunga, Tanzania.

For a long time the world has campaigned against child labour, both with local and global efforts. These initiatives however tend to ignore contextual forces such as, specific socio-cultural contexts and societal interpretation of child labour. Scholarship on this subject uncovers several circumstances, reasons, consequences, processes, and challenges of child labour among different communities in Africa. Extant literature also reveals information regarding the complexities of sociocultural dimension in examining child labour practices. Building on the already existing evidence, this paper uncovers sociocultural complexity in explaining child labour practices among semi nomadic pastoral Wataturu communities in Igunga. The paper exploits various information collected through library and archival research, participant observation, and oral interviews to demonstrate how sociocultural set up of Wataturu challenges the mainstream approach to the claimed child labour practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]