Contested experiences and potential justice at the limit of the law for poor urban children in Bangladesh

This paper explores the issues of poor children's criminality, violence and transgression in the context of slums in Bangladesh. It reworks theoretical understandings of the limits that are used to identify children and their transgressive acts in the law. The paper questions the use of the term 'delinquent' children, their position and 'diversion' from crime. It exposes the contested sense of margins that are part of geographies of criminality and childhood constructed in relation to existing orders, shared moralities and values in urban Bangladesh. Drawing on examples from research in slums and detention centres in Bangladesh, it highlights children's experiences of limits, their responses to prohibitions and moral imperatives, and the relationship between order and excess in terms of language and proximity to others. The paper recognises the limitations of the existing collective order and seeks out possibilities for community and justice at the limit of the law.