THE BODY AS A BATTLEFIELD: APPROACHING CHILDREN'S POLITICS

This article discusses the active role of children in everyday politics. Distinct from empowerment, it is suggested that children can be political on their own terms. The article focuses on revealing the social production of childhood, which takes place in the confrontation between child policy and children's own politics. Children's bodies are found to be both the main focus of policy practices and a central avenue of children's own agency. Hence, children are understood to be not only objects of policy, but also embodied political subjects. Using the example of Finnish child evacuees' experiences during the Second World War, it is shown that, despite their positions in policy fields, children do act as political selves. Using the ideas of Michel de Certeau and Carl Schmitt, it is argued that there is an autonomous politics to children which can be recognized as a significant means of coping in their everyday lives. On these grounds, the article sets out to use Pierre Bourdieu's concept of political struggle in considering childhood spatialities in more detail. Overall, children's politics are understood as a wider geographical concept which requires further examination.     

‘Bad Mothers’ and ‘Delinquent Children’: Unravelling anti-begging rhetoric in the Ecuadorian Andes

In this paper I examine the rhetorics that circulate surrounding the lives of young indigenous women and children who beg on the streets of Quito, Ecuador. I focus particularly on rhetorics being produced and reproduced by urban planners, social workers, religious leaders and the media. Drawing on in-depth interviews, I reveal how these groups regularly imagine indigenous women and children in terms of child exploitation/child delinquency, false manipulation of public sympathies, ignorance, laziness and filth. Indigenous women and children are further understood as being fundamentally ‘out of place’ in the city. I unravel these rhetorics in order to draw attention to how begging is differentiated according to gender, race and age and to reveal how these rhetorics become inserted into exclusionary policies and practices. Moreover, and as a counterpoint to such rhetorics, I provide an alternative understanding of women's and children's involvement in begging by drawing upon the perspectives of indigenous women and children themselves. I argue that far from being passive victims, indigenous women and children work with and around oppressive conditions and mobilise them to their own advantage.     

西北地区农村儿童日常生活时空间特征研究

以甘肃省平凉市华亭县河西村、马家堡村为研究区,采用生活日志调查、感知图像、访谈等方法,获取案例村乡村儿童一周生活日志调查数据、一周生活内容回忆图画以及访谈数据,揭示了西北地区农村儿童日常生活的时空间规律：①学校作息时间、家庭就餐时间是农村儿童日常生活时间节律性的主要控制因素,游戏时间、看电视时间形成日常生活时间节奏的重要节点;周内与周末时间利用具有节奏相似性和内容差异性。②农村儿童日常生活空间类型有限,并且具有动态性,广场、院落周边是农村儿童户外生活的重要场所;③不同类型农村儿童日常生活时空间特征具有差异性,具体表现在留守儿童与父母在家型儿童、男童与女童的差异。研究认为,应从社会生态系统角度全面认识农村儿童日常生活。社会排斥、非社会性行为从社会、心理两方面影响农村儿童日常生活时空间行为。     

Childhood narratives: adult reflections on encounters with difference in everyday spaces

Research on children and young people commonly focuses on the present experiences of childhood. Yet Philo, C. [2003. “‘To Go Back up the Side Hill’: Memories, Imaginations and Reveries of Childhood.” Children's Geographies 1 (1): 7–24] has argued that we might also access the ‘worlds’ of children and childhood through the memories or recollections of adults, given that we have all been children once. In response, this paper explores the narratives of adults reflecting on their childhood experiences and in particular, on the formation of their attitudes towards difference. The paper offers a means of understanding how adults reflect on their childhood encounters with difference, how their attitudes towards difference are developed over time and the extent to which these childhood narratives are carried into adult lives. This is not to suggest that early experiences are deterministic. Rather, individuals can reflect on their own lives and encounters and choose to change or react to wider social relations in new ways such that they produce and embody new dispositions.     

被拐儿童生命历程变迁与原生家庭融入研究——基于寻亲成功案例的实证

被拐儿童的生命历程变迁与寻亲成功后的原生家庭融入境遇值得关注.本文通过实地调研访谈寻亲成功后的被拐儿童及其家乡社会网络成员,以生命历程理论为指导,揭示被拐儿童的生命历程变化,考察寻亲成功后的原生家庭融入情况.研究发现:被拐儿童的生命历程主要经历被拐、被收养、寻亲与寻亲成功4个重大生命事件.被拐儿童寻亲成功后的原生家庭融...     

Rural children’s role in buffering household poverty through ganyu (piecework) in Zambia

In Zambia, the ways in which social change intersects with rural livelihoods to increase children’s workload and commodify their labour are poorly understood. In this article, changing patterns of rural children’s work are seen as necessitated by their evolving household roles and contributions in an increasingly rural cash-based economy. Drawing on child-focused qualitative research in rural Lundazi district in Zambia, it is explored how children use a traditional labour practice called ‘ganyu’ (piecework) to ameliorate poverty. The infiltration of the cash-based economy, amplified by the Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes, a predominantly adult-centred traditional informal socio-economic levelling mechanism of ganyu, and its evolution into more cash-oriented transactions increasingly involving children are discussed. Although ganyu has largely been seen as characterized by exploitative labour relations, the empirical findings from this research indicate the complex ways in which the practice is empowering children and their families. The resources accrued through ganyu are vital for both personal and household well-being. The findings of this study have important implications to rethink not only contentious issues of child labour but also dominant narratives of childhood that fail to take into account children’s lived experiences as situated in local, social, economic, and cultural contexts.     

Qualitative life course methodologies: critical reflections from development studies

This article reflects on two experiences of applying qualitative life course research in development studies. The first methodology centred on the elicited narratives of older people in Buenos Aires exploring their lifetime relations with their children and their current well-being. The second employed semi-structured interviews with young adults in Zambia to investigate their trajectories towards economic empowerment. In both methodologies, the roles of linked lives and of wider social, economic and political changes were central. The article contributes to critical reflection on methodological choices and trade-offs, by focusing on dilemmas that arise from a desire to address policy makers and more quantitatively-orientated researchers. It explores three themes: the challenges of making sense of disparate narratives of linked lives; the possibilities for engaging with individual subjectivities; and different strategies for situating individual experiences in dynamic social, economic and political contexts.     

Freedom of the city: Contemporary issues and policy influences on children and young people's use of public open space in England

Following a reflection of childhood experiences of public open spaces in daily life the paper moves on to a discussion about definitions of public open space. Contemporary policy related to children, young people and public open space in England are then identified. This context is addressed as policy which directly affects public open space and policy areas, drawn from other political drivers, which have an indirect influence on children and young people's use of public open space. There is some reference to evidence which has fed into some of these policy areas. Teenagers who are skateboarders are used as an example of one group of young people who experience other—legal, social and physical—controls on their use of public open space.     

'They Never Trusted Me to Drive': Farm girls and the gender relations of agricultural information transfer

This research explores the ways in which the gender relations of family farming influence the transfer of agricultural information and knowledge resources to farm girls, a rarely studied population. The study is based on a sample of 32 female farmers from southern Ontario, who were interviewed extensively about their experiences growing up on family farms, and about their lives as adult farmers. Their accounts underscore the fact that the gendered division of labour evident on North American farms constrains the information passed on to farm girls (and women) in particular ways. Farm girls do not share fully in the occupational inheritance of agriculture - they are frequently excluded or marginalised from important agricultural resources, including information. This exclusion comes about through the ongoing social processes of agrarian patriarchal culture, operating both inside and outside of the agri-family unit. In particular, the study illustrates how the social construction of agriculture is heavily reinforced by certain types of myth-making, which work to disadvantage farm girls and women.     

Narrating intersections of gender and dwarfism in everyday spaces

Dwarfs, midgets, even freaks, are among the terms that have been used to label little people. Feminist theorists have argued that discursive identities of women prevent any meaningful essentialised analysis of their experiences. Similarly, disability researchers have argued against generalising the experiences of disabled individuals. This paper explores the intersection of gender and dwarfism through the narratives of four women who are little people. Findings suggest that the ways women, who are little people, negotiate public spaces are affected by discourses of gender, disability and common conceptions of what is physically normal. Furthermore, these discourses have material implications in the everyday lives of these women. A brief historical overview of dwarfism is followed by narratives that describe experiences in public spaces, perceptions of height related to age and capability, gendered spaces and sexual stereotypes, uncomfortable spaces, violations of personal space and transportation. This paper provides a partial perspective on how discourses of dwarfism are manifest in social spaces and the built environment. Despite these significant commonalities that little people shared with other disabled people, there are socio‐spatial experiences that appear to be unique to people with dwarfism .     

城市商住混合型社区中儿童户外体力活动特征——以北京市华清嘉园居住小区为例

自2001年SOHO现代城的完工引领了我国商住混合型社区建设的潮流,但国内关于商住混合型社区内儿童户外体力活动的研究十分匮乏,不足以指导城市社区环境的规划设计工作。本文选取北京市海淀区华清嘉园居住小区作为典型研究区域。采用访谈式问卷法和观察法,总结归纳出商住混合型社区主要环境特征及其6-12岁儿童户外体力活动特征,并运用GIS软件进一步分析功能混合状态对儿童户外体力活动的影响。     

Resource Accessibility and Vulnerability in Andhra Pradesh: Caste and Non‐Caste Influences

Coastal Andhra Pradesh in southern India is prone to tropical cyclones. Access to key resources can reduce the vulnerability of the local population to both large‐scale disasters, such as cyclones, and to the sort of small‐scale crises that affect their everyday lives. This article uses primary fieldwork to present a resource accessibility vulnerability index for over 300 respondents. The index indicates that caste is the key factor in determining who has assets, who can access public facilities, who has political connections and who has supportive social networks. The ‘lower’ castes (which tend to be the poorest) are marginalized to the extent that they lack access to assets, public facilities and opportunities to improve their plight. However, the research also indicates that the poor and powerless lower castes are able to utilize informal social networks to bolster their resilience, typically by women's participation with CBOs and NGOs. Nevertheless it is doubtful whether this extra social capital counterbalances the overall results which show that — despite decades of counteractions by government — caste remains a dominant variable affecting the vulnerability of the people of coastal Andhra Pradesh to the hazards that they face.     

‘People don't do odd,do they?’ mothers making sense of the reactions of others towards their learning disabled children in public places

This paper will demonstrate how a focus upon the practices and interactions in and of the everyday lives of mothers of learning disabled children can provide rich insights into the position of a group of children who may not be able to conform to appropriate ways of behaving and using space. This focus will illustrate how the spatial practices and experiences of the mothers and their children are shaped by the reactions of others present and the mothers' interpretations of, and responses to, those reactions. It will, moreover, raise questions about the position of older learning disabled children whose unconventional behaviour in public spaces can threaten disorder.     

Breaking silence: exploring motherhood and social transformation in a participatory action research with Alteñan mothers

In November 2012, a researcher, two social workers and five mothers embarked on a participatory action research (PAR) journey with the aim to develop new ideas for interventions for children and young people in street situations of the city of El Alto in Bolivia. In this article, we attend to the topic of personal and social transformation in PAR. We explore how the mothers of young people in street situations perform and negotiate their subjectivities as mothers in their everyday life; how they create (new) subjectivities in exchange and in interaction with each other during the mother project; and how the performance of their (new) subjectivities can bring social change. The mothers in our group shared stories of being silenced by social services in their everyday lives, as their motherhood is declared not good enough or as they are perceived too guilty to claim for help. It was the first time the mothers shared their stories with other mothers of their lives with their children in street situations. By noticing that they all experienced or heard of similar events that their children were subjected to in the streets, the mothers grew confident enough to talk back. Mothers talked back by denouncing injustice and by transforming doubts into questions, providing them with more knowledge. Finally, as the mothers reached out to social services, mothers’ presence, questions and stories confronted aid workers with their own flaws, and their comfortable discourse of blaming families, creating new paths towards social transformation.     

Positive responses,uneven experiences: intersections of gender,ethnicity, and location in post-tsunami Sri Lanka

This article examines the role of women in post-tsunami livelihoods recovery in two tsunami-affected villages in the Hambantota District, South Sri Lanka. It considers four key livelihoods recovery strategies involving women, revealing their immense capacity to overcome socially constructed disaster impacts. Their ability to respond positively is grounded in specific geographic and cultural contexts, making location and ethnicity of profound consequence. Although pre-existing ethnic backgrounds, influenced by religious and patriarchal structures, are critical indicators of the uneven ways in which women engaged in livelihoods recovery, the tsunami generated new patterns of cultural practice. The article adds to research that goes beyond the simplistic representation of women as undifferentiated ‘victims’ in post-tsunami Sri Lanka. It stimulates discussion on the lived experiences of intersectionality in feminist geography, and emphasizes the broader relevance of the study for understanding multiple and transforming positionalities that constitute the post-disaster lives of women in divergent socio-political contexts.     

Fearsome people and places,narratives of street and hideout children in Freetown,Sierra Leone

This article is based on a GOAL Global field study of street children in Freetown, Sierra Leone. It draws on narrative accounts given by street children who have migrated to Freetown from rural Sierra Leone. The study used the participatory ranking method to generate data about children’s street and hideout (a room, shack or part of a building where children live in groups) lives post-migration. These data contained much about children’s fears, and the article explores their experience of fearsome people and places, showing that fear is a dominant aspect of these children’s lives. Fear shapes their day-to-day choices and decisions: their agency. It also suggests that agency should be seen as complex, contingent and sometimes paradoxical. The article concludes by identifying implications for social policy and practice, suggesting that these necessarily entail risky engagement with fearsome people in the liminal spaces of children’s street and hideout lives.     

Children's neighbourhoods,social centres to ‘terra incognita’

Neighbourhoods are changing as people lead more spatially dispersed lives diminishing their local social connections. This paper explores the way children interact with their neighbourhoods to see whether they are still socially connected to their neighbourhoods or leading more spatially dispersed social lives. It reports findings from a study of 92 children aged 9–11 in Dunedin, New Zealand. The study found that while many children did have minimal social contact with their neighbourhood, other children retained strong social connections. Key factors determining children's levels of social connectivity include attendance at the local school, levels of independence, neighbourhood urban form, road density and locally accessible classmates.     

Choosing Health? Exploring Children's Eating Practices at Home and at School

Abstract:  This paper considers the influences on children's eating habits in both school and home spaces in the UK. Since 2002 the UK government has been committed to halting the increase in child obesity rates, and has sanctioned particular parental and school based practices as more "healthy" than others. This study examines this through critically questioning, in particular, the classed discourses written into health education advice and advocates a new way of thinking about health education messages. Based on qualitative research with children from one secondary school and with eight families in the North of England the paper reveals that while parents and children make decisions about their lives with reference to dominant discourses about ideal "healthy" family eating practices, their ability to realise these practices is limited in numerous ways. Moreover, the influences on children's eating habits in both home and school spaces are intricately interrelated and children's practices are clearly influenced by the spaces they inhabit. Their decisions involve balancing health education knowledge with a range of other knowledges that are bound up in the socio-spatial relations of their everyday lives. A holistic approach to understanding children's eating habits therefore requires a critical understanding of class background, parental influences and contemporary parenting practices as well as the microgeographical relations found in the school dining room.     

Growing up in the shadow of the Second World War: European perspectives

In this Special Issue, the authors explore the various ways in which the Second World War shaped children's experiences in the post-war period. They map the multifaceted interest or non-interest of states all over Europe for children in the years after the war, filter out groups of children who recall that the consequences of the Second World War significantly influenced their childhood, and investigate the childhood policies directed towards them, as well as their childhood experiences and the memories they foster about their childhood. In addition, they have included case studies from Western, Central and Eastern Europe with the aim of sparking a debate as to whether it was only a similar lifecycle that war children in early post-war Europe shared, or if they also had some life experiences in common.