Picturing the city: young people's representations of urban environments

Urban environments form the setting of everyday life for most Western young people. This article explores visual representations of cities made by young people in a range of environments within four countries. The findings inform a larger study on urban geographies within geography education. We analyse students' drawings of cities regarding physical characteristics, activities and issues. There are many commonalities between drawings from the four countries, the majority showing a ‘big, busy city’ representation with skylines, traffic and shopping areas. There are also distinctive characteristics for each set, for example Finnish students tended to emphasise environmental and social issues more than in the other countries. In relation to methodology, we conclude that drawings, supported by contextual information, are a useful source to understand young people's representations of cities. Further, this research supports thinking about how to merge young people's experiences and imaginaries with the teaching of urban geography.     

Surviving through movement: the mobility of urban youth in Ghana

In Africa, young people are engaging with a globalised world of flows and movements but are coming of age in environments characterised by uncertainty, economic hardship and unemployment. Drawing upon research conducted in Madina, a suburb of Accra, a social navigation perspective is adopted to explore young people's everyday mobility and their aspirations for future mobility. By drawing attention to the meanings young people ascribe to movement, and by analysing their movements as tactics of social navigation, the importance of spatial mobility to young people's everyday well-being and their processes of social becoming are illustrated. Young people find that their mobility is bounded by a range of factors including labour market characteristics, gender and generational relations, and their spatial location on the outskirts of the city and the margins of the world. However, neither their daily mobility nor their spatial imagination is restricted to Madina; real or imagined travel takes them to other parts of the city, into rural areas and across the nation's borders. Through illustrating how significant mobility can be for everyday survival, this paper contributes to ‘the mobility turn’ in the social sciences which has overlooked the importance of mobility for livelihoods in the global South.     

Overcoming obstacles on the peri‐urban fringe: young people making new geographies

Understanding contemporary youth lifestyles is a challenge for urban planners and geographers. Young people's everyday needs are complex, and urban spaces in new outer city developments offer unique spaces for shaping their identities. Juxtaposed with affordances of digital technologies, the physical location of home exists in a fluid landscape. Overcoming obstacles, such as access to public transport, places to socialise, and meet their peers, is characteristic of the everyday young person's experience. Knowing how young people decide where to go for personal space, as well as who to ask for personal advice, was the aim of this study. The study was conducted with samples of young people growing up in the rapidly growing peri‐urban northern suburbs of the Australian city of Melbourne. A survey questionnaire was administered to a gender‐balanced sample aged 12–15 years (n = 523) with follow‐up interviews to better inform the results. Logistic regression and factorial analyses of variance reveal their favourite places to be ‘my’ bedroom, being with friends, the park, and the café. Although not the focus of this study, some gender differences were noted. In addition to innovative use of space, the results show the positive influences on their well‐being of trusted family and friends. Young people's geographies offer transdisciplinary insights that highlight their creative usage of these new urban spaces. They offer a new imaginary for geographical education and research.     

Urban foraging and the relational ecologies of belonging

Through a discussion of urban foraging in Seattle, Washington, USA, we examine how people's plant and mushroom harvesting practices in cities are linked to relationships with species, spaces, and ecologies. Bringing a relational approach to political ecology, we discuss the ways that these particular nature–society relationships are formed, legitimated, and mobilized in discursive and material ways in urban ecosystems. Engaging closely with and as foragers, we develop an ethnographically grounded ‘relational ecologies of belonging’ framework to conceptualize and examine three constituent themes: cultural belonging and identity, belonging and place, and belonging and more-than-human agency. Through this case study, we show the complex ways that urban foraging is underpinned by interconnected and multiple notions of identity, place, mobility, and agency for both humans and more-than-human interlocutors. The focus on relational ecologies of belonging illuminates important challenges for environmental management and public space planning in socioecologically diverse areas. Ultimately, these challenges reflect negotiated visions about how we organize ourselves and live together in cosmopolitan spaces such as cities.     

Living with everyday environmental risks: giving a voice to young people in the design of community-based risk communication programs in the city of San Luis Potosí, México

Risk communication programs (RCPs) can contribute to the improvement of community health in marginalized settlements by improving health-related information and practices. Yet, there is a need to include young people's concerns in the design and implementation of RCPs. This study analyses young peoples’ risk perceptions in the city of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, using visual methods such as drawings and photography. Research was conducted with 74 students from two deprived urban neighborhoods. Results indicate that the use of visual techniques enabled them to identify environmental health risks such as unhealthy sedentary habits and the exposure to hazardous items. We conclude that visual methods may help young people to critically reflect on everyday elements in their environment that affect their well-being. By giving them a voice in a reflexive way, visual methods may engage young people as key multipliers in the awareness raising process, and promote their sense of everyday agency.     

Young people's perspectives on conflict,reconciliation and reunification in Cyprus

The purpose of this paper is to explore the views of young people on conflict, reconciliation and reunification in Cyprus. The paper is based on focus group discussions with 20 Turkish Cypriot and 20 Greek Cypriot young people, aged between 14 and 16, drawn from two schools located in the divided capital city of Nicosia. While young people's discourses revealed underlying deep-seated hostilities in attitudes between the two groups, there was some evidence of cautious optimism. The paper explores what lessons can be learned from ascertaining young people's viewpoints and how these opinions need to be taken seriously in order to further our understanding of young people's experiences of divided societies.     

'Professionalising' Participation: From Rhetoric to Practice

Local government is increasingly seeking to encourage young people's participation in local government planning and decision-making. This paper examines the relationship between professionals in local government and the young people who are the focus of local government participatory initiatives. We argue that whilst the move towards developing participation initiatives is welcome, there is a need to adopt a process of critical reflection with regard to these initiatives. The case of one New Zealand city is examined where young people express their views on the effectiveness or otherwise of their council's participation initiatives. Our findings suggest that whilst well intentioned these initiatives have had limited success in facilitating meaningful participation and perhaps the participation process as currently practised is in urgent need of review.     

The student is not the fisherman: temporal displacement of young people's identities in Tanzania

This paper examines how young Tanzanians have their identities as environmental actors displaced into the future by local adults, teachers, educational institutions and teaching materials which seek to educate them about environmental sustainability and conservation. Whilst there has been considerable attention to young people's agency in reproducing their own identities, I argue here that the temporal displacement of young identities operates through a network of interlinked structures which act on young people's lives, including the identity work of young people themselves. Educational material produced by non-governmental organisations and the discursive work of adults both seek to position young people as having agency to act in and make decisions about the environment at an undetermined time in the future. Young people themselves can perform different identities within the space of the school and in the community or family, yet they may also understand their own identities as only having agency at a temporally distant point. The displacement of young identities has important implications for pedagogy which relates to environmental education, and for how the reproduction of young people's identities is conceptualised.     

Feelings of belonging? young people's views of their surroundings in Kingston,Jamaica

The feelings of young people towards their surroundings have often been neglected in studies of Third World cities. In this paper, I examine these views in Kingston, Jamaica: a large, poor city with high socio‐economic inequality. The young people surveyed have generally positive feelings towards their surroundings, yet are frequently excluded from making decisions about the ways in which these are managed. Their responses shed light on some of the main problems facing the city, and provide a strong case for young people's inclusion in local sustainable development planning.     

Crafted within liminal spaces: Young people's everyday politics

This paper examines how high school-aged young people from New Zealand are crafting their everyday political subjectivities within the liminal status and liminal spaces they occupy in society. With a specific focus on schooling and the citizenship education curricula in New Zealand, three vignettes are introduced which examine young people's less reflexive and ‘everyday’ forms of political action in the interstitial liminal space between Public/private, Formal/informal and Macro/micro politics. These vignettes underline how young people's everyday politics were embedded within spatial and relational processes of socialisation with adults within their schools and communities, yet, also showed both agency and resourcefulness with these spaces. Young people's liminal status and occupation of liminal spaces provided them with unique perspectives on social issues (such as bullying, racism, water conservation, and obesity) and enabled them to respond in ways that were ‘different’ to adults' Politics, yet nonetheless showed their political and tactical selves (de Certeau, 1984). A focus on young people's political practices in liminal spaces allows for new possibilities and understandings of the political.     

‘Wherever I lay my head is home’ – young people's experience of home in the Brazilian street environment

Although academic research on street children is increasing, few have discussed the multiple meanings of home, as well as young people's perspectives on their homeless status. Drawing on several qualitative fieldwork studies in Salvador, Brazil, this article explores the ‘home’ narratives of a group seldom appraised: the grown-up ‘street children’ of the 1980s and 1990s. Although many of these young people may be described as homeless in a territorial sense, their narratives demonstrate the complex ways in which many feel or have felt at home in the streets of a middle-class neighbourhood. The feeling of being at home is closely interlinked to aspects they find important in their everyday lives, namely that of autonomy, safety and belonging. This analysis illustrates earlier ignored dimensions of why young people choose the street rather than home, and in addition, challenges some common definitions and assumptions.     

Young People's Narratives of Rural-Urban Difference

Although recent research by geographers interested in children and young people has examined young people's experiences in a range of both 'rural' and 'urban' environments, the significance of narratives of rural-urban difference for young people's identities has received comparatively little attention. This paper draws on theories of narrative identity to explore how narratives of rural-urban difference (and, in particular, the cultural hierarchies created and reinforced by these narratives) are significant for the construction of young people's identities. Using empirical material drawn from two separate studies in the USA, one from a mid-sized Sunbelt city and one from rural northern Vermont, the paper examines ways in which narratives of rural-urban difference are significant for young people's senses of self, processes of 'othering', and the constitution of local youth cultures.     

Hanoi 5000 Hoan Kiem Lakes: Using Art to Involve Young People in Urban Futures

In March-April 2007, a group of six Hanoi-based artists staged an exhibition of entitled “Hanoi 5000 Hoan Kiem Lakes”. Its purpose was to explore young people's visions of the future of their city and to stimulate discussion of the city's development from a non-planning perspective. To prepare for the exhibition, the artists undertook a survey among the youth of Hanoi, distributing a one-question questionnaire and interviewing on and off camera over 250 young people, randomly and selectively sampled in parks, on sidewalks, outside universities, and in university and school classes. Participants were invited to a workshop held by the artists at the exhibition to talk about how ideas get translated into art. This exhibition provided a timely intervention into debates over the landscape of Hanoi, what urban public space is and what it should be, and how non-technical, non-specialist views of the city can be incorporated into urban aspirations, thus acknowledging and encouraging the visions of the young people who will be the city's future leaders.     

Children and young people as co-researchers – researching subjective well-being in residential area with visual and verbal methods

In this article, we focus on child perspective methodology when co-researching well-being with children and young people. The paper explores how to produce and analyse data produced with children and young people, and how to further develop the method of co-researching with them? We combined visual and verbal methods by using photo elicitation interviews (N?=?16) and drawing group discussions (N?=?49) to study the subjective well-being of 2–16-year-olds in their residential areas. We found out that by combining two methods it is possible to achieve a wider view of children’s subjective well-being. However, we must be aware that well-being is a complex entity and that there are barriers to use child perspective methods. Co-researching requires situationality, reciprocity and the researcher’s willingness to hear the perspectives of children.     

Situating (Young) teenagers in geographies of children and youth

The past decade has been an exciting and productive period in the study of children's and young people's geographies. The principal aim of this paper is to contribute to this field of research by presenting the arguments for a more substantive focus on teenagers' geographies. Firstly, the terms ‘children’ and ‘young people’ are constructed as synonymous and used interchangeably and the complex transitional positioning of young teenagers—situated between childhood, youth and adulthood—has been relatively neglected. Secondly, many researchers have been engaged in developing methods, which aim to challenge unequal power relations between adult researchers and young participants but little focus has been placed on utilizing participants' own constructions of themselves. The final argument for a more coherent focus on teenagers' geographies rests on the contribution that geographers can make to challenging negative stereotypes of teenagers within policy and the media. The paper concludes by outlining what form an emphasis on teenagers' geographies may take.     

Where dogs,ghosts and lions roam: learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school

This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young people's lives and future life chances in sub-Saharan Africa. During the pilot phase of our research project on children, transport and mobility, the authors undertook walks home from school with teenage children1 We use the terms children and ‘young people’ interchangeably in this paper. When we asked young people aged ca. 12–18 years from the three countries at our Malawi inception workshop about terminology, they expressed no concern about the use of the term ‘child’ for people in their teens. View all notes in four different research sites: three remote rural, one peri-urban. As the children walked (usually over a distance of around 5 km) their stories of home, of school and of the environment in-between, gradually unfolded. The lived experiences narrated during these journeys offer considerable insights into the daily lives, fears and hopes of the young people concerned, and present a range of issues for further research as our study extends into its main phase.     

Engaging with Young People's Conceptions of the Political

In many states, there are concerns about declining levels of political engagement and participation among young people. Our understanding of this decline, however, is limited because much of the research on youth politics is based on a narrow conception of 'the political', little attempt is made to explore how people themselves define politics, non-participation is not adequately problematised, and there are in sufficient youth-specific explanations for declining participation among young people. Drawing on fieldwork carried out in Britain, I argue there is a need to develop an approach and research methodology that engages with young people's conceptions of the political.     

‘But They Just Don't Respect Us’: young people's experiences of (dis)respected citizenship and the New Labour Respect Agenda

The New Labour Respect Agenda fuses anti-social behaviour policies, Third Way active citizenship, and a theory of community-based support and regulation. The Respect Agenda itself has a specific focus on, and direct implications for, children and young people, as well as for children living in vulnerable families. This paper argues that the theoretical basis for New Labour's ‘Respect’ is limited and ultimately flawed. Whilst New Labour policy demands respect from young people, young people's lived citizenship is too often experienced in terms of disrespect and even shame of the self. Young people respond to these feelings of disrespect by seeking out other ways through which respect can be acted out and negotiated. Respect, as conceptualised through the New Labour lens will criminalise vulnerable young people, thereby further stripping them of self-respect, inter-personal respect and societal respect. The paper concludes that respect should be an outcome of policy and a philosophy of a social justice led politics, rather than a conditionally led policy.     

Young people's outdoor refuges: movements and (dis)entanglements

ABSTRACT

Young people's outdoor refuges have been identified as places that provide respite from everyday pressures. Inspired by four concepts of lines, knots, meshwork and wayfaring, as defined by Tim Ingold, this paper aims to contribute with a dynamic understanding of the practices of outdoor refuging in an increasingly demanding and structured everyday life. The paper reports on photo-elicited interviews with twenty-one young people from a countryside town in Denmark. The findings suggest that outdoor refuges simultaneously serve to disentangle young people from distressing knots in their everyday lives, while fostering positive emotional and sensory entanglements with the human and non-human environment. Further, the findings highlight the significance of mobile phones in the young people's refuging practices. The findings resonate with discourses on the changing conditions for young people's spatial autonomy, and raise questions about acknowledging, protecting and promoting their opportunities for outdoor refuging.     

Reciprocal Repossession: Property as Land in Urban Australia

Repossession of land by Indigenous people is commonly understood as a legal act that unfolds within the confines of state apparatuses. But for many Indigenous urbanites, legal repossession is both impossible and irrelevant due to their histories of dispossession and dislocation. Moreover, while land repossession in Australia is predominantly non‐urban, I demonstrate that land is also reclaimed within cities. Urban repossession of land, considered here as reciprocal rather than legal, challenges the model of private ownership by asserting a territorially transferable relationship to property as land. The order of property entrenches Indigenous people's dispossession by demanding immobility as precondition to ownership and rendering Indigenous urbanites all “too mobile”. Against this framing and the liquidation of their lands as capital, Indigenous people practice reciprocal forms of repossession that challenge both liberal and traditional meanings of ownership. This helps retrieve urban Indigenous subjectivities while compelling partial relinquishment of non‐Indigenous properties.