Street child spaces: belonging,conflict and resistance in the city of Durban through the eyes of street youth

ABSTRACT

This article is concerned with the everyday ‘spatial tactics’ deployed by children in a street situation in order to deal with notions of public space that define them as ‘out of place’, marginal and deviant. Using photovoice, we reconstruct former street children’s definitions of and feelings about their spaces in the city, bringing into view a complex set of social problems, attitudes and strategies that moves beyond the traditional binary notion of street children as either deviants or victims. This work points to the importance of finding ways to ensure the voices of marginalized and disadvantaged children are heard and presents the narratives that are important to our understanding of their worlds. Analyzing their spatiality in contexts of conflict, belonging and resistance, we found that children and youth in a street situation are mainly concerned with empowering themselves and resisting dominant labels and police repression.     

Sampling seeds

Problems of sampling carbonized plant material are discussed. Firstly, the problem of actually selecting a sample in the laboratory is considered, and some experiments which investigate various procedures are described. Secondly, the statistical aspects of determining optimal sample sizes are considered. Formulae are given for calculating optimal sample sizes and confidence intervals. Upper bounds, which are independent of the total population size, are provided for the sample size required to achieve any desired accuracy.