Børnemagt/children’s power in the Freetown of Christiania: citizenship,agency and vulnerability

This article contributes to the field of research on children and citizenship, by analysing retrospective narratives about experiences of Børnemagt (Children’s Power) in the Freetown of Christiania, Denmark, in the 1970s and 1980s, focusing on strategies for agency and rights, as well as on vulnerabilities. Power relations regarding age and space are used as analytical tools. Runaway children from harsh backgrounds found a refuge in Christiania and tried to take charge of their own lives after rejecting the care they had received from adults and societal institutions earlier in life. The freedom experienced in Christiania supported the young people in their elaboration of citizenship, at the same time as the attitude of ‘leaving the children to their own devices’ excluded them from a citizenship based on interdependency and interrelationality. Vulnerability, it is argued, is a constitutive element of citizenship that needs to be further elaborated within this field of research.