Children’s Spatialities: Embodiment, Emotion and Agency

216 Pages·2015·1.14 MB·English

by  Abigail Hackett

StudiesinChildhoodandYouth
SeriesEditors:Allison James,ProfessorEmerita,UniversityofSheffield,UK,
andAdrianJames,ProfessorEmeritus,UniversityofSheffield,UK.
Titlesinclude:
KateBacon
TWINSINSOCIETY
Parents,Bodies,SpaceandTalk
EmmaBond
CHILDHOOD,MOBILETECHNOLOGIESANDEVERYDAYEXPERIENCES
ChangingTechnologies=ChangingChildhoods?
DavidBuckingham,SaraBraggandMaryJaneKehily
YOUTHCULTURESINTHEAGEOFGLOBALMEDIA
DavidBuckinghamandVebjørgTingstad(editors)
CHILDHOODANDCONSUMERCULTURE
TomCockburn
RETHINKINGCHILDREN’SCITIZENSHIP
SamFrankel
CHILDREN,MORALITYANDSOCIETY
AbigailHackett,LisaProcterandJulieSeymour(editors)
CHILDREN’SSPATIALITIES
Embodiment,EmotionandAgency
AllisonJames
SOCIALISINGCHILDREN
AllisonJames,AnneTrineKjørholtandVebjørgTingstad(editors)
CHILDREN,FOODANDIDENTITYINEVERYDAYLIFE
NicholasLee
CHILDHOODANDBIOPOLITICS
ClimateChange,LifeProcessesandHumanFutures
ManfredLiebel,KarlHanson,IvenSaadiandWouterVandenhole(editors)
CHILDREN’SRIGHTSFROMBELOW
Cross-CulturalPerspectives
OrnaNaftali
CHILDREN,RIGHTSANDMODERNITYINCHINA
RaisingSelf-GoverningCitizens
HelenStapleton
SURVIVINGTEENAGEMOTHERHOOD
MythsandRealities
E.KayM.Tisdall,AndressaM.GaddaandUdiM.Butler
CHILDRENANDYOUNGPEOPLE’SPARTICIPATIONANDITS
TRANSFORMATIVEPOTENTIAL
LearningfromacrossCountries
AfuaTwum-DansoImohandRobertAme(editors)
CHILDHOODSATTHEINTERSECTIONOFTHELOCALANDTHEGLOBAL
HanneWarming(editor)
PARTICIPATION,CITIZENSHIPANDTRUSTINCHILDREN’SLIVES
KarenWells,EricaBurman,HeatherMontgomeryandAlisonWatson(editors)
CHILDHOOD,YOUTHANDVIOLENCEINGLOBALCONTEXTS
ResearchandPracticeinDialogue
RebekahWillett,ChrisRichards,JackieMarsh,AndrewBurnandJulia
CBishop(editors)
CHILDREN,MEDIAANDPLAYGROUNDCULTURES
EthnographicStudiesofSchoolPlaytimes
KarenM.Smith
THEGOVERNMENTOFCHILDHOOD
Discourse,PowerandSubjectivity
EveStirlingandDylanYamada-Rice
VISUALMETHODSWITHCHILDRENANDYOUNGPEOPLE
AcademicsandVisualIndustriesinDialogue
SpyrosSpyrouandMirandaChristou
CHILDRENANDBORDERS
RannevigTraustadóttir,BorgunYtterhus,SnæfríðurEgilsonandBeritBerg
CHILDHOODANDDISABILITYINTHENORDICCOUNTRIES
Being,Becoming,Belonging
StudiesinChildhoodandYouth
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Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS,England
Children’s Spatialities
Embodiment, Emotion and Agency
Editedby
Abigail Hackett
UniversityofSheffield,UK
Lisa Procter
UniversityofSheffield,UK
Julie Seymour
UniversityofHull,UK
Selection,introductionandeditorialmatter©AbigailHackett,
LisaProcterandJulieSeymour2015
Individualchapters©Respectiveauthors2015
Foreword©MargaretSomerville2015
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-46497-2
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Children’sspatialities:embodiment,emotionandagency/AbigailHackett,
LisaProcter,JulieSeymour.
pages cm.—(Studiesinchildhoodandyouth)
1. Spaceperceptioninchildren. 2. Spatialbehavior. 3. Child
development. 4. Childpsychology. I. Hackett,Abigail,1980–
editor. II. Procter,Lisa,1981–editor. III. Seymour,Julie,editor.
BF723.S63C462015
155.4(cid:2)13752—dc23 2015021833
Contents
ListofFiguresandTables vii
Foreword viii
Acknowledgements xii
NotesonContributors xiii
Introduction:SpatialPerspectivesandChildhoodStudies 1
AbigailHackett,LisaProcterandJulieSeymour
Part I SensesandEmbodiment
1 KnowingtheWorldThroughYourBody:Children’s
SensoryExperiencesandMakingofPlace 21
KerstinLederMackley,SarahPinkandRoxanaMoros¸anu
2 ThePlaceofTimeinChildren’sBeing 39
ElizabethCurtis
3 Makingthe‘Here’and‘Now’:RethinkingChildren’s
DigitalPhotographywithDeleuzianConcepts 54
MonaSakrandNataliaKucirkova
4 Children’sEmbodiedEntanglementandProduction
ofSpaceinaMuseum 75
AbigailHackett
Part II EmotionandRelationships
5 Children’sEmotionalGeographies:Politics
ofDifferenceandPracticesofEngagement 95
MatejBlazek
6 ReconceptualisingChildren’sPlay:Exploringthe
ConnectionsBetweenSpaces,PracticesandEmotional
Moods 112
HelleSkovbjergKaroff
v
vi Contents
7 ‘No,You’veDoneItOnce!’:Children’sExpressionof
EmotionandTheirSchool-BasedPlace-MakingPractices 128
LisaProcter
Part III SpatialAgency
8 ApproachestoChildren’sSpatialAgency:Reviewing
Actors,AgentsandFamilies 147
JulieSeymour
9 ChildrenandYoungPeople’sSpatialAgency 163
HelenWoolley
10 AProperPlaceforaProperChildhood?Children’s
SpatialityinaPlayCentre 178
CaterinaSatta
AuthorIndex 198
SubjectIndex 202
Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 ‘DiggingforPottery’ 45
2.2 Extractsfromvisitorsurveyquestionnaire(Curtis,
2011) 49
3.1 Aseriesofsixphotographstakenbythechild 66
3.2 Movementsthroughthespaceofthehallway 68
4.1 Marcothebear 80
4.2 Visualrepresentationofthesocialproductionofspace
aroundMarcothebear 88
Tables
3.1 Theselectedepisodeindetail 62
4.1 Summaryofthefamiliesparticipatinginthestudy 78
4.2 Spatialcategoriesthechildrencreatethroughtheir
embodiedmovementsaroundMarcothebear 88
6.1 Overviewofpracticesandemotionalmoods 125
vii
Foreword
This important book takes up Foucault’s challenge to examine the
critical power of space and place in the being and becoming of
children’slives:
a whole history of spaces – which would be at the same time a
historyofpowers–remainstobewritten,fromthegrandstrategies
ofgeopoliticstothelittletacticsofthehabitat.
Foucault,1980,p.149
Embracing ‘the grand strategies of geopolitics to the little tactics of
the habitat’, this book’s distinctive contribution lies in considering
children’s everyday worlds through the lens of space and place in
order to open up new ways of understanding society and human
experience.Writtenfromtheperspectiveofanumberofdifferentdis-
ciplinesincludinggeography,philosophy,anthropology,architecture
and sociology, the terms space and place are used interchange-
ably, depending on the disciplinary affiliations of each individual
chapter. This range of different disciplinary approaches produces a
‘diffractive’ reading across the book that operates to unsettle the
very disciplinary boundaries within which they are generated and
thus opens the possibility of new interdisciplinary conversations
(Haraway,2004).
I have previously explored the critical power of place in relation
toresearchingsubjugatedknowledges,acategorythatinmanyways
applies to children’s knowing (Somerville, 2012). I proposed a con-
ceptualframeworkofplaceasaconceptthatbridgesthematerialand
symbolic, the local and global, and indigenous and non-indigenous
knowledges.Ineachofthesebinaries,Westernknowledgeprivileges
onesideofthebinaryasdominantorlegitimate–thesymbolicover
thematerial,theglobaloverthelocal,andthenon-indigenousover
theindigenous.Iproposethatplacehascriticalpowerbecauseitcon-
tains the possibility of reversing the order of privilege so that the
material, the local and the indigenous can come to the fore. Place
alertsustothematerialeffectsofourdiscursiverelationswithinthe
viii
Foreword ix
places where we live, work and play. The conceptual framework of
placeisthusproposedasthebasisforacriticalqualitativeresearch.
In only one instance was I compelled to use the concept of space
ratherthanplace.Ihadvisitedacrowdeddemountableschoolclass-
room early in the day and watched the children navigate desks,
chairs, boxes, hanging artworks and other objects that made up
this decidedly classed school classroom. I thought about Lefebvre’s
contention that the whole of social space proceeds from the body
(Lefebvre, 1991). I could see that the social space of this classroom
was produced by these movements, bodies and objects, producing,
in turn, the subjectivities of the children there. My attention was
especially drawn to Mary, a child with Down’s syndrome, mov-
ing awkwardly in this crowded space always accompanied by the
appendageofanintegrationaide.
WhenIreturnedafterschooltheteacherandtheintegrationaide,
stillworkinginthewell-wornclassroom,invitedmetowatchashort
DVD of the rehearsal for the Christmas concert. There on the inter-
active screen, larger than lifesize, the children came to life as frogs,
dancingtheirfrogdancetomusicmadeentirelyoffrogcalls.Intheir
visits to the local wetlands the children get to know the frogs from
their specific frog calls. The classroom, cleared of debris, becomes
the space of the wetlands. Children dance to frog calls moving frog
limbs,fingerssplayed,jumping,leapfrogging,becomingfrogtofrog
music. Mary, in particular, loves the performance, moving freely in
this frog collective, unaccompanied by her integration aide. In one
briefsequencetowardstheendshesmilespurepleasureintothecam-
era,herbodyliberatedinfrogdance.Iunderstandthecriticalpower
of space in this moment of Mary’s becoming, made possible by an
alternative imagination of the spaces of learning that includes the
wetlands,digitaltechnologiesandareconfiguredschoolclassroom.
The authors of the book, like the theorists they draw on, take up
notionsofspaceandplacedifferentlywithsometendingtousespace
orplaceprimarilyorexclusively,whileotherswriteaboutbothspace
and place in relation to each other. The book introduces the reader
to a rich overview of the theoretical possibilities of space and place
ranging from the pioneering critical work of Lefebvre and Soja on
howspaceisexperiencedintheeverydaytoMassey’sspatio-temporal
events and Ingold’s wayfaring. While each of these theorists offers
importantpossibilitiesforthinkingthroughissuesofspaceandplace,