Table Of ContentThe eThnopoeTics of
space and TransformaTion
This book is a serious attempt to move children and youths from their subdisciplinary
crib to the world of people, placing their lived worlds at the core of critical
geographical inquiry. By re-exposing himself to the experiences and expressions of
the differently situated children and youths he has worked with over the years, Aitken
proves such binaries as Politics/politics, adult/child, homed/homeless more harmful
than useful in undersTtahnisd ipnagg eth hea cso bneteemn pleofrt abrlya nckh ainntgeen.tionally
Kirsi pauliina Kallio, University of Tampere, finland
We are used to seeing children as subjects of protection, care and rights. Aitken
adds another dimension, regarding children as political beings, being involved in
transformations of social relations and spaces in their own playful and surprising
ways. Read this book for its concrete transformative practices, a true remedy against
deep inequalities and injustices.
Jelka Zorn, University of Ljubljana, slovenia
This is a necessary and innovative book: it succeeds in vividly painting a
well-researched map of emotional landscapes, shaped as they are by youth
across the globe in their response to adverse circumstances, as well as including
expressive poetry as an amplification of critical theory. It is an excellent guide to the
contemporary forms of social and economic, moral and aesthetic change.
aleš debeljak, University of Ljubljana, slovenia
The ethnopoetics of
space and Transformation
Young people’s engagement, activism and aesthetics
sTUarT c. aiTKen
San Diego State University, USA
© stuart c. aitken 2014
all rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
stuart c. aitken has asserted his right under the copyright, designs and patents act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
published by
ashgate publishing Limited ashgate publishing company
Wey court east 110 cherry street
Union road suite 3-1
farnham Burlington, VT 05401-3818
surrey, GU9 7pT Usa
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
a catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
aitken, stuart c.
The ethnopoetics of space and transformation : young people’s engagement, activism and
aesthetics / by stuart c. aitken.
pages cm
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4094-2251-8 (hardback) -- isBn 978-1-4094-2252-5 (ebook) -- isBn 978-
1-4724-0000-0 (epub) 1. children--social conditions. 2. children and the environment. 3.
human geography--political aspects. 4. space--political aspects. i. Title.
hQ767.9.a377 2014
305.23--dc23
2014006160
isBn 9781409422518 (hbk)
isBn 9781409422525 (ebk – pdf)
isBn 9781472400000 (ebk – epUB)
V
printed in the United Kingdom by henry Ling Limited,
at the dorset press, dorchester, dT1 1hd
Contents
Illustration Acknowledgments vii
Preface ix
1 Birthing the Poetics of Space and Transformation 1
2 Ethnopoetics 19
3 Disrupting Spatial Competencies and Affordances 27
4 Development, Figured Worlds and Affective Ecologies 57
5 Schoolyards, Violence and Landscapes of Revolution 97
6 Children’s Work, Civic Responsibilities and
Refashioning Citizenship 119
7 Poets and Stateless Children 143
8 The Poetic Aesthetics of Children’s Politics 169
References 175
Index 197
This page has been left blank intentionally
Illustration Acknowledgments
The picture on the front cover is published with the kind permission of the
photographer Michael Green (La Estrella Solitaria) and the young woman pictured,
Pamela Andrea. It portrays a young woman in Chile, taking the Pingüinos’
Revolution against new-liberal education reform to the streets of Santiago
(see Chapter 5). Her t-shirt reads “yo quiero estudiar para no ser fuerza especial”
(I want to study so I don’t become [part of the] special-forces).
The front cover of The City and the Child (1999) and the extract from the poem
Hunter Invitation from that volume by Aleš Debeljak are reproduced here (p. 19)
with the kind permission of the author and White Pine Press.
The illustration on p. 165, I Feel SLOVEnia, is reproduced with the kind
permission of the artist, Franco Juri.
This page has been left blank intentionally
Preface
Change is inevitable, we are told. A job is lost, a couple falls in love, children
leave home, an addict join Narcotics Anonymous, two nations go to war, a family
member’s health deteriorates, a baby is born, a universal health care bill is voted
into law. Life comprises events over which we have considerable, partial, or little
to no, control. The distance between the event and our daily lives suggests a quirky
spatial politics. Lives move forward depending upon how events play out and
opportunities open in concert with our reactions to them. This process describes
a political push in the world, and it is my contention that there is an aesthetics
to this push that comprises who we are, what we say, how we say it, what we
do, when, where and with whom. It is a political and transformative aesthetics that
is grounded in a poetics of space, and some of the most dramatic political pushes
come from young people.
On December 17, 2010, Tarek al-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi, an educated,
underemployed young man from Tunisia set himself on fire in protest of the
confiscation of his street-vending wares and the harassment and humiliation that
he reported was inflicted by a municipal official and her aides. The event of this
suicide sparked the Tunisian uprising and the wider “Arab Spring” that led, in
Egypt, to a youth-led movement, which forced the authoritarian leader Hosni
Mubarak, from power. The outpouring of youth frustration on the streets and in the
squares of Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America from 2010 onwards provides an
important context of change and, as I argue here, it thrusts young people forward
as harbingers of the most virulent transformations. With these events, it is difficult
to deprecate young people as ineffective agents of change or to romanticize
their political involvement as spurious fantasies and unrealistic dreaming. With
this book I go further, suggesting that it is the emotional palpability of youth
engagement and activism that makes it so potent and productive.
This book focuses on the poetics and politics of transformative events, and
explores the emotions that undergird the ways these changes take place. To do so
I pull from nearly three decades of geographic projects that involve ethnographies
and interviews with, and stories about, young people in North and South America,
Europe and Asia. I relate some of the quirky and often happenstance events through
which young people take responsibility to create a politics of hope. If spaces are
thought of as events and events encourage change, then complex relations bring
spaces and people together to become other and, perhaps, create hope.
From this larger remit, I attempt to do two things. First, I focus on change and
transformation as part of a critical analysis that pulls from the spatial theories
of Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Doreen Massey, Giorgio Agamben,
Description:Change is inevitable, we are told. A job is lost, a couple falls in love, children leave home, an addict joins Narcotics Anonymous, two nations go to war, a family member's health deteriorates, a baby is born, a universal health care bill is voted into law. Life comprises events over which we have c
