In this article, we draw from and develop existing ideas of spatial desire and emplacement to explore skateboarders’ skilful mobility and perceptive competence. By combining findings from Swedish and Danish ethnographic studies, we illustrate how skateboarders imagine and make new material encounters both in urban environments not originally built for skateboarding and in skateparks. These imaginations and makings include memories of previous material encounters and are a part of ongoing social negotiations, but they also have a component of imaginary novelty. Making and imagining are discussed as materialization and formation, which include the idea of active materials and sentient practitioners. Two types of material encounters were imagined and made: transitions and smooth lines. Subsequently, two characteristics of these types of encounters were described: “kind” and challenging. The processes of imagination and making took a mutual understanding for granted and deeply engaged the body in the ever-changing material environment. We argue that a conceptualization of spatial desire as emplaced and highly imaginable is fruitful for research on skateboarding and other movement cultures where engagements with materials come to the fore.

Artiklen indskriver sig som en nutidig og kritisk refleksion over en mangeårig tradition for at etablere fritidsrum for unge i Danmark, som i høj gradhar været betonet af, at voksne har defineret unges fritidsrum. De senesteårtier er alternativt organiserede fritidsformer imidlertid begyndt at findeuformelt og formelt fodfæste i Danmark. Artiklen omhandler fænomenet semiorganiseret gadeidræt. På baggrund af et etnografisk feltarbejde analysererartiklen, hvordan unge gadeidrætsudøverne ikke blot ønsker at praktisere enbevægelsespraksis, som skateboarding eller klatring, men at etablere fundamentet for den. Gennem begrebet institutionslogikker viser artiklens analyse,hvordan semiorganiseret gadeidræt beror på institutionslogikker, som differentierer sig fra hidtil etablerede fritidsorganiseringer i Danmark. Disse fritidsrum er sensitive over for gadeidrætspraksisser, som opstår in situ, og hvorunge kan være med til at definere deltagelsesformen, bl.a. ved at udforske oglege med stedslige, materielle og sociale potentialer. I denne proces er de ungeikke afvisende overfor dialog med eksterne parter som kommune, fonde ogandre interessenter, men efterspørger et samarbejde, såfremt det ikke er påbekostning af centrale institutionslogikker, som de organiserer sig på baggrund af. Artiklen diskuterer fritidsorganisatoriske potentialer mellem planlægning og planløshed og rejser nogle aktuelle spørgsmål, som angår kriterierfor samarbejde og bevillinger fra eksterne institutioner og fonde.

This paper highlights a methodological vagueness within the existing qualitative research interview literature related to reflecting where interviews takes place. The aim is to interrogate how the use of the concept of emplaced participation can account for the multisensory constitution of place within interviews as well as how the place can provide an opportunity to generate knowledge about participants’ everyday practices. Casey’s understanding of place as a gathering and Pink’s perspectives on emplaced participation provide a sensitive epistemological approach that can be applied by researchers outside the field of ethnography. Based on empirical ethnographic material from fieldwork in Denmark, this paper makes a novel contribution to how researchers can use sensory and emplaced experience before and during an interview. We argue that, if we cease taking emplaced dimensions for granted, new methodological techniques can be developed, which, in turn, can lead to new types of knowledge of practice.

Based on an ethnographic multi-sited fieldwork, this article analyzes alternative rhythms of youth culture. The aim is to illustrate how young people improvise and organize rhythms in the city as a part of their place-making. I develop the concept of a spatial jam session, which provides a framework suitable for analyzing spatial dimension of contemporary youth culture. Developing Henri Lefebvre’s rhythm analysis through empirical material, a phenomenological understanding of place and jazz theory contributes an analytical framework that takes bodily, material, spatial and temporal dimensions of the place-making practices of young people into account. Using the concept of a spatial jam session, I argue that a central aspect of young people’s place-making is being able to improvise through materiality, sociality, cultural norms and musical expression. I illustrate how young people create spatial and temporal obstructions in order to maintain a practice of improvising, which to these young people is a way of constructing meaning in everyday life.

Kolding designskole; 2 Syddansk universitet RESUMÉ De senere år har der i Danmark vaeret en udbredt debat om «ghetto»-områder, hvor bestemte boligkvarterer er blevet gjort til genstand for negativ opmaerksomhed politisk og i medierne. På baggrund af et casestudie af NGO'en GAME, der bygger på interviews med unge, der er engageret i organisationens arbejde med gadeidraet i områderne, GAMEs hjemmeside samt policydokumenter repraesenterede den danske politiske diskurs om «ghetto»-områder argumenteres i denne artikel for, hvordan lokale og sociale stedskvaliteter kan medtaenkes i den offentlige debat og den bysociologiske og ungdomspaedagogiske forskning. Ved hjaelp af et stedssensitivt perspektiv, der inddrager socialsemiotisk teori, og en sondring mellem taktik og strategi hentet hos de Certeau, vises i den empiriske analyse, hvordan GAMEs løse semiorganiserede tilgang til gadeidraet giver unge mennesker i «ghetto»-områder mulighed for at praktisere selvudtryk gennem bestemte stedslige taktikker. Desuden diskuteres, hvordan GAME i sit ungdomskulturelle udtryk tilsyneladende formår at undslippe territorial stigmatisering på måder, der kan bidrage til nye, produktive sammenhaenge mellem steder og identitetsudvikling.