Border encounters: How children navigate space and otherness in an ethnically divided society

Abstract

The article draws on ethnographic material from an ongoing study which explores 10-to 12-yearold Greek Cypriot children's experiences of crossing to the north, the occupied part of Cyprus. By focusing on the act of crossing and the actual physical experience of visiting the occupied territories, the study seeks to highlight the mechanisms implicated in the construction of ethnic difference as children move through spaces and places and encounter 'others'. The article argues that to understand how children navigate ethnic divisions in the context of these visits, we need to attend to the role of place-making in the construction of identity.

Becoming mobile and growing up: A “generationed” perspective on borderland mobilities, youth, and the household

“…Yet it has received relatively little scholarly attention in the quickly growing body of work on young people's mobilities (Ní Laoire, White, & Skelton, ) and has largely been omitted from the Southeast Asian borderland studies literature (exceptions would include Lan, ; Rungmanee, ). In contrast to borderland studies elsewhere (Chiu & Choi, ; Christou & Spyrou, ; Hipfl et al, ; Marques da Silva, ; Spyrou & Christou, ), this renders the Southeast Asian literature largely adult centric.…”

“…Yet it has received relatively little scholarly attention in the quickly growing body of work on young people's mobilities (Ní Laoire, White, & Skelton, 2017) and has largely been omitted from the Southeast Asian borderland studies literature (exceptions would include Lan, 2012;Rungmanee, 2016b). In contrast to borderland studies elsewhere (Chiu & Choi, 2018;Christou & Spyrou, 2012;Hipfl et al, 2003;Marques da Silva, 2014;Spyrou & Christou, 2014a) Situating young people's everyday cross-border mobility in relation to the household and other mobility options has also highlighted some ramifications for understanding safety in relation to longer distance and longer duration migration by young people. Because crossborder day labour is organised through ethnic Lao networks, village youth from settler households, and especially those who are non-Buddhist and belong to ethnic minority populations, are less likely to get involved in this relatively lucrative practice, whereas for youth from original households, cross-border day labour constitutes a fairly safe initial set of experiences of working in Thailand.…”

Bringing the Falklands/Malvinas Home: Young People's Everyday Engagements with Geopolitics in Domestic Space

“…Research conducted with children and young people in Cyprus, an island divided by another intractable geopolitical dispute with a recent history of bloody intercommunal violence (see Papadakis, ), has also pointed to the influence of family in shaping how geopolitical pasts and presents are (re)presented and learnt. Christou and Spyrou (: 305) state that ‘children's sense of national belonging is not an abstract relation with discourses of identity but is embedded in “the localised constructions of community” that children engage in at particular historical moments’. Children and young people are not disaggregated from the geopolitical histories they are told given these are often relayed to them by older family members (i.e.…”

Towards inclusive geographies? Young people, religion, race and migration

“…Horschelmann, 2016, Rech, 2014; territories, borders and migration (e.g. Christou and Spyrou, 2012); in diplomacy and geopolitical relations (e.g. Benwell, 2016); and in activism, protest and everyday politics (Hopkins and Todd, 2015).…”