‘True geography [ ] quickly forgotten, giving away to an adult-imagined universe’. Approaching the otherness of childhood

Abstract

True geography [ ] quickly forgotten, giving away to an adult-imagined universe. Approaching the otherness of childhood. Childrens Geographies, 6 (2). pp. 195-212. ISSN 1473-3285 Available from: http://eprints.uwe.ac.uk/12396We recommend you cite the published version. The publisher's URL is: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733280801963193Refereed: Yes (no note) Disclaimer UWE has obtained warranties from all depositors as to their title in the material deposited and as to their right to deposit such material. UWE makes no representation or warranties of commercial utility, title, or fitness for a particular purpose or any other warranty, express or implied in respect of any material deposited.UWE makes no representation that the use of the materials will not infringe any patent, copyright, trademark or other property or proprietary rights. UWE accepts no liability for any infringement of intellectual property rights in any material deposited but will remove such material from public view pending investigation in the event of an allegation of any such infringement. AbstractIn this paper I seek to explore the idea of the otherness of childhood. I suggest that there are considerable differences between the becomings of children and the becomings of adults. In the face of these a number of questions need to be asked about adult -childhood relations in society and about academic approaches to children and childhood, particularly in terms of representing childhood and the implications of such representing. The paper sets out the idea of otherness, locates this within current debate about the crisis of childhood, and then argues that non-representational approaches might be particularly relevant to progressing children"s geographies. These approaches stress modesty, practice, experimentation, messiness, creativity and openness.As we age, childhood becomes another country, a disputed territory of memory and meaning. Its true geography is quickly forgotten, giving away to an adultimagined universe.The contemporary adult vision of childhood has become so distorted as to render it opaque, and this opacity is seriously affecting how children grow up today. (Brooks 2006: 4 -5).Introduction 2 This paper explores the idea of the otherness of children and its implications for the academic study of children"s worlds, and wider political questions about child -adult relations. The idea of the otherness of children is about the way children differ from adults in quite profound ways, and importantly, the extent to which the becomings of children are not fully knowable by adults. This is a large, uncertain terrain which stretches far beyond easily knowable horizons.Thus I do not offer any kind of comprehensive thesis, but rather a foray into it. The terms "other" and "otherness" are used in a number of ways within philosophy, ethics and the social sciences. Its use here has shadings from two such usages. Firstly I mean other in terms of alterity as in the work of Levinas and Derrida, which is about the unbridgebility between self an...

Whose space is it anyway? Learning about space to make space to learn

“…The voice of the child in considering their own environment is considered not only ethically appropriate but as a fundamental right. Children's voices have become more respected within research in recent history (O'Kane 2008), however, the potential vulnerability still leads to adults taking the agendas forward and pointedly restricting their relationships within appropriate environments (Jones 2008;Youdell and Armstrong 2011). That said, children offer invaluable insights into their own, current lives that differ from adult perspectives (Christensen and James 2008) that are acknowledged and embraced within this paper.…”

“…The intangible aspects of the lived space for example atmosphere from a child's perspective are less explored. It could be argued that careful consideration has been applied in terms of addressing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (1989); Jones (2008) indicates how spaces are designed as safe, colourful and appealing in society's attempt to invest in childhood. What is missing and what UNCRC also stipulates, is that the child's view and needs are fully incorporated into these understandings and attempts.…”

Children's imaginaries in the city: on things and materials

“…In what follows, we are committed to "stay political" by firstly proposing a social history of the space we discuss (assembled from ethnographic material as well as from secondary sources) and secondly showing that what appears to be children's play proves to be a significant source for a radical rethinking of urban planning. While our argument finds important resonances with theorists working with non--representational theory (Thrift 2008) and with voices in children's' geographies drawing on this theoretical line (Horton and Kraftl 2006;Jones 2008;Kraftl 2013;Kraftl 2015), we propose our own articulation on new materialism. Firstly, we tie into the conversation Cornelius Castoriadis' ideas on the radical imaginary, and his critique of the dichotomy material/immaterial.…”

“…Still, we observe a concrete difference (Gillespie 2013) in how children practice the city and in how they relate to materials. In order to be able to learn from them, the activists treat the children in their full otherness (Jones 2008), and as actors able to give different urban solutions and invent new relations between thought and life (Thrift 2005). When we speak of the children, we thus mean the embodied children of this exercise.…”

Emotions as practice: Anna Freud's child psychoanalysis and thinking–doing children's emotional geographies

“…One of the implications of this line of thinking is that as the differences between children and adults are not just epistemological but also political, attempts to fully understand children's lives can become efforts to colonise them (Jones 2008). By responding to difference from children, and by engaging with it supportively but non-invasively (to an extent), various authors see the role of children's geographies as not only in understanding children's lives, but also as 'providing space for …”