Abstract
Part of the Studies in Childhood and Youth series, this edited book brings together a wide range of thinkers and empirical research which uses spatial theory to help the reader better understand the ordinary experiences and nuances of children’s everyday lives. The editors, Abigail Hackett, Lisa Procter and Julie Seymour, state that one of their aims for the book was to ‘connect spatial theory to the interdisciplinary field of childhood studies’ (1), and it is through their recognition of the interchangeable nature of spatial theory that the editors have brought together a collection of authors whose understanding of space and place is viewed through the lens of disciplines ranging from education, sociology and anthropology to geography, architecture and archaeology, which ensures no one definition or understanding of spatiality is assumed. The bringing together of empirical studies and thinking from different disciplines provides the reader with a more comprehensive resource, as each author interprets notions of space and place differently, drawing on a wide range of critical thinkers – such as Lefebvre, Soja, Deleuze, De Certeau, Ingold and also Massey – to allow us a differing viewpoint through which to glimpse, better understand or perhaps even enter the social processes and everyday worlds of children.
The interweaving thread throughout the book is the application of a critical spatial lens to reveal the everyday lives of children as they negotiate those spaces and places constructed for them, and that they construct themselves. However, the book also aims to address the implications of spatial theory and practice for researching childhood, which is a welcome discussion as this is a relatively under-represented area of critical theory and research with children. The book is divided into three parts: ‘Senses and embodiment’, ‘Emotion and relationships’, and, thirdly, ‘Spatial agency’. In their introduction, the editors state that the three subsections will allow the reader to better understand children’s spatialities through different lenses (8).
The first chapter of the section dedicated to ‘Senses and embodiment’ is a largely conceptual piece from Mackley, Pink and Moroşanu, in which they discuss ‘sensory and more-than-representational modes of inquiry and lived experiences’ (21). Through the application of Ingold’s ‘zones of entanglement’ (25), the authors urge us to understand children’s environments as both material and immaterial, that children should be viewed as ‘perceivers, makers and knowers of ever-changing configurations of place’ (21), and that it is not only children’s voices we should be listening to, but also their invisible contributions to the construction of the spaces they inhabit. Mackley, Pink and Moroşanu conclude their chapter by raising the question of how children should be heard within research, and they discuss the different and varied methodologies and mediums now being used within childhood and media studies research, while also urging the reader to consider a shift towards non-representational and sensory-embodied experience, which I found particularly striking.
The second section of this interesting book draws together three chapters which focus on emotion(s) and how it can be located within the body and also within the spaces that the body inhabits. The authors also explore the interconnection between emotion(s) and spaces, including those institutional spaces such as schools, which are constructed for children by adults. Chapters 6 and 7 provide the reader with a greater understanding of how children negotiate school spaces, how they interact with existing structures and also how they become the architects of their own spaces. The spatial lens that Procter applies to her case study of one male pupil allows the reader to consider the patterns of children’s emerging identities; of particular interest was the production of gender and reinforcement of masculinities through the interconnection of space and emotion.
The final section draws together theories and research around children’s spatial agency. The section highlights the limitations of power that children experience, as they inhabit adult-regulated spaces. In Chapter 10, Satta’s use of Soja’s spatial justice aids the interrogation of adult–child inequalities. Through her research in play centres, Satta argues that adult regulation and organisation of play disrupts these ‘for children’ spaces and brings into question children’s agency. Meanwhile, in Chapter 8, Seymour considers the issue of children as social actors or social agents within domestic, international and global spaces created for, and by, children.
This book brings interesting and innovative thinking and research together, and affords the reader a glimpse into children’s worlds. Through the application of a critical spatial lens, we are able to look beyond and through formal constructs to find the covert, the invisible and the non-representational.