Absent‐Presence Present‐Absence: Places, Spaces, Rights for Young People

Abstract

Children and young people are everywhere (present) but often nowhere (absent). They can be seen but not heard, they may use their voice but not be listened to. As a substantially marginalised group of humans, they experience absence and presence in different ways to older people and are confronted with contradictory experiences and recognition. Children and youth face a range of disadvantages in relational comparison of understandings and interpretations of ‘adulthood’. They are described as unready, immature, unformed, citizens‐in‐waiting and caught in interstitial nowhere/everywhere betweenness. However, geographers of children and young people are engaging with political conceptualisations of younger people that provide space for discourse, dialogue and discussion combined with an ethics of seeing, looking, hearing, listening, supporting and including children and young people. This article spins out from the three Dossier papers and weaves a threaded analytical examination of absent/presence and present/absence.

Playing outdoors: What do children do, where and with whom?

“…Many studies on outdoor play and child-friendly cities are still based on what parents report in questionnaires about their children's outdoor play behavior. Children are also seldomly involved in the (re)design of public spaces and playgrounds (Cele & Van der Burgt, 2015;Corkery & Bishop, 2020;Skelton, 2022). And when children are involved in policy-making or research it is often difficult for children to share their experiences because they do not always have all the necessary communication skills, especially when traditional participation methods are used such as questionnaires and interviews (Derr et al, 2018;Young & Barrett, 2001).…”

Global Perspectives on the Absent Presence of Marginalised Children and Young People in the Public Realm

“…In structuralist theory, when signifiers refer to the signified, presences are referring to absences. Although not referring directly to structuralist theory, ruminations on the landscapes of children's playgrounds have argued that these sometimes maligned environments represent the right to a presence in the wider environment for young children (McKendrick 1999; Skelton 2022). The empty playground continues to signify children and children's space and may have value beyond its functional utility.…”

“…The three papers in the dossier discuss the absent presence of children in, respectively, the Netherlands, New Zealand/Aotearoa and the USA, and are concluded with a review by Tracey Skelton (2022) of the theoretical, conceptual and substantive learning that has emerged across the papers. Van Melik and Althuizen (2022) critique the marginalisation of issues pertaining to disabled children in Dutch municipal play policies, focusing on two municipalities in the east of the Netherlands.…”