‘Having my own room would be really cool’: Children’s rooms as the social and material organizing of siblings

Abstract

In this article, the authors examine how materiality can be understood as a co-creator and significant carrier of social processes. They focus on the ways children in large sibling groups relate to bedrooms and identify the logics at play when the organizing of children's bedrooms and siblings are interwoven. Children have dreams and expectations of establishing a space by way of having their own room and stuff, and they implement this desire for ownership through specific strategies to obtain material presence and leave territorial marks, which afford them positioning and recognition within sibling relations and families. The authors' analysis clearly shows that children gain material weight across households with varying material resources and different socio-cultural views on how to allocate these resources. It also shows that processes surrounding the material constitution of siblingships are embedded in a child-focused society with strong cultural norms about what constitutes a good life for children.

Enacting sabotage in siblings’ conflicts: Desired objects and deceptive bodies

“…Since Karolina ultimately could not gain possession of the object during their lengthy conflict, she destroys the garage altogether. This way she creates (at least a temporary) impossibility for her sibling to sustain his play with the ‘highly valued’ (Palludan and Wentzel Winther, 2017: 38) object.…”

“…We argue that attention to children’s embodied practices in the socio-material context of conflicts can contribute to and refine the understanding of ‘the micropolitics of social life’ (Goodwin, 2007: 373) and highlight the role of objects in children’s social relationships (Horton, 2010). In line with recent conceptualisations of children as embodied social actors (Evaldsson and Karlsson, 2020; Goodwin, 2007) that live their everyday lives in a socio-material world (Palludan and Wentzel Winther, 2017), we direct attention to a prolific, yet under-researched social situation, namely, conflicts related to young children’s possession and use of objects (but see Cobb-Moore, 2008).…”

“…Research that has focused on families’ and preadolescent siblings’ material practices similarly found that object-possession has potential to create ‘intense conflict’ between children (Horton, 2010: 384). The conflicts can involve disputes over, for instance, the possession of pop culture merchandise (Horton, 2010) or the distribution of material entities such as rooms and computers (Palludan and Wentzel Winther, 2017). Moreover, the objects were shown to be possessions talked about with affect and love, thus mattering greatly to the children (Horton, 2010).…”

“…Moreover, the objects were shown to be possessions talked about with affect and love, thus mattering greatly to the children (Horton, 2010). The distribution of material entities, such as having one’s own room where one’s things could be placed, were ‘highly valued’ and contested between siblings (Palludan and Wentzel Winther, 2017: 38).…”

The Materialisation of School in Families' Everyday Lives

“…Furnishings and the arrangement of objects in home settings are often described as a way of making a home, of being a family, of creating interconnectedness or belonging among family or household members or as part of identity processes (see e.g. Horst, ; Miller, ; Palludan and Winther, ). Children bring things intended for use in other contexts, in this article school‐related objects, into the family home.…”