Talking politics in everyday family lives

Abstract

How do children encounter and relate to public life? Drawing on evidence from ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2016 for the ERC-funded Connectors Study on the relationship between childhood and public life, this paper explores how children encounter public life in their everyday family environments. Using the instance of political talk as a practice through which public life is encountered in the home, the data presented fill important gaps in knowledge about the lived experience of political talk of younger children. Working with three family histories where political talk was reported by parents to be a practice encountered in their own childhoods and one which they continued in the present amongst themselves as a couple/parents, we make two arguments: that children's political talk, where it occurs, is idiomatic and performative; and that what is transmitted across generations is the practice of talking politics. Drawing on theories of everyday life developed by Michel de Certeau and others we explore the implications of these findings for the dominant social imaginaries of conversation, and for how political talk is researched.

Grounding Childhood (Trans)National Identities in the Everyday

“…The paper focuses on the phenomenon of (trans)national identity formation in middle childhood foregrounding the everyday, experiential aspects of that process. Drawing on data from the ERC funded Connectors Study (2014–2019), a comparative multimodal ethnography of the relationship between childhood and public life in three cities (Athens, Hyderabad, London) (Nolas, ; Nolas and others, , ), the present paper explores an ethnographic biography of the (trans)national identity practices of one immigrant child living in Athens, Greece. Changes to international patterns of migration, the proliferation of mobile technologies, and more affordable and frequent air travel means that both the first and second‐generation migrants — across a socioeconomic spectrum, develop fuller relationships with countries of (parental) origin (Zeitlyn, ) giving rise to the phenomenon of transnational families: those families that maintain active ties and often live across a number of national and cultural borderlands (Fechter, ; Fechter and Korpela, ; Gardner and Mand, ; Haikkola, ; Katartzi, ; Spyrou, ; Zeitlyn, ; Zeitlyn and Mand, ).…”

‘I’m big, you’re small. I’m right, you’re wrong’: the multiple P/politics of ‘being young’ in new Sustainable Communities

“…Our analysis responds to calls for a focus on 'children's mundane politics' (Bartos, 2012: 159), building on recent work which addresses the place of care and friendship in shaping political identity (Bartos, 2013;Korkiamaki & Kallio, 2018); children's daily political practices (Bartos, 2012); multiscalar political worlds of childhood (Kallio & Hakili, 2013); and the role of political talk in everyday life (Nolas et al, 2017). Collectively these literatures get closer to understanding how young people encounter, experience, enact and negotiate everyday politics.…”

“…Noises and sights are shaped by a multiplicity of everyday encounters and relations, encompassing interactions with friends, peers, neighbours, parents, centre managers and teachersthe list is endless. In this vein, our second reference point is the work of Nolas et al (2017), who make the case for considering the importance of political talk and the ways in which it is woven into everyday life. They argue that a focus on political talk opens up space for seeing 'a sonic landscape of multiple and overlapping past and present voices in which talking politics might unfold in everyday life' (Nolas et al, 2017, p. 80).…”

“…We build on and extend the work of Bartos (2013) and Nolas et al (2017) in two key ways. First, whilst we seek to build on the sonic geographies of the political, we broaden the remit of what can be considered a spoken politics, arguing that this is more than having opinions on and contributing to a national Political agenda, whether through elections, Political events or voting (Nolas et al, 2017). In the case of our research, it is about being political through voice, including what is said and unsaid in the shaping and making of communities.…”

“…In this way we contribute to sub-disciplinary discussions on P/ politics within the study of childhood (Kallio & Hakli, 2011a, 2011bSkelton, 2013;Weller, 2003Weller, , 2007, as well as to broader debates within Human Geography and the social sciences on participation, community relations and sustainable urbanism (Bishop & Corkey, 2017;Gleeson & Sipe, 2006). Through in-depth research with young people, we shed light on what it means to be political (building on Bartos, 2012;Christensen, Hadfield-Hill, Horton, & Kraftl, 2017;Nolas, Varvantakis, & Aruldoss, 2017); we show how sound, sight and the embodied practices of politics are important facets of making and shaping community life. The second way in which the paper extends current knowledge is through the focus on young people living in newly-built communities in the UK (building on Christensen et al, 2017;Hadfield-Hill, 2012;Horton, Christensen, Kraftl & Hadfield-Hill, 2014;Kraftl, 2014;Kraftl, Horton, Christensen, & Hadfield-Hill, 2013).…”