Tracing children’s politics

Kallio, Kirsi Pauliina; Häkli, Jouni

doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.01.006

Cited by 158 publications

(101 citation statements)

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“…Consequently, they demand specific ways of acting and therefore appear inviting only to select children (e.g. Matthews, 2001;Bragg, 2007;Gallacher & Gallagher, 2008;Kallio & Häkli, 2011b). When children's political action is taken to situate mostly in these political arenas, led and defined explicitly by adults, politics is not considered as 'complex and multivalent struggle' where societies are constituted through action that takes multifarious and extraordinary forms (Staeheli & Kofman 2004: 3).…”

Section: Relating Children and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are There Politics in Childhood?

2011

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Abstract:This paper sets out to explore children's worlds as potential fields of political action. Children are approached as competent political agents whose mundane lives are permeated by politics in which they have their own positions and roles. The paper discusses how children can be found to act politically in their everyday lives and, to some extent, also practice their own political geographies. The main objective is to propose a theoretical basis for recognizing the political aspects of children's agency and studying political geographies embedded in children's lived worlds.Keywords: children, politics, politicization, the political, political geography, childhood studies Are there politics in childhood?In the past twenty years interest towards children and young people's geographies has grown steadily in cultural studies and social sciences. Spaces and sites such as the home, the school, urban neighborhoods and virtual communities have been explored as significant contexts of children's everyday agency with and alongside other people. As part of this scholarship also power relations embedded in children's lived worlds have been acknowledged. Dynamics and power struggles maintained and produced by the children themselves, the imbalances and hierarchies concerning child-adult relations, and the society's pressures bearing upon childhood have been explored in various contexts (e.g. Morris-Roberts, 2004;Gallacher, 2005;Forsberg & Strandell, 2007;Gallagher, 2008;Thomas, 2009).However, the political geographies consequential in children's everyday lives are rarely positioned at the centre of these explorations. Children's worlds are typically approached as social and cultural environments, but not as political arenas -i.e. spaces where the presence of human relations is organized by power (Brown 2002:.569). Even studies that explicitly focus on power or empowerment tend to overlook the political dynamisms that direct and transform the power relations embedded in children's lived worlds. The scholarship foregrounding children's involvement or participation in political processes usually deals with issues readily known as belonging to the sphere of 'the political', be that civic activism, urban planning or policy making in schools. Hence, what politics means in each case is not derived from children's experiences and lived worlds but determined on the basis of policies and politics pertinent to adult communities and societies. This sustains the perception of children's mundane lives as not determined by webs of power relations forming around matters of importance to children themselves. Yet, if we accept that children are active members of their communities and societies (beings), and not merely objects of top-down socialization processes (becomings), we should reverse our thinking concerning children's political lives (see Arneil, 2002;Skelton, 2007;Kallio & Häkli, 2010).In this paper we propose that power relations acknowledged and constituted by children themselves form the basis of their political lives. T...

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Section: Relating Children and Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are There Politics in Childhood?

2011

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“…In my primary scholarly environment -the nexus of human geography and childhood studies -there is a growing tendency to portray children and youth as political actors whose interests and ideas are embedded in and result from their everyday lives (e.g. O'Toole, 2003;Habashi, 2008;Thomas, 2009;Bosco, 2010;Skelton, 2010;Kallio & Häkli, 2011a;Leonard, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concurrently, the connection between children and politics grew thinner since the relational understandings of politics were yet to arrive in childhood studies. Until quite recently, politics has been altogether associated with the adult-led world and thus linked with (semi-)formal participation only (Philo & Smith, 2003;Skelton, 2010;Kallio & Häkli, 2011a).…”

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Rethinking Spatial Socialisation as a Dynamic and Relational Process of Political Becoming

Kallio

2014

Global Studies of Childhood

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In this paper, I set out to bring early political development back to the research agenda in childhood studies as well as to the social scientific inquiry more generally. Proposing a geographical approach, I seek to develop the concept of spatial socialization as a dynamic and relational process through which political becoming takes place. Contrary to conventional conceptions, I present children as participants rather than as recipients of socialization--active agents in their everyday environments alongside their adult authorities, institutions, the media, and their communities as a whole. Moreover, drawing from phenomenological theorizations of subjectivity, politics and space, the employed approach problematizes the worlds in which political socialization takes place. I argue that the dynamic processes of socialization constitute the spatial realities where children and youth lead their as much as they constitute the youthful subjects they involve.

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“…Tracey Skelton (2010) has written extensively on the matter, with a serious attempt to spatialize children's participation in-between the mundane and the official political realities (also Skelton and Valentine 2003). Also Hugh Melanie Limb (1999), Suzie Weller (2003), Barry Percy-Smith (2006), Janet Jody Worley (2008, 2014) and Kirsi Pauliina Kallio and Jouni Häkli (2011a) have sought to unpack various aspects of children's societal agency and belonging, and this work has been further developed by scholars such as Ann Bartos (2012), Bronwyn Wood (2012), and David Marshall (2013. …”

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confidence: 99%