Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
7323414 | Emotion, Space and Society | 2013 | 11 Pages |
Abstract
In this paper I argue that a significant proportion of research on children's emotional geographies has been deployed to reinforce the importance of children's 'voices', their (independent) 'agency', and the various ways in which voice/agency maybe deemed 'political'. Without wishing to dismiss or dispense with such approaches, I explore potential ways to go 'beyond' concerns with voice/agency/politics. Initially, I review studies of children's participation (and participatory methods), activism and everyday lives that mobilise emotion and affect in productive ways. I contrast such studies with important questions raised by a reinvigoration of interest in the need for children to be able to represent themselves. I then explore the possibilities raised by so-called 'hybrid' conceptions of childhood - which go beyond biosocial dualisms - to enable further strides beyond voice/agency. Drawing on examples from alternative education and contemporary attachment theories, I explore some potential implications for children's emotional geographies and relational geographies of age of what I term 'more-than-social' emotional relations. Yet I do not offer an unequivocal endorsement of these hybrid emotions. Thus, I end the paper by issuing some words of caution - both in terms of the critical questions raised by more-than-social emotional relations, specifically, and in terms of engendering broader debate about how and why scholars do (children's) emotional geographies.
Keywords
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities
Psychology
Social Psychology
Authors
Peter Kraftl,