Masculinity and Space from Children’s Perspectives

The contribution presents results and methodological reflections on two qualitative research projects with nine to twelve year olds. Both are part of a multi-year grounded theory approach to study spatial appropriation from the perspective of marginalized children in a privileged district of Vienna. The analysis of their everyday geographies uncovers, how spaces of belonging are established. It also demonstrates how deprived social participation manifests spatially. In understanding space from children’s points of view, several dimensions of boundary-making (see Fegter and Andresen 2019) become apparent, first and foremost gender, class, age and racism.

Talking about space is difficult (see Martina Löw 2018) and research settings with marginalized young people must make even more effort to develop shared means of communication. Schultorparasiten employed strategies of visual elicitation, participatory spatial interventions and group interviews to understand the interlink between formal and informal educational spaces in children’s appropriation of the city. Figures of speech used DIY-3D technology to navigate and capture individual places of importance, enabling and empowering children to position themselves in the city beyond social attributions, an art-based alteration of a mobile interview (see Kusenbach 2018).

While practices of socio-economical exclusion have been the focus of the study, the absence of female practice and voice raised as substantial issue in the process. This paper therefore analyses how concepts of masculinity manifest in children’s appropriation of space.

Fegter, S. and Andresen, S. (2018). Erziehung und Bildung in der Kindheit. doi:10.1007/978-3-531-19983-2_29.

Kusenbach, M. (2018). Go-Alongs, in: Uwe Flick (ed.), The Sage handbook of qualitative data collection. London: Sage, 344–361.

Löw, M. (2018). Vom Raum aus die Stadt denken, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. doi: 10.14361/9783839442500