Karen Fog Olwig - Childrens Places

Childrens Places examines the ways in which children and adults, from their different vantage points in society, negotiate the proper place of children in both social and spatial terms. It looks at some of the recognised constructions of children, including cultural perspectives that do not distinguish children as a distinct category of people, as well as examining contexts for them, from schools and kindergartens to inner cities and warzones. The result is a much-needed insight into the notions of inclusion and exclusion, the placement and displacement of children within generational ranks and orders, and the kinds of places that children create for them-selves.

Based on in-depth ethnographic research from Europe, Asia, Africa, North America and Australia, it challenges current Eurocentric theories of childhood.

Contributors include Eva Gullv, Laura Gilliam, Francine Lorimer, Laura Hammond, Olga Nieuwenhuys, Hilde Lidn, Sally Anderson, Erick Otieno Nyambedha, Jens Aagaard-Hansen, Lotte Meinert, Anne Trine Kjrholt, Karen Fog Olwig and Vered Amit.

Karen Fog Olwig is a Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. She is author of Global Culture, Island Identity (Harwood, 1993) and co-editor of Work and Migration (Routledge, 2002). Eva Gullv is a Senior Lecturer at the Danish University of Education in Copenhagen, and a co-founder of the Network for CrossCultural Child Studies.

Childrens Places

Cross-cultural perspectives

Edited by Karen Fog Olwig
and Eva Gullv

First published 2003
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue,New York, NY 10017

2003 Karen Fog Olwig and Eva Gullv for selection and editorial
material; individual contributors, their contributions

Typeset in Sabon by Exe Valley Dataset Ltd, Exeter

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Childrens places: crosscultural perspectives/edited by Karen Fog Olwig and Eva Gullv.
p. cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. SocializationCrosscultural studies. 2. Child rearingCrosscultural studies.
3. Place (Philosophy) I. Olwig, Karen Fog, 1948 II. Gullv, Eva.

HQ783 C5427 2004
305.23dc21 2003050009

ISBN 0-415-29640-4 (hbk)
ISBN 0-415-29640-2 (pbk)

KAREN FOG OLWIG AND EVA GULLV

PART I
Place as a site of opportunity and control

1 Creating a natural place for children: an ethnographic
study of Danish kindergartens
EVA GULLV

2 Restricted experiences in a conflict society: the local lives
of Belfast children
LAURA GILLIAM

3 The Smith children go out to school and come home
again: placemaking among KukuYalanji children in
Southeast Cape York, Australia
FRANCINE LORIMER

4 How will the children come home? Emplacement and the
creation of the social body in an Ethiopian returnee settlement
LAURA HAMMOND

PART II
Place as a site in the field of generational relations

5 Growing up between places of work and nonplaces of
childhood: the uneasy relationship
OLGA NIEUWENHUYS

6 Common neighbourhoods diversified lives: growing up
in urban Norway
HILDE LIDN

7 Associationless children: innercity sports and local society
in Denmark
SALLY ANDERSON

8 Changing place, changing position: orphans movements in a
community with high HIV/AIDS prevalence in western Kenya
ERICK OTIENO NYAMBEDHA AND JENS AAGAARDHANSEN

PART III
Place as a source of belonging: local communities,
national identities, global relations

9 Sweet and bitter places: the politics of schoolchildren's
orientation in rural Uganda
LOTTE MEINERT

10 Imagined communities: the local community as a place
for childrens culture and social participation in Norway
ANNE TRINE KJRHOLT

11 Children's places of belonging in immigrant families of
Caribbean background
KAREN FOG OLWIG

VERED AMIT

Figures

Tables

Jens Aagaard-Hansen is a Senior Researcher at the Danish Bilharziasis Laboratory, Denmark.

Vered Amit is Professor at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

Sally Anderson is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Laura Gilliam is a PhD student at the Department of Educational Anthropology, the Danish University of Education, Copenhagen.

Eva Gullv is a Senior Lecturer at the Danish University of Education, Copenhagen.

Laura Hammond is an Assistant Professor at Clark University, USA.

Anne Trine Kjrholt is Acting Director at the Norwegian Centre for Child Research, Trondheim, Norway.

Hilde Lidn is a Senior Researcher at Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway

Francine Lorimer is a Lecturer at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lotte Meinert is a Lecturer at the Department of Ethnography and Anthropology, University of Aarhus, Denmark.

Olga Nieuwenhuys is a Professor at Amsterdam Research School on Global Issues and Development Studies (AGIDS), University of Amsterdam.

Erick Otieno Nyambedha is a Researcher associated with the Danish Bilharziasis Laboratory, Denmark.

Karen Fog Olwig is a Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

The focus of this book is the social and cultural construction of childrens place in society, with its ever-changing set of inter-generational relationships. Using a cross-cultural approach, it investigates children in relation to the complex qualities of the concept of place as both social position and physical location. It thus examines the ways in which adults and children, from their different generational vantage points in society, negotiate proper places for children. Through in-depth ethnographic studies based on field research in Europe, Africa, Asia, North America and Oceania, the contributors explore the kinds of places that are associated with children as they reflect their generational position. The authors discuss childrens socialisation and emplacement in society, and their possibilities for developing new places for themselves that may lead to a reconfiguration of the places designated to them.

The complex meaning of the concept of place has been discussed by the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in his seminal article Space and place: humanistic perspectives from 1974, where he points to the two basic meanings of the term: ones position in society and spatial location. He adds that clearly the two meanings overlap to a large degree: one seems to be a metaphor for the other. However, he concludes that