Reimagining the geographies of diverse children and childhoods

Presenting author: Md Badrul Hyder (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology)

Delivering children's park facilities is a response for enabling children's rights and child-friendly cities. Typically, national or local governments play the central role in delivering children's parks which are often small in size and positioned within a city or neighborhood. Occasionally, community or private actors are engaged in creating and managing such parks. This paper focuses on the role of NGOs in facilitating placemaking for children in the densely populated Dhaka city, the capital of Bangladesh. This forms part of my doctoral research on how governance arrangements in Dhaka City are influencing the development of urban parks and playgrounds.

Using a qualitative case study research design, I focus on the Work of Better Bangladesh (WBB) Trust- a national NGO that has developed the concept of a 'child corner' by establishing children's park facilities in marginalized neighborhoods in Dhaka. These child corners have become a place for outdoor activities and sports for local children who were previously lacking facilities in their local areas. This involvement of non-government actors brings a new model in placemaking that delivers park facilities for children and addresses land misuse. However, this model also raises questions about the sustainability and effectiveness of existing governance arrangements and the provision of children's playgrounds and facilities. 

Presenting author: Hulya Gilbert (University of South Australia)

After the short-lived disruption which the COVID-19 pandemic caused, the car continues to be the key instrument to access our daily destinations. This is particularly evident within the everyday lives of families with children with more complex than usual travel patterns. Thus, children spend a significant amount of their time in cars -being moved without moving- for destinations both near and far.

Despite the well-reported manifold issues associated with cars, the spatial and social exclusion that children face is often overlooked owing to the prevalence of car use across Australia and the neo-liberal policies that enshrine the individualistic, parent-centred approaches to child safety. As a result, many public places, including local streets, become hostile environments for children. Further exacerbating this is the Western ideals of childhood which dictate that children be either at home, school or other child-specific places, making it easy to ignore the need for public places to be child- friendly. Consequently, these places lack affordances for informal sports, free play or just to 'hang out' with friends, all of which are critical for their sense of identity.

This presentation explores the distinctive ways that children's everyday movements are constrained by car-privileging policies and the normative discourses of childhood and adolescence. 

Presenting author: Catherine Volpe (University of New England)

Through the growing use of digital technologies, 'many individuals exist beyond their private bodies.  They leave traces of their selves in informational space....People are able to "plug into" systems of information through which they can "do" things and "talk" to people without being present in a particular place' (Sheller and Urry 2006, p. 222).  Many children and young people have lived almost their entire lives with digital technologies and social media, influencing a major shift in how we conduct research with this age group. Furthermore, digital technologies, such as smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras, have shifted how our everyday lives are experienced, resulting in new opportunities for research. It is imperative that research with children and young people considers these shifts and the impacts they can have on new opportunities for research, data collection and the presentation of our research. An exploration into recent uses of digital technology in research will be showcased in this presentation, along with further insight into future directions for these novel and useful ways of exploring the everyday lives of children and young people. 

Presenting author: Amy Walker (University of Birmingham)

Childhood memories hold a contentious place within children's geographies and the vast majority of the research within the subfield has focused on the present moment of childhood experience (Jones 2003; Philo 2003). As such, very few methodological techniques have been offered for researchers interested in engaging with childhood memory as data (Kraftl 2017). Drawing on literature about memory in geography more widely, this paper explores the potential of place-based methods as techniques to research childhood memories. Specifically, it explores the use of virtual google maps tours in a research project asking young adults with separated parents to look back on their childhood experiences of moving between their parents houses.

This paper unpicks the consequences of retrospectivity for this research, exploring the particular qualities, limits and partialities of the data collected. In doing so, this paper engages with work that seeks to complicate the linearity of the temporalities of childhood experiences, through concepts such as 'ongoingness' (Horton and Kraftl 2006). Whilst this paper does not seek to resolve debates about the use and value of childhood memories in children's geographies, it hopes to offer some further provocations on the theme and offer potential methodological inspiration for those wishing to engage in research using childhood memories.

Presenting author: Garth Cant (University of Canterbury)

Other author: Te Kura Aronukurangi (University of Canterbury)

The focus is on Romani in New Zealand and links Complaints to the Broadcasting Standards Authority to the new curriculum for Aotearoa New Zealand Histories. The curriculum will cover years 1 to 10 and, importantly for Romani and for Geographers, includes a component on migration and mobilities. 

Romani, in New Zealand as in Australia, have been present for generations and have suffered discrimination for generations. AoteaRomani are actively networking, telling the family stories, and are positioned to assert their collective identity.

The New Zealand has resolved to teach the history of New Zealand in new ways. A new syllabus for Aotearoa New Zealand histories from years 1 to 10 is in draft form. The intent is to embrace the histories of all who live in New Zealand. One strand within the proposed syllabus will be "migration and mobility". There will be opportunities for local schools to explore the migration histories of their own children and families.

This portion of the curriculum has the potential to be affirming of Romani children by telling their stories. The presentation invites responses from those preparing resources which present family and ethnic stories in formats which can be used in classrooms.