Editorial introduction to Children’s Geographies Sponsored lecture section: generational orderings and Geographies of Children and youth

It is with great pleasure that we introduce the Children’s Geographies Sponsored Royal Geographical Society / Institute of British Geographers Annual Conference Lecture and the connected viewpoints for this special section. The paper by Samantha Punch was delivered as the Children’s Geographies sponsored lecture at the RGS/IBG International Conference in Cardiff, 31 August 2018. Samantha Punch’s lecture highlights some important questions for the field of Children’s Geographies, which we reflect upon in this editorial introduction.

In her lecture, Punch makes a distinction between the significant progress that has been made politically in the field of Children’s Geographies and broader social studies of childhood and youth and the relatively limited theoretical advancement. Samantha Punch goes as far as to say that childhood studies are ‘stuck’ theoretically. In an innovative argument, Punch argues that this limitation – a tendency to over-focus on agency and to under theorise either the explicit nature of agency or the role of constraints and enablements or ‘structures’ in relation to agency, can be traced back, at least in part, to a lack of engagement to the concept of ‘age’ and ‘generation’ as ‘key social variables’ (Punch 2019, 2) akin to gender, class, race/ethnicity and so on. Samantha Punch raises the gauntlet to consider why childhood studies has not achieved the same progress and mainstreaming as gender studies, and cites how gender is mainstreamed as an issue in development; childhood and generation is not. A move towards more interdisciplinary engagement and genuine dialogue between research in the ‘minority’ (Global North) and ‘majority’ (Global South) worlds are two key paths forward which Punch suggests to enhance childhood studies and/or children’s geographies politically and theoretically.

Samantha Punch’s lecture is accompanied by ‘viewpoints’ commentaries by two of the key architects of generation as an important social category, Berry Mayall and Leena Alanen. Mayall’s intervention (2020) makes a brief yet incisive comment based on historical and autobiographical research with adults about their lives from 1910 to 1920 in the UK.

She emphasises how shifting generational orderings has seen a move from seeing children as useful, active, members of their families and broader society to objects of care and education. In this discussion, Mayall makes a crucial link between children’s political position in society and their importance to the function of societies. Although she critiques herself for generalising, the points she raises are apt – that children’s positioning within the social order shifts over time. Children’s political voice changes due to the amount of investment and agency they have in productive and reproductive work. At the least, this viewpoint sets an important framework for future research agendas to examine the connection between children’s social and political agency and their ‘structural’ centrality and importance within the specific generational order of economies and societies.

Alanen’s (2019) viewpoint alludes to the different points of emergence and development of generational understandings of childhood to the new social studies of childhood, which have been rather more dominant in terms of influence and sway in the Anglophone scholarship at least. Alanen suggests that there has been a lack of dialogue with generation from the new social studies of childhood, which was tied to an over-generalisation and misreading of how ‘structure’ was understood; with structure being mis-read as deterministic. Rather than deterministic, Alanen suggests that structure was used as an explanatory mechanism in understanding the role of generation in societies and influencing children’s social experience. An important point is raised by Leena Alanen, who suggests that Punch’s lecture critiques social studies and geographies of childhood, but that the reading is largely an Anglophone reading; generation has had a more critical impact in the German speaking and non-English speaking literature. In her viewpoint, Alanen suggests that generation is a travelling concept and has been reapplied in line with different theoretical approaches, rather than being tied to a specific and orthodox reading of generation.

Reflection

This collection of the Children’s Geographies Lecture and its associated viewpoints marks an important intervention and moment of reflection for Children’s Geographies, and has stimulated some questions that we would like to posit, to engender future debate and discussion, which we hope will be taken forward in future submissions to the journal:

1. Where does Children’s Geographies fit within the broader social studies of childhood? We are closely tied to the broader social studies of childhood, and Children’s Geographies is a central and connecting component of the field; nonetheless, there are some different points of origin, including Bunge and Bordessa (1975) – see also Aitken (2018). In their early reflection of what geography can contribute to the field of the social studies of childhood, one important point raised by Holloway and Valentine (2000) was to overcome a structure/agency, macro/micro dualism, with reference to key Children’s Geographies and spatial scholars, such as Katz (2004) and Doreen Massey (2012) (see also Holloway 2014). Therefore, with its more critical understanding of place, space, scale and agency, Children’s Geographies has from the outset, had something critical to offer to the broader field of the social studies of childhood and youth which is fundamental to moving forward some key conceptual and critical questions, and this has been integral to the field from the outset.

2. What ‘other’ Children’s Geographies are we missing? As editors of Children’s Geographies, we pride ourselves on being international and interdisciplinary; however, Alanen clearly points to other ways of doing Children’s Geographies out with Anglophone norms. With this in mind, we are keen to engage with Children’s Geographies outside of the strictures of a dualism between Global North and Global South (Punch and Tisdall 2012) – what are the geographies of children and youth in the globalising world? How are they connected and differentiated? Clearly, connecting to diverse spatialities of childhood requires considerations of differentiations between countries of the majority and minority world, including in language and communities of scholarship.

3. What are Children’s Geographies and/or social studies of childhood and youth? There have been some important interventions which have examined generation and intergenerationality, including work by Vanderbeck and Worth (2015) amongst others. Some of this has been published within this journal (Valentine 2019). The journal has a recognisable name and brand; however, it is important to remind our readers that the scope of the journal is broad, and we are: ‘an international peer-reviewed journal that publishes leading-edge research and scholarship relating to children, young people and families’. We are keen to publish: ‘internationally excellent new work relating to any aspect of geographies of children, young people and families’. It has always been imperative that children are not subsumed within their families; however, the role of children and young people within broader relationships of generation are of importance to the field of Children’s Geographies. Further, we are keen to hear more about young people, youth and youth transitions. Scholarship within Children’s Geographies is international and interdisciplinary. Nonetheless, we want to emphasise the openness and porosity of Children’s Geographies to the vast array of ways that geographies of children and youth can be done and the multitudes of geographies of children and youth that exist.

4. How can we re-engage with generation, children and young people’s social positioning and ‘structure’ without challenging the political imperative of children’s agency?

   Fully understanding children’s position within the generation order and/or other ways in which children and young people are positioned might require a different set of research methods to the ones we commonly use. Without critiquing the centrality of children’s agency, it is crucial that we determine what exactly is meant by the term ‘agency’. Without questioning the importance of children’s and young people’s voices and perspectives, given these are too often side-lined and ignored, other perspectives and other ways of examining children and young people’s positioning also have a place. So, without wanting to challenge the central core of Children’s Geographies, we are opening up to the possibilities of doing research in other ways, which might involve diverse methodological approaches (secondary data analysis, quantitative analysis, media and discourse analysis), and listening to other voices (parents, teachers, other adults) alongside the central and continuing role of highlighting young people’s agencies and political subjectivities.

Our final reflective point is to thank Samantha Punch, Berry Mayall and Leena Alanen for their important interventions. We see these questions and points for discussion as an opening gambit in a set of debates to come, and look forward to further discussions in the pages of Children’s Geographies.