‘What it was in my eyes’: picturing youths' embodiment in ‘real’ spaces

Abstract

Readers should also refer to the journal's website at http://www.informaworld.com/rqrs and check volume 2, issue 2 to view the visual material in colour.

Current global educational trends towards homogenisation and deterritorialisation have resulted in limited attention to the multiple and contradictory ways youths frame, construct and view their physicalities. The purpose of this research was to explore the ways in which young people of different ethnicities in two urban schools engaged with physical culture in their everyday lives. To investigate youths' embodiments, researchers employed a qualitative visual methodology with secondary school students. By giving the participants digital cameras, the researchers explored the ways young people pictured and created their body‐selves in ‘real spaces’. Data was collected from multiple sources: field notes, interviews and visual Moving in My World diaries, which participants created to represent their emplaced body experiences. Findings shed light on the multiple ways young people engaged in visual and verbal meaning‐making about their physicalities based on the range of resources, opportunities, and/or constraints existing in the material contexts available to them. While students envisioned themselves as physically active and as creative of their body‐selves, most girls' visual diaries pictured recreational bodies in gender‐segregated, shielded spaces, whereas most boys' visual diaries presented sporting bodies in public performances. Our discussion raises critical questions about ‘real’ opportunities for young people's moving bodies in the localities of their everyday lives.

Keywords:

• youth
• embodiment
• gender
• ethnicity
• visual methodologies

Acknowledgements

The research described in this article was funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council. I would like to thank the ESRC for its support, and Jennifer Sterling for her assistance with this research. I am grateful to all of the young people who participated in this study, and all of the teachers and school staff for their support.