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Articles

Touch in residential child care: staff’s bodies and children’s agency

Die Berührung des professionellen Körpers. Körperkontakt und Agency in der Heimerziehung

Pages 285-295 | Published online: 15 Feb 2017
 

ABSTRACT

This paper concerns the significance of touch in the everyday life of those living and working in residential child care. Public and professional awareness about child abuse has focused attention on the bodies of children and their vulnerability – but the same cannot be said of the bodies of staff members who touch children. This ethnographic study of a Scottish residential child care unit shows such touch to be central to the everyday participation of children and young people in care. On the basis of participant observation, the paper analyses how care workers influence the agency of children and young people by bringing their own bodies into their relationships with them. Based on a relational understanding of care, the paper elaborates on how tender and restraining forms of touch form part of care workers’ professional repertoire of actions. The analysis of various instances of touch in terms of sociology of the body shows how staff members can help to shape children and young people’s opportunities for participation with their own bodies. In conclusion, the paper therefore argues for a professional and reflexive engagement with bodies rather than a general avoidance of touch between care workers and young people.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Der Beitrag widmet sich der Bedeutung von Körperkontakt im Alltag von Heimerziehung. Durch die Diskussion um Missbrauch sind die Körper von Kindern und Jugendlichen und ihre Verletztlichkeit in den Blick geraten. Dies gilt jedoch nicht in gleicher Weise für die Körper von Mitarbeiter_innen, die Kinder und Jugendliche berühren. Im Rahmen einer Ethnographie in einer schottischen Heimerziehungseinrichtung erwiesen sich diese Körperkontakte jedoch als zentral für die alltägliche Teilhabe von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Auf der Grundlage teilnehmender Beobachtungen wird analysiert, wie Sozialpädagog_innen die Agency von Kindern und Jugendlichen beeinflussen, indem sie sich mit ihrem eigenen Körper in Beziehungen einbringen. Ausgehend von einem relationalen Verständnis von Sorge wird herausgearbeitet, wie sowohl liebevolle Berührungen als auch physische Zwangsmaßnahmen zum professionellen Handlungsrepertoire von Sozialpädagog_innen gehören. Die körpersoziologische Analyse unterschiedlicher Körperkontakte offenbart, wie diese mit ihrem eigenen Körper die Teilhabemöglichkeiten von Kindern und Jugendlichen mit gestalten können. Entgegen einem generellen Vermeiden von Körperkontakt zwischen Sozialpädagog_innen einerseits und Kindern und Jugendlichen andererseits wird deshalb abschließend für einen professionellen und reflexiven Umgang mit Körperlichkeit plädiert.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Florian Eßer, Dr.phil., is senior lecturer at the Department of Social Pedagogy and Organisation Studies (University of Hildesheim, Germany). His research integrates the academic fields of Social Work and Childhood Studies. Among his most recent publications are Eßer, F. (2017). Enacting the overweight body. Children’s agency beyond the nature-culture divide. Childhood, 24 (forthcoming) and Eßer, F. et al. (Eds.). (2016). Reconceptualising agency and childhood. New perspectives in childhood studies. London: Routledge.

Notes

1 All names of places and people from the fieldwork used in this article are pseudonyms.

2 A third form of touch comprised greetings such as ‘high fives’ and ‘fist bumps’, which were regularly exchanged between the care workers and young people. However, these are less pertinent to the question under investigation and are not considered in the subsequent analysis.

3 Double quotation marks indicate that this precise wording was used.

4 Paragraphs in italics are direct quotes from my field notes.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

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