Abstract
The article sets out to bring early political development back to the research agenda in childhood studies and the social scientific inquiry more generally. Proposing a geographical approach, it seeks to develop the concept of spatial socialisation as a dynamic and relational process through which political becoming takes place. Contrary to the conventional conceptions, children are understood as participants rather than recipients of socialisation – active agents in their everyday environments alongside with their adult authorities, institutions, the media and their lived communities as a whole. Moreover, drawing from phenomenological theorisations of subjectivity, politics and space, the employed approach problematises the worlds in which political socialisation takes place. The article argues that the dynamic processes of socialisation constitute the spatial realities where children and youth lead their lives as much as they constitute the youthful subjects they involve.
References
1.
Agnew
J.
(1994 ) The Territorial Trap: The geographical assumptions of international relations theory , Review of International Political Economy , 1 (1 ), 53 –80 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/09692299408434268
2.
Alanen
L.
(1988 ) Rethinking Childhood , Acta Sociologica , 31 (1 ), 53 –67 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/000169938803100105
3.
Ansell
N.
(2009 ) Childhood and the Politics of Scale: Descaling children's geographies? Progress in Human Geography , 33 (2 ), 190 –209 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/0309132508090980
4.
Arendt
H.
(1953 ) Ideology and Terror: A novel form of government , Review of Politics , 15 (3 ), 303 –327 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1017/S0034670500001510
5.
Arendt
H.
(1958 ) The Human Condition . Chicago : University of Chicago Press .
6.
Arendt
H.
(1959 ) Reflections on Little Rock , Dissent , 6 (1 ), 45 –56 .
7.
Arendt
H.
(2005 ) The Promise of Politics . Edited and with an introduction by
Krohn
Jerome
. New York : Schocken Books .
8.
Bäcklund
P.
Kallio
K.P.
Häkli
J.
(2014 ) Residents, Customers or Citizens? Tracing the Idea of Youthful Participation in the Context of Administrative Reforms in Finnish Public Administration , Planning Theory and Practice , 15 (3 ), 311 –327 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14649357.2014.929726
9.
Barker
C.
(2010 ) Interdisciplinary Dialogues: Disability and postcolonial studies , Review of Disability Studies , 6 (3 ), 15 –24 .
10.
Barnett
C.
(2012 ) Situating the Geographies of Injustice in Democratic Theory , Geoforum , 43 (4 ), 677 –686 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.03.002
11.
Bartos
A.
(2012 ) Children Caring for Their Worlds: The politics of care and childhood , Political Geography , 31 (3 ), 157 –166 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.12.003
12.
Benwell
M.C.
(2014 ) From the Banal to the Blatant: Expressions of nationalism in secondary schools in Argentina and the Falkland Islands , Geoforum , 52 (1 ), 51 –60 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1016/j.geoforum.2013.12.006
13.
Biesta
G.
(2012 ) Becoming Public: Public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere , Social & Cultural Geography , 13 (7 ), 683 –697 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14649365.2012.723736
14.
Billig
M.
(1995 ) Banal Nationalism . London : Sage .
15.
Binnie
J.
Edensor
T.
Holloway
J.
Millington
S.
Young
C.
(Eds) (2007 ) Mundane Mobilities, Banal Travels. Special Issue , Social & Cultural Geography , 8 (2 ). https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14649360701360048
16.
Bosco
F.
(2010 ) Play, Work or Activism? Broadening the Connections Between Political and Children's Geographies , Children's Geographies , 8 (4 ), 381 –390 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733285.2010.511003
17.
Brocklehurst
H.
(2006 ) Who's Afraid of Children?, Children, Conflict and International Relations . Aldershot : Ashgate .
18.
Browne
K.
Lim
J.
Brown
J.
(Eds) (2009 ) Geographies of Sexualities: Theory, practices and politics . Aldershot : Ashgate .
19.
Colapietro
V.
(2006 ) Practice, Agency, and Sociality: An orthogonal reading of classical pragmatism , International Journal for Dialogical Science , 1 (1 ), 23 –31 .
20.
Connell
B.
(1987 ). Why the ‘Political Socialization’ Paradigm Failed and What Should Replace it , International Political Science Review , 8 (3 ), 215 –223 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/019251218700800303
21.
Connell
R.W.
(1972 ) Political Socialization in the American Family: The evidence re-examined , Public Opinion Quarterly , 36 (3 ), 323 –333 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1086/268014
22.
Dean
J.
(2000 ) Introduction: The Interface of Political Theory and Cultural Studies , in
Dean
J.
(Ed.) Cultural Studies & Political Theory . Ithaca : Cornwell University Press .
23.
Dikeç
M.
(2013 ) Beginners and Equals: Political subjectivity in Arendt and Rancière , Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers , 38 (1 ), 78 –90 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00508.x
24.
Elwood
S.
Mitchell
K.
(2012 ) Mapping Children's Politics: Spatial stories, dialogic relations and political formation , Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography , 94 (1 ), 1 –15 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1468-0467.2012.00392.x
25.
Gallacher
L.
(2005 ) ‘The Terrible Twos’: Gaining control in the nursery? , Children's Geographies , 3 (2 ), 243 –264 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280500161677
26.
Gallagher
M.
(2008 ) ‘Power is Not an Evil’: Rethinking power in participatory methods , Children's Geographies , 6 (2 ), 137 –150 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280801963045
27.
Habashi
J.
(2008 ) Language of Political Socialization: Language of resistance , Children's Geographies , 6 (3 ), 269 –280 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280802183999
28.
Habashi
J.
Worley
J.
(2009 ) Child Geopolitical Agency: A mixed methods case study , Journal of Mixed Methods Research , 3 (1 ), 42 –64 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/1558689808326120
29.
Häkli
J.
(2008 ) Regions, Networks and Fluidity in the Finnish Nation-State , National Identities , 10 (1 ), 5 –22 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14608940701819751
30.
Häkli
J.
Kallio
K.P.
(2014 ). Subject, Action and Polis: Theorizing political agency , Progress in Human Geography , 38 (2 ), 181 –200 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/0309132512473869
31.
Harris-Short
S.
(2001 ) Listening to ‘The Other’? The Convention on the Rights of the Child , Melbourne Journal of International Law , 2 (2 ), 304 –350 .
32.
Isin
E.
(2012 ) Citizens Without Frontiers . London : Bloomsbury .
33.
James
A.
Prout
A.
(Eds) (1990 ) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. Contemporary Issues in the Sociological Study of Childhood . London : Falmer Press .
34.
Kallio
K.P.
(2014 ) Intergenerational Recognition as Political Practice , in
Vanderbeck
R.
Worth
N.
(Eds) Intergenerational Space , pp. 139 –154 . London : Routledge .
35.
Kallio
K.P.
Häkli
J.
(2011a ) Tracing Children's Politics , Political Geography , 30 (2 ), 99 –109 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.01.006
36.
Kallio
K.P.
Häkli
J.
(2011b ) Are There Politics in Childhood? Space & Polity , 15 (1 ), 21 –34 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/13562576.2011.567897
37.
Kallio
K.P.
Häkli
J.
(2013 ) Children and Young People's Politics in Everyday Life , Space & Polity , 17 (1 ), 1 –16 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/13562576.2013.780710
38.
Kallio
K.P.
Häkli
J.
Bäcklund
P.
(2015 ). Lived Citizenship as the Locus of Political Agency in Participatory Policy , Citizenship Studies , 19 (3/4 ).
39.
Lazar
S.
(2010 ) Schooling and Critical Citizenship: Pedagogies of political agency in El Alto, Bolivia , Anthropology & Education Quarterly , 41 (2 ), 181 –205 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1548-1492.2010.01077.x
40.
Leonard
M.
(2013 ) Young People's Perspectives on Conflict, Reconciliation and Reunification in Cyprus , Children's Geographies , 11 (3 ), 326 –339 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733285.2013.812276
41.
Lester
S.
(2013 ) Rethinking Children's Participation in Democratic Processes: A right to play , Sociological Studies of Children and Youth , 16 , 21 –43 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1108/S1537-4661(2013)0000016006
42.
Markell
P.
(2007 ) The Potential and the Actual: Mead, Honneth, and the ‘I’ , in
van den Brink
B.
Owen
D.
(Eds) Recognition and Power: Axel Honneth and the tradition of critical social theory . New York : Cambridge University Press . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1017/CBO9780511498732.005
43.
Marshall
S.
(2013 ) All The Beautiful Things: Trauma, aesthetics and the politics of Palestinian childhood , Space & Polity , 17 (1 ), 53 –75 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/13562576.2013.780713
44.
McDevitt
M.
Chaffee
S.
(2002 ) From Top-Down to Trickle-up Influence: Revisiting assumptions about the family in political socialization , Political Communication , 19 (3 ), 281 –301 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/01957470290055501
45.
McNay
L.
(2008 ) Against Recognition . Cambridge : Polity Press .
46.
Mitchell
K.
Elwood
S.
(2012 ) From Redlining to Benevolent Societies: The political power of spatial thinking , Theory & Research in Social Education , 40 (2 ), 134 –163 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/00933104.2012.674867
47.
Nancy
J.L.
Adamek
P.M.
(2002 ) Is Everything Political? (A Brief Remark) , CR: The New Centennial Review , 2 (3 ), 15 –22 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1353/ncr.2002.0053
48.
Nelson
L.
(1999 ) Bodies (and Spaces) Do Matter: The limits of performativity , Gender, Place & Culture , 6 (4 ), 331 –353 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/09663699924926
49.
Neundorf
A.
Niemi
R.G.
(2014 ) Beyond Political Socialization: New approaches to age, period, cohort analysis , Electoral Studies , 33 (1 ), 1 –6 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1016/j.electstud.2013.06.012
50.
O'Toole
T.
(2003 ) Engaging with Young People's Conceptions of the Political , Children's Geographies , 1 (1 ), 71 –90 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280302179
51.
Paasi
A.
(1999 ) Nationalizing Everyday Life: Individual and collective identities as practice and discourse , Geography Research Forum , 19 (1 ), 4 –21 .
52.
Phillips
L.G.
(2010 ) Social Justice Storytelling and Young Children's Active Citizenship , Discourse , 31 (3 ), 363 –376 .
53.
Philo
C.
Smith
F.M.
(2003 ) Guest Editorial: Political Geographies of Children and Young People , Space and Polity , 7 (2 ), 99 –115 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/1356257032000133883
54.
Pike
J.
(2008 ) Foucault, Space and Primary School Dining Rooms , Children's Geographies , 6 (4 ), 413 –422 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280802338114
55.
Puumala
E.
Pehkonen
S.
(2010 ) Corporeal Choreographies Between Politics and the Political: Failed asylum seekers moving from body politics to bodyspaces , International Political Sociology , 4 (1 ), 50 –65 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2009.00091.x
56.
Rancière
J.
(2001 ) Ten Thesis on Politics , trans.
Bowlby
R.
Panagia
D.
, Theory & Event , 5 (3 ), 17 –34 .
57.
Sapiro
V.
(2004 ). Not Your Parents' Political Socialization , Annual Review of Political Science , 7 (June), 1 –23 .
58.
Simonsen
K.
(2013 ) In Quest of a New Humanism: Embodiment, experience and phenomenology as critical geography , Progress in Human Geography , 37 (1 ), 10 –26 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/0309132512467573
59.
Skelton
T.
(2010 ) Taking Young People as Political Actors Seriously: Opening the borders of political geography , Area , 42 (2 ), 145 –151 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1475-4762.2009.00891.x
60.
Skelton
T.
Gough
K.V.
(2013 ) Young People's Im/Mobile Urban Geographies. Special Issue , Urban Studies , 50 (3 ).
61.
Staeheli
L.
Kofman
E.
Peake
L.
(Eds) (2004 ) Mapping Gender, Making Politics: Feminist perspectives on political geography . New York : Routledge .
62.
Strandell
H.
(2010 ) From Structure–Action to Politics of Childhood: Sociological childhood research in Finland , Current Sociology , 58 (2 ), 165 –185 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/0011392109354240
63.
Such
E.
Walker
R.
(2005 ) Young Citizens or Policy Objects? Children in the ‘Rights and Responsibilities’ Debate , Journal of Social Policy , 34 (1 ), 39 –57 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1017/S0047279404008256
64.
Thomas
M.
(2009 ) The Identity Politics of School Life: Territoriality and the racial subjectivity of teen girls in LA , Children's Geographies , 7 (1 ), 7 –19 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733280802630940
65.
Tisdall
E.K.M.
Punch
S.
(2012 ) Not So ‘New’? Looking Critically at Childhood Studies , Children's Geographies , 10 (3 ), 249 –264 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/14733285.2012.693376
66.
Uprichard
E.
(2008 ) Children as ‘Being and Becomings’: Children, childhood and temporality , Childhood and Society , 22 (4 ), 303 –313 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1099-0860.2007.00110.x
67.
van Deth
J.W.
Abendschön
S.
Vollmar
M.
(2011 ) Children and Politics: An empirical reassessment of early political socialization , Political Psychology , 32 (1 ), 147 –174 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00798.x
68.
Van Krieken
R.
(2010 ) Childhood in Australian Sociology and Society , Current Sociology , 58 (2 ), 232 –249 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1177/0011392109354243
69.
Whitty
G.
Wisby
E.
(2007 ) Whose Voice? An Exploration of the Current Policy Interest in Pupil Involvement in School Decision-Making , International Studies in Sociology of Education , 17 (3 ), 303 –319 . https://dx-doi-org.web.bisu.edu.cn/10.1080/09620210701543957