Children, Geography of

Building a Place for Children in Geography

The contemporary origins of geographers' interests in children may be traced to William Bunge's 1960s[Page 36] expeditions in Detroit and Toronto. Focusing specifically on the spatial oppression of children, Bunge argued that young people are the ultimate victims of the political, economic, and social forces that contrive the geographies of the built environment. Starting with observations of working-class children at play in innercity neighborhoods, Bunge's expeditions employed a myriad of quantitative and qualitative, as well as aggregate and individualistic, approaches to the study of spatial structure and interaction without losing sight of the central theme of children's oppression.

Around the same time, geographers and environmental psychologists adopted experimental science and humanistic approaches to explore children's cognitive development and wayfinding as well as their imaginative play and sense of place. Although much of this work lacked the political edge of Bunge's expeditions, it opened up for geographers some of the developmental theories elaborated by Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and others.

During the 1980s, a number of researchers built on this groundbreaking work, making significant contributions that focused, for example, on the effects on children of spatial inequalities in the distribution of health, housing, and educational resources or on how children were positioned in relation to environmental hazards and poverty. Other researchers were drawn to new social studies of childhood that critiqued the notion of childhood as a developmental phase that leaves children as less than adult and suggested instead that children are competent actors in and of themselves. This research joined with feminist and poststructural thinking to rekindle geographic interest in Bunge's commitment to give children a voice in an adult-oriented world.

Children as Competent Geographic Actors

Feminist sensitivity to difference, diversity, and political activism focused discussion on children as competent social and spatial actors rather than as a marginalized social group. Children are considered able to actively resist and subvert adult definitions of their lives. The concepts of competence and agency form the basis of a body of work on the ways in which young people appropriate adult public space and develop ingenious ways of adapting everyday environments to their own uses. Other studies note young people's independence within the virtual geographies of video gaming, e-mail, and the Internet. Still other studies focus on the autonomous spaces of children, their labor, and their contributions to productive activities. Some of this work has raised the issue of children's rights, spatial justice, and the problematic relations between childhood and citizenship.

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