Mapping Spaces of Participation: Young People and the Negotiation of Identity in the Context of Spatial Regulation

Social psychologists have become increasingly concerned with examining the ways in which social practices are interrelated with their location. Critical perspectives have highlighted the traditional lack of attention given to both the collective aspects of spatial identities, together with the
discursive practices that construct the relationships between people and places (e.g. see Dixon and Durrheim, 2004; Dixon, Levine and McAuley, 2006).

In this paper, we draw together the developing discursive work on place and identity with work on children’s geographies, in order to examine young people’s accounts of their experiences of spatial regulation. Adopting a discursive approach to the analysis of focus group discussion, we illustrate a variety of concerns managed in relation to spatial practices by 41 young people living in large city in the South of England.

Our findings suggest that everyday use of public space by young people is constructed at a nexus of competing concerns around childhood/adulthood, freedom and citizenship, and illustrate the dynamic nature of place as a resource for constructing moral identities.