Rethinking Spatial Socialisation as a Dynamic and Relational Process of Political Becoming

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.