Doctoral student Sandy Marshall, under the supervision of Professor Anna Secor in the Department of Geography and the University of Kentucky will examine the spaces and spatial practices of refugee children and youth in Palestine. Palestinian children experience the physical and psychological brunt of conflict, as well as a heavy representational burden. These children are symbolized in various ways depending on perspective; they represent the promise of future liberation; a threat to Jewish demographic superiority; innocent victims of violence; and key targets of humanitarian aid and educational intervention. While much is written about the victimization and pathology of Palestinian children in academic and humanitarian communities, little effort has been given to listen to the various voices of children and youth themselves as they articulate the politics of their daily lives. Likewise, while scholarship in the bourgeoning field of children?s geography attempts to understand the spatial perceptions of children, how they affect and are affected by certain spaces, much of this literature remains focused on the local scale of schools and the home, with little consideration given to the significance of these sites within wider, national and global geopolitical imaginings.
This research on Palestinian children's geographies will attempt to address both these oversights by examining the conflicting representations of children in Palestine, how such view points are mobilized to suit geopolitical agendas, and also how these discussions shape and are reshaped by children's experiences and spatial practices in Palestine. This project will contribute to the existing literature on children's geographies by considering the role of geopolitics, which looks at the ways in which geopolitical issues like conflict and security are played out and resisted at the level of everyday life. This project not only examines the lives of children within the context of national resistance and international conflict, but also examines the political world of children themselves, particularly how differences in age and gender affect children's experiences, views and practices. By considering the voices of children in these conflicts, this research contributes to a growing body of research on geographies of children and youth, and helps us to understand the lives of young people in Palestine, thus giving us some insight into the future of conflict in this region.
Between June 2010 and September 2011, I conducted research with six groups of boys and girls aged 11-13, in Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, as part of my NSF-funded research on the lives and spaces of Palestinian refugee children. Using a multi-method approach, this research used discussions, journaling, mental-mapping, drawing, photo-tours, and video to understand how children make sense of the space of the refugee camp. I also conducted interviews with parents, teachers, social workers, and psychologists, while also carrying out participant observation in community centers and schools. This gave me the chance to understand the role that parents, schools, community centers, and NGOs play in reproducing and transforming the spaces and identities of children, and the historic shifts in the experiences of Palestinian childhood that have taken place over the years. One of the main themes that emerged in my research was the issue of gender and mobility. In early adolescence, girls and boys begin a stage of spatial transformation, where boys are suddenly not as welcome in female domestic places, and girls find they are no longer able to play in public areas. With little space in the home and no nearby open playing grounds, boys find that they spend much of their time in the street. While the relative freedom of movement boys enjoy is often a means for seeking fun and adventure, many boys also lament the stress of the streets. The streets, they say, are crowded, noisy, dirty, and violent. Boys feel as though they must constantly defend their neighborhood against outsiders, and negotiate their play spaces with adults. In research sessions, boys often described a longing for quiet, natural outdoor surroundings, or a place in doors to relax and study. Girls on the other hand, complain about the boredom and suffocation they experience due to their confinement in and around the home. Restrictions on girls’ mobility is enforced through a geography of shame produced by familial surveillance and neighborhood gossip networks which regulate which spaces girls should and should not visit. Nevertheless, girls use various spatial tactics to expand their range of mobility. For example, girls will often use their role as mother’s helper to explore outside the home – taking extra time and longer routes when going on chores. Moreover, girls use the spaces that are available to them to maximum advantage. Girls make creative play-spaces out of stoops and rooftops, and take full advantage of their time indoors by studying. Even their leisure time inside, playing on the computer, enhances English language and technology skills. For many girls, they know that education will be their ticket to greater mobility later in life. As parents often explain, new social values and economic realities have created a preference for educating girls. Education in itself has become a highly valued form of social capital amongst Palestinian refugees; a well-educated son or daughter enhances the social standing of the family. In addition, many parents see the practical value in women’s education, citing reasons such as economic independence and personal fulfillment, assisting her family financially, and raising educated children. The difficulty in paying for an education for multiple children means that parents must choose which of their children they will support through university. Often, parents chose to invest in the one most likely to succeed, and in many cases that means the daughter who spends most of her time at home studying. Girls are aware that their parents will allow them to study at university, potentially even study abroad, if they achieve in school – thus, they patiently endure mobility restrictions as children to achieve greater mobility as young adults. Boys, meanwhile, are given greater relative mobility in childhood than girls, but face mobility restrictions as older youth. With few job opportunities and few legal means of traveling or immigrating abroad, many boys have no choice but to work in family jobs and build upon their existent family homes. Humanitarian organizations have produced a wealth of sociological and psychological literature on Palestinian children. However, such research often relies on aggregated statistics or individual case-studies, both of which tend to generalize the experiences of Palestinian children, perpetuating the view that there is a single experience of Palestinian childhood, marked by victimhood, helplessness and trauma. My grounded, ethnographic research complicates this view, showing the restrictions Palestinian boys and girls both face in their daily lives, but also the creative agency they exhibit in negotiating those restrictions. Moreover, this research has contributed to scholarship on children’s geographies by exploring the benefits and limitations of using visual methods to understand children’s environments and the connections between these environments and larger social processes. Finally, this research has contributed to understanding how emotions such as fear, stress, shame and joy, can be important ways of knowing and experiencing the world.
