Ansell, N. (2016). Children, youth and development. London:
Routledge. (Chapter 1: Introduction, pp. 1-10). Accessible through
Brightspace.
Ansell’s Chapter 1 introduces children and youth as pivotal yet
marginalized figures in development studies, particularly in the Global
South, where they comprise a large demographic bulge amid rapid social
and economic changes. She critiques mainstream development discourses
for framing young people either as passive victims needing protection
(e.g. from poverty, conflict, HIV/AIDS) or as human capital investments for
future productivity, which simplifies their complex realities and ignores
their agency in the present.
The chapter advocates a relational, geographical perspective that views
age as socially constructed and intertwined with place, gender, class,
ethnicity, and global inequalities. Ansell emphasizes four principles for
studying youth in development: recognizing diversity among young
people; understanding development as shaped by intergenerational
relations; situating experiences in specific spatial and temporal contexts;
and attending to young people’s active roles in shaping their worlds
through everyday practices like migration, work, education, and activism.
Overall, Ansell calls for research and policy that move beyond top-down
interventions to engage young people’s voices, knowledges, and
contributions, highlighting geography’s unique tools—like spatial analysis
and multi-scalar thinking—for unpacking how global processes (e.g.
neoliberalism, urbanization) intersect with local lives.
Hopkins, P. (2010). Young people, place and identity. (Chapter 1:
Introduction, pp. 1-23).
Hopkins’ Chapter 1 introduces the book’s focus on how young people’s
experiences (typically aged 16–25) are shaped by place and intersecting
social identities, critiquing common misrepresentations and demonisation
of youth in media, policy, and academia. He positions geography as an
interdisciplinary field bridging sociology, social policy, and cultural studies,
arguing that young people’s lives vary across space, time, and identities
like gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, rather than fitting universal
stereotypes. The chapter highlights young people’s ambiguous position
between childhood and adulthood, with greater mobility and independence
than children but ongoing dependencies, complicating transitions amid
social changes like extended education and shifting family structures.
The author unpacks age through three lenses—chronological (legal
markers like voting or driving age), physiological (bodily appearance and
health), and social (stereotyped behaviours, values, and place-use
,expectations)—showing how these intersect to produce ageism and
influence identity negotiation. Identity is framed as relational, involving
ongoing processes of similarity/difference, identification/disidentification,
and management of multiple, sometimes contradictory, facets (e.g. youth
as both vulnerable and rebellious). Hopkins draws on scholars like Jenkins
and Lawler to emphasise that identities are dynamic, context-dependent,
and mutually constitutive with place, rejecting fixed definitions in favour of
fluid, contested understandings.
The chapter outlines conceptual frameworks—lifecourse (dynamic life
paths over predictable stages), intergenerationality (relations across age
groups), and intersectionality (overlapping identities)—to analyse youth
experiences at various scales (home, school, neighbourhood, nation).
Overall, Hopkins calls for nuanced, place-sensitive research that
challenges adult-centric views and amplifies young people’s voices.
Yarwood, R. and Tyrrell, N. (2012). Why children’s geographies?
Geography, 97(3), 123-128.
Yarwood and Tyrrell’s article justifies the emergence and value of
“children’s geographies” as a sub-discipline, arguing that it challenges
adult-centric views in geography by centring children’s (typically under 18)
spatial experiences, agency, and knowledges. They trace its roots to
1990s critiques of children’s absence from mainstream geography, despite
growing work on play, mobility, and place attachment, and highlight its
interdisciplinary links to sociology and cultural studies. The authors
emphasise children as social actors who actively shape spaces—from
homes and schools to streets and virtual worlds—rather than passive
recipients, countering stereotypes of vulnerability or incompetence.
The piece outlines key themes like children’s everyday mobilities,
environmental perceptions, participation in decision-making, and global
inequalities (e.g. child labour in the Global South), showing how children’s
geographies reveal power relations, exclusions, and creative
appropriations of space. Methods such as participatory mapping, photo-
elicitation, and child-led tours are praised for amplifying young voices,
while ethical issues like consent and power imbalances are flagged as
central concerns. Yarwood and Tyrrell stress the sub-discipline’s relevance
to policy (e.g. child-friendly cities) and education, urging geographers to
integrate children’s perspectives into urban planning and teaching.
Overall, the article positions children’s geographies as transformative for
the discipline, fostering more inclusive, relational understandings of space
and place that bridge academic research, school curricula, and real-world
advocacy for children’s rights. It calls for ongoing expansion to include
, diverse childhoods across scales, from local playgrounds to planetary
processes, ensuring geography remains relevant to young lives.
Evans, B. (2008). Geographies of Youth/Young People. Geography
Compass, 2(5), 1659-1680.
Evans’ review article maps the emerging field of “geographies of
youth/young people,” distinguishing it from children’s geographies by
focusing on teens and young adults (roughly 13–25), whose liminal status
between childhood dependence and adult autonomy creates unique
spatial experiences often overlooked in mainstream geography. She
critiques the field’s fuzzy boundaries, noting definitional debates over
chronological, social, and performative age, and highlights how youth are
constructed as “troubled” or consumerist subjects amid moral panics,
extended transitions, and neoliberal pressures like prolonged education
and precarious labour. Key themes include youth mobilities (e.g.
commuting, backpacking), place-making in streets/schools/homes,
embodiment and identity intersections (gender, sexuality, ethnicity), and
resistance through subcultures or activism.
The article surveys empirical advances, such as studies on youth exclusion
from public spaces via surveillance, their creative appropriations (e.g.
skateboarding, graffiti), and global variations like child workers in the
Global South versus leisure-focused youth in the North. Evans praises
participatory methods (e.g. photo-diaries, mental maps) for amplifying
youth voices but flags ethical challenges like power imbalances and
consent in vulnerable groups. She connects youth geographies to broader
debates in cultural, urban, and political geography, arguing that youth
reveal relational age dynamics, intergenerational inequalities, and scalar
processes from body to globe.
Overall, Evans calls for deeper theoretical integration, avoiding
ghettoisation as a niche subfield, and expanding to underrepresented
areas like rural youth, digital spaces, and non-Western contexts to
enhance geography’s relevance for policy (e.g. youth-friendly cities) and
understanding contemporary transitions. The piece positions youth
geographies as vital for challenging adult-centrism and illuminating
agency amid structural constraints.
Holloway, S.L., Holt, L. and Mills, S. (2018). Questions of agency:
Capacity, subjectivity, spatiality and temporality. Progress in
Human Geography, 43(3), 458-477.
Routledge. (Chapter 1: Introduction, pp. 1-10). Accessible through
Brightspace.
Ansell’s Chapter 1 introduces children and youth as pivotal yet
marginalized figures in development studies, particularly in the Global
South, where they comprise a large demographic bulge amid rapid social
and economic changes. She critiques mainstream development discourses
for framing young people either as passive victims needing protection
(e.g. from poverty, conflict, HIV/AIDS) or as human capital investments for
future productivity, which simplifies their complex realities and ignores
their agency in the present.
The chapter advocates a relational, geographical perspective that views
age as socially constructed and intertwined with place, gender, class,
ethnicity, and global inequalities. Ansell emphasizes four principles for
studying youth in development: recognizing diversity among young
people; understanding development as shaped by intergenerational
relations; situating experiences in specific spatial and temporal contexts;
and attending to young people’s active roles in shaping their worlds
through everyday practices like migration, work, education, and activism.
Overall, Ansell calls for research and policy that move beyond top-down
interventions to engage young people’s voices, knowledges, and
contributions, highlighting geography’s unique tools—like spatial analysis
and multi-scalar thinking—for unpacking how global processes (e.g.
neoliberalism, urbanization) intersect with local lives.
Hopkins, P. (2010). Young people, place and identity. (Chapter 1:
Introduction, pp. 1-23).
Hopkins’ Chapter 1 introduces the book’s focus on how young people’s
experiences (typically aged 16–25) are shaped by place and intersecting
social identities, critiquing common misrepresentations and demonisation
of youth in media, policy, and academia. He positions geography as an
interdisciplinary field bridging sociology, social policy, and cultural studies,
arguing that young people’s lives vary across space, time, and identities
like gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, rather than fitting universal
stereotypes. The chapter highlights young people’s ambiguous position
between childhood and adulthood, with greater mobility and independence
than children but ongoing dependencies, complicating transitions amid
social changes like extended education and shifting family structures.
The author unpacks age through three lenses—chronological (legal
markers like voting or driving age), physiological (bodily appearance and
health), and social (stereotyped behaviours, values, and place-use
,expectations)—showing how these intersect to produce ageism and
influence identity negotiation. Identity is framed as relational, involving
ongoing processes of similarity/difference, identification/disidentification,
and management of multiple, sometimes contradictory, facets (e.g. youth
as both vulnerable and rebellious). Hopkins draws on scholars like Jenkins
and Lawler to emphasise that identities are dynamic, context-dependent,
and mutually constitutive with place, rejecting fixed definitions in favour of
fluid, contested understandings.
The chapter outlines conceptual frameworks—lifecourse (dynamic life
paths over predictable stages), intergenerationality (relations across age
groups), and intersectionality (overlapping identities)—to analyse youth
experiences at various scales (home, school, neighbourhood, nation).
Overall, Hopkins calls for nuanced, place-sensitive research that
challenges adult-centric views and amplifies young people’s voices.
Yarwood, R. and Tyrrell, N. (2012). Why children’s geographies?
Geography, 97(3), 123-128.
Yarwood and Tyrrell’s article justifies the emergence and value of
“children’s geographies” as a sub-discipline, arguing that it challenges
adult-centric views in geography by centring children’s (typically under 18)
spatial experiences, agency, and knowledges. They trace its roots to
1990s critiques of children’s absence from mainstream geography, despite
growing work on play, mobility, and place attachment, and highlight its
interdisciplinary links to sociology and cultural studies. The authors
emphasise children as social actors who actively shape spaces—from
homes and schools to streets and virtual worlds—rather than passive
recipients, countering stereotypes of vulnerability or incompetence.
The piece outlines key themes like children’s everyday mobilities,
environmental perceptions, participation in decision-making, and global
inequalities (e.g. child labour in the Global South), showing how children’s
geographies reveal power relations, exclusions, and creative
appropriations of space. Methods such as participatory mapping, photo-
elicitation, and child-led tours are praised for amplifying young voices,
while ethical issues like consent and power imbalances are flagged as
central concerns. Yarwood and Tyrrell stress the sub-discipline’s relevance
to policy (e.g. child-friendly cities) and education, urging geographers to
integrate children’s perspectives into urban planning and teaching.
Overall, the article positions children’s geographies as transformative for
the discipline, fostering more inclusive, relational understandings of space
and place that bridge academic research, school curricula, and real-world
advocacy for children’s rights. It calls for ongoing expansion to include
, diverse childhoods across scales, from local playgrounds to planetary
processes, ensuring geography remains relevant to young lives.
Evans, B. (2008). Geographies of Youth/Young People. Geography
Compass, 2(5), 1659-1680.
Evans’ review article maps the emerging field of “geographies of
youth/young people,” distinguishing it from children’s geographies by
focusing on teens and young adults (roughly 13–25), whose liminal status
between childhood dependence and adult autonomy creates unique
spatial experiences often overlooked in mainstream geography. She
critiques the field’s fuzzy boundaries, noting definitional debates over
chronological, social, and performative age, and highlights how youth are
constructed as “troubled” or consumerist subjects amid moral panics,
extended transitions, and neoliberal pressures like prolonged education
and precarious labour. Key themes include youth mobilities (e.g.
commuting, backpacking), place-making in streets/schools/homes,
embodiment and identity intersections (gender, sexuality, ethnicity), and
resistance through subcultures or activism.
The article surveys empirical advances, such as studies on youth exclusion
from public spaces via surveillance, their creative appropriations (e.g.
skateboarding, graffiti), and global variations like child workers in the
Global South versus leisure-focused youth in the North. Evans praises
participatory methods (e.g. photo-diaries, mental maps) for amplifying
youth voices but flags ethical challenges like power imbalances and
consent in vulnerable groups. She connects youth geographies to broader
debates in cultural, urban, and political geography, arguing that youth
reveal relational age dynamics, intergenerational inequalities, and scalar
processes from body to globe.
Overall, Evans calls for deeper theoretical integration, avoiding
ghettoisation as a niche subfield, and expanding to underrepresented
areas like rural youth, digital spaces, and non-Western contexts to
enhance geography’s relevance for policy (e.g. youth-friendly cities) and
understanding contemporary transitions. The piece positions youth
geographies as vital for challenging adult-centrism and illuminating
agency amid structural constraints.
Holloway, S.L., Holt, L. and Mills, S. (2018). Questions of agency:
Capacity, subjectivity, spatiality and temporality. Progress in
Human Geography, 43(3), 458-477.
