*Apologies for cross-posting*
Second Call for Papers
Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers
Las Vegas, March 22-27 2009
Advancing methodology in youth geographies
Catherine Alexander (Durham University), Matt Higgs and Nancy Worth
(University of Leeds)
The emergence of youth geographies (focusing on those aged 16-25) is a
recent and important subfield of geography, interested in exploring the
complex geographies of young people’s everyday lives (Aitken, 2000, Holloway
and Valentine, 2000, Skelton and Valentine, 1998; Wyn and White, 1997).
Over the last decade in particular, there has been rapid growth in a range
of different methodologies; from traditional to visual; from participatory
to those exploring the affective geographies of young people. At the same
time youth geographies have been criticised from both within the
sub-discipline and without for holding uncritical notions about young people
and assumptions about their competency and social agency. Furthermore,
there are concerns that a “lack of vibrant debating culture has prevented
some of these issues from being publicly explored to the extent that they
need to be” (Vanderbeck, 2008).
This session seeks to encourage critical debate on the contributions
geographers can make to research with young people. It aims to foster
analytical discussion from different perspectives and experiences of
research approaches and methods; while engaging with the ‘messiness and
complexities’ involved in all parts of the research process (Law, 2004).
We encourage papers which consider:
- Our situations as researchers and the spaces where we conduct research
- The extent of young people’s agency, and how this interacts with our
responsibilities as researchers
- How methods (should?) adapt and change as the research process develops
- The participatory potential for young people to help shape and create
future methodologies
- The ethics of research with young people and the theoretical vision of the
young person we as researchers (re)construct
- Whether some types of methods work ‘best’ when researching with young people
Please send an abstract of up to 250 words to Catherine Alexander
[log in to unmask], Matt Higgs [log in to unmask], and Nancy
Worth [log in to unmask] by October 10th. Please include your AAG
abstract ID that you will receive when you’ve registered for the conference.
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