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Citizens-in-becoming? New spaces of parenting, early childhood and welfare

Sponsored by the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research
Group and proposed for sponsorship by the Social and Cultural Geography
Research Group
RGS-IBG annual conference, London, September 1 - 3 2010

Convenors: Ellie Jupp (Oxford Brookes University) and Phoebe Foy-Phillips
(University of Reading)

It has been recognised that babies, young children and parenting now
occupy new positions within social policy regimes and media discourses
(Lister 2006). This session proposes to explore empirically some of the
spaces which these shifts frame, in which areas of everyday and domestic
life overlap with policy imperatives and media representations. For
example, the UK government is currently developing a ‘Sure Start
Children’s Centre’ in every neighbourhood, providing a range of services
to the under-fives and their families. Described as ‘the new frontier of
the welfare state’ (Whalley 2006), they operate in modes associated with
informal community organising yet also seek to achieve particular policy
goals, as part of current policy imperatives around the ‘co-production’ of
public services (Pemberton and Mason 2008) . Elsewhere, Early Years
education and childcare provision, including that provided by
childminders, must now operate within the structured framework of the
Early Years Foundation Stage (DCSF 2009). At the same time, in
television, print media and online media, parenting practices are
increasingly staged as both entertainment and education, intersecting
uneasily with such government interventions (Gill and Jensen 2008).

This session proposes to bring together research which engages
with the everyday practices and emotional, embodied encounters which make
up these new spaces of parenting and young children. It hopes to develop
nuanced accounts of their everyday geographies and potentialities as well
as ask critical questions about the power of policy and media discourses
and the particular inclusions/exclusions shaped. Papers might tackle one
or more of the following themes:

- New geographies of childcare and parenting, relating to locality or
other kind of community (eg online spaces)

- Critical accounts of policy regimes around early years and parenting

- Engagements with the everyday geographies of particular spaces (eg Sure
Start Centres, childcare providers)

- Critical accounts of media discourses and representations around 
parenting

- The politics and spaces of particular parenting practices and how these
have changed over time (eg practices around feeding and sleeping).

Please send all enquires and completed abstracts to Ellie Jupp
([log in to unmask]) and Phoebe Foy-Phillips
([log in to unmask]) by Friday 12th February 2010. When
submitting your abstract please ensure you include the following
information: name; institutional affiliation and contact email; title
of proposed paper; abstract (no more than 250 words) and any technical
requirements.