L’épaisseur et l’ambivalence des expériences urbaines quotidiennes

Abstract

What children experience in the city continues to elude understanding of everyday life and urban dynamics. After spending time with pupils from a secondary school in Echirolles (France), located in a deprived and stigmatised neighbourhood, this article discusses their everyday urban experiences. They are thought of as thick with three thematic registers: a discourse of situation or positioning in time and space, sensitive attentions and the emotional register, dominated here by fear and anger. The experiences are also ambivalent, combining opposites: child and young, here and far away, discomfort and pleasure, suffering and acting, memory and immediacy. Understanding the thickness and ambivalence of experiences helps to avoid the risk of a homogenous view of urban childhood.

Keywords

• children geography
• urban experiences
• thickness
• ambivalence
• positioning
• sensitive attentions