Marlies Kustatscher

Travelling with intersectionality across time, place and space

This special issue is inspired by the debates generated by our Scottish Universities Insight Institute international seminar series entitled: Children’s Rights, Social Justice and Social Identities in Scotland: Intersections in Research, Policy and Practice (2013–2014). For this special issue we seek to bring together the fields of children’s geographies, childhood and youth studies and key debates about intersectionality, in order to examine children’s complex identities and experiences of social, political and economic inequalities in diverse social-spatial contexts. Although intersectionality is receiving greater attention among childhood/youth studies and geographies scholars, (Alanen 2016; Burman 2013; Gutierrez and Hopkins 2014; Konstantoni et al. 2014) to date, there has not been a serious consideration of the politics and practices of intersectionality in these interdisciplinary fields. This special issue attempts to fill this gap in knowledge. ‘Intersectionality’ refers to the ways in which race, class, gender, age, sexuality, disability and other categories of difference interact and the implications of these interactions for relations of power (Combahee River Collective 1977; Crenshaw 1991; Davis 2008; Hancock 2007; Hill Collins 2000; Hopkins and Pain 2007; Valentine 2007; Yuval-Davis 2011). Intersectional perspectives recognise the heterogeneity of different social groups and examine how particular individuals and groups are both systematically marginalised in different spaces, places and times but also use their positions at the intersections of certain categories as resources for activism and resistance. The concept of intersectionality has become ever more popular across a variety of disciplines and contexts, and there have been a range of debates within feminist political science and sociology which develop and contest its meanings and operationalisations. For instance, Skeggs (2005) argues that debates about intersectionality do not sufficiently attend to class production and political economy. Butler (1990) and Yuval-Davis (2011) have an ongoing discussion about the ontological bases of categories of difference. There is also a longstanding debate about additive versus constitutive intersectionality as seen in the work of Weldon (2006) and Hancock (2007). And of course, there is an enduring Black feminist critique of seeking to apply intersectionality outside the particularities of Black women’s experiences and politics (Alexander-Floyd 2012; Bilge 2013; Hill Collins and Bilge 2016; Jordan-Zachery 2013). Some intersectional approaches have stressed the importance of place and location (Anthias 2012) and have made use of geographical metaphors, conceptualising intersectionality, for example, as a crossroad (Crenshaw 1991) or as axes of difference (Yuval-Davis 2011). The richness of debate about intersectionality demonstrates the complexity of processes of exclusion and inequality. This special issue does not seek to resolve these tensions, but to demonstrate how geographers and other scholars with an interest in children and childhoods might contribute to and advance these debates about the meanings and purposes of intersectionality in relation to children, time, space and place. The contributions of this special issue to the fields of children’s geographies and childhood studies are threefold: First, this special issue brings together parallel debates in childhood studies and children’s geographies in order to illuminate critical understandings of both intersectionality and childhood

The emotional geographies of belonging: children’s intersectional identities in primary school

This article examines the role of emotions for young children’s social identities of ethnicity, race, nationality, class, gender and culture in the context of a Scottish primary school. It argues that emotions contribute to how intersectional identities are performed in children’s peer relationships within the discourses available to them, and that analysing emotions is crucial for understanding how children’s intersectional belongings come to be constructed and politicised. This makes emotions a highly political matter, important for understanding the complexity of intersectionality and for informing childhood policy and practice.

Young children’s social class identities in everyday life at primary school: The importance of naming and challenging complex inequalities:

This article explores young children’s social class identities in the context of a Scottish primary school, highlighting the ambivalent institutional discourses around ‘diversity’ and social class in the school context. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with 5- to 7-year-olds, it shows the emotional and embodied aspects through which social class differences are performed in the children’s intra- and intergenerational interactions, and the implications for the children’s relationships and experiences in school. The study shows that practitioners need to name and address social class differences, in intersection with gender, race and ethnicity, and involve young children themselves in discussions about identities and inequalities.

Children’s Rights to Education – Where is the Weight for Children’s Views?

This paper analyses the views and preferences of children and young people who experience barriers when attempting to engage with schools and schooling. It specifically considers processes of formal and informal exclusion and the manner in which “stigmatised” children are treated within a system where attendance to children’s rights is, at best, sketchy and at worst – downright discriminatory. The paper poses a number of critical questions concerning the extent to which the views of children are given due weight in decision-making processes in schools, whether the background a child comes from affects the way school staff listen to them and whether school rules act as a barrier or enabler for children’s rights. In turn, these questions are related to what educational processes might look like that place due weight on the views of children, what cultures create barriers to listening in practice, and what we can learn from children’s overall experiences. The paper presents findings from a participatory empirical peer research project (funded by a Carnegie Research Incentive Grant and the University of Edinburgh Challenge Investment Fund), conducted with and by young people in schools in Scotland and the north of England. This paper is innovative as it is the product of collaborative working between academics at the University of Edinburgh, staff at Investing in Children and the young researchers who co-authored this article for publication.