Sarah Mills

Scouting for girls? Gender and the Scout Movement in Britain

This article brings a feminist geopolitics to bear upon an analysis of the Boy Scout Movement in Britain in order to illustrate how an emphasis upon seemingly banal, embodied practices such as dressing, writing and crafting can provide a counter-view to prevailing notions of the elite, organisational ‘scripting’ of individualised, geopolitical identities. Here, these practices undertaken by girls are understood not as subversive, or even transgressive, in the face of broader-scale constructions of the self and the collective body, but rather as related moments in the emergence of a complex, tension-ridden ‘movement’ that exceed specific attempts at fixity along the lines of gender. Using archival data, this article examines various embodied practices by ‘girl scouts’ that were made possible by such attempts at fixity but which also, in turn, opened up new spaces of engagement and negotiation. A cumulative shift from a determinedly masculine to a co-educational organisation over the course of the twentieth century thus reflects complex geographies of gender, national identity and citizenship and offers a historical contribution to the feminist geopolitics literature.

Young ghosts: ethical and methodological issues of historical research in children's geographies

Geographers researching children and young people have often been at the forefront of disciplinary debates in geography surrounding methodological practice and ethical considerations (Matthews et al. 1998, Valentine 1999, Pain 2004, Hemming 2008, Hopkins and Bell 2008, van Blerk and Barker 2008). In this short paper, I want to focus on a less-popular research method used by children’s geographers – archival methods (cf. Gagen 2000, 2001) – and reflect specifically on some of its methodological and ethical challenges. I argue that thinking about historical research can challenge children’s geographers to consider other types of encounter from that of the (embodied) encounter between a researcher and a child (Horton 2008). These different and multiple encounters include those between the (adult) creator of ‘material’ and a young person, a young person (as creator) and their intended audience, and the further encounter between a young person from the past and a present-day researcher during fieldwork. The spatial and temporal deferral in some of these encounters suggests a re-thinking of how we approach and conceptualise research ‘with’ young people. Furthermore, these (dis)embodied encounters can challenge ethical norms in children’s geographies such as consent, confidentiality and positionality in different but overlapping ways. I contend that children’s geographers are well versed in these ethical issues, some of which transfer well into the practice of historical research. For example, issues surrounding children’s ‘voice’ and responsibility are quite similar (as I later discuss), but there is a difference between contemporary and historical research in terms of the media involved (your own tape recordings or someone else’s recorded tapes; fresh participatory artwork or dust-covered diaries) and a different retrieval process (direct embodied research with young people or deferred connections in another building, time and place).

Be Prepared: Communism and the Politics of Scouting in 1950s Britain

This article examines the exposure, and in some cases dismissal, of Boy Scouts who belonged or sympathised with the Young Communist League in Britain during the early 1950s. A focus on the rationale and repercussions of the organisations approach and attitudes towards ‘Red Scouts’ found within their ‘ranks’ extends our understanding of youth movements and their often complex and conflicting ideological foundations. In particular, the post-World War Two period presented significant challenges to these spaces of youth work in terms of broader social and political change in Britain. An analysis of the politics of scouting in relation to Red Scouts questions not only the assertion that British McCarthyism was ‘silent’, but also brings young people firmly into focus as part of a more everyday politics of communism in British society.

Duty to God/my Dharma/Allah/Waheguru: diverse youthful religiosities and the politics and performance of informal worship

This paper draws on a case study of the Scout Movement in the UK to explore the everyday, informal expressions of ‘worship’ by young people that occur outside of ‘designated’ religious spaces and the politics of these performances over time. In analysing the explicit geographies of how young people in UK scouting perform their ‘duty to God’ (or Dharma and so forth), it is argued that a more expanded concept of everyday and embodied worship is needed. This paper also attends to recent calls for more critical historical geographies of religion, drawing on archival data to examine the organisations relationship with religion over time and in doing so contributes new insights into the production of youthful religiosities and re-thinking their designated domains.

Jives, Jeans and Jewishness? Moral Geographies, Atmospheres and the Politics of Mixing at the Jewish Lads' Brigade & Club 1954-1969

This paper examines a series of anxieties about mixing at the Jewish Lads’ Brigade and Club (JLB & C) in Manchester, UK during the 1950s and 1960s, primarily focused on inter-faith activities, relationships and marriages. This paper explores how a powerful moral geography of gender and religion came to be shaped, regulated and negotiated at this youth work space. The concerns expressed by some adults over teenage encounters in the post-war city were articulated and understood through the notion of ‘atmospheres’, and this paper suggests how this idea and language captured some of the anxieties and emotions surrounding cultures of leisure at this time. This paper contributes an in-depth and sustained focus on the moral geographies of the post-war city in relation to young people, as well as addressing an important gap in scholarship on Jewish youthful religiosities. Furthermore, it pushes at ideas about meaningful encounters through the consideration of the JLB & C as a meeting space and arena for visitors. Overall, the paper examines how the JLB & C acted as both a mirror to the wider social changes of the post-war era, while also being an active contributor in shaping those same processes of social change.

Editorial: Geographies of children and young people’s politics, citizenship, and rights

This item is closed access. It is the Introduction to the book Politics, Citizenship and Rights which is volume 7 of the 12 volume series entitled Geographies of Children and Young People.

Feminist Geopolitics: Material States

Contents: Preface What can a feminist geopolitics do? Imagining feminist geopolitics Flesh Bones Abhorrence Touch Inhabiting feminist geopolitics Index.

Cultural geographies of education

This is the guest editorial published in the journal, Cultural Geographies http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1177/1474474015612717

Youth organizations and the reproduction of nationalism in Britain: the role of Urdd Gobaith Cymru

Abstract Youth organizations have long played significant roles in promoting particular forms of nationalism among young people in the UK. To date, however, academic studies of UK youth organizations have been Anglocentric, focusing on youth organizations associated with a hegemonic British state and imperial project. This paper seeks to show how youth organizations have also been used to promote alternative forms of nationalism in the UK, which have sought to challenge a British state and imperial project. Focusing explicitly on Wales, it examines how Urdd Gobaith Cymru – the Welsh League of Youth – has played a significant role over the past 90 years in promoting a Welsh and Welsh-speaking citizenship amongst Welsh youth. Drawing on documentary and archival research, the paper discusses how the organization has fostered particular practices and identities among its members and the way in which these have been challenged in recent years; most notably as a result of a decline in the numbers of Welsh speakers in Wales and changing configurations of the meanings of Welshness. The paper concludes by arguing for the need to take seriously the role played by youth organizations in helping to shape political geographies in a devolved Britain.

Geographies of education, volunteering and the lifecourse: the Woodcraft Folk in Britain (1925–75)

This article extends the current scholarly focus within the geographies of education and the geographies of children, youth and families through an original examination of the Woodcraft Folk – a British youth organization founded in 1925 that aimed to create a world built on equality, friendship and peace. This article illustrates how voluntary uniformed youth organizations had a much wider spatial remit and more complex institutional geographies than have been hitherto acknowledged, with their active involvement in the training of adults (namely parents and volunteers) as well as the education of children and young people. Drawing on archival research and a range of sources, the article explores the Woodcraft Folk’s philosophies and political activities across its first 50 years, and in doing so, makes two central academic contributions to the discipline. First, the article provides a timely focus on training and its analytical purchase for geographers as part of a growing body of work on the geographies of education. Second, the article shows how geographers can account for both children and adults’ geographies in institutional spaces, in this case through mapping out the enlivened historical geographies of voluntarism across the lifecourse. This article demonstrates the complex and often fluid relationship between formal and informal education, as well as the important connections between parenting and volunteering. Overall, the article reflects on the subsequent challenges and opportunities for researchers concerned with debates on education, youth and volunteering within geography and beyond.