Playful walks: a methodological approach for analysing the embodied citizenship of young people in the countryside

Levy, C (2021) 'Playful walks: a methodological approach for analysing the embodied citizenship of young people in the countryside.' In: Bruselius-Jensen, M, Pitti, I and Tisdall, E.K.M, eds. Young people's participation: revisiting youth and inequalities in Europe. Policy Press, Bristol, pp. 255-274. ISBN 9781447345411

Abstract

The chapter focusses on ways participation and citizenship can be understood differently in young people, to create a new everyday index of citizenship. Using participatory methods, I’m examining the embodied experiences of young people in the rural town of Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK. Urban and rural are figured as cosmopolitan (Amin, 2008; 2012), opposing agricultural and national culture (Williams, 1973); and health damaging (Grinde and Patil, 2009; Velarde, Fry and Tveit, 20017) versus ‘therapeutic’. (Louv, 2012). My research examines the practices of rural young people, to understand how their experience both aligns and is at odds with urban studies. The chapter foregrounds the landscape as spontaneous (De Certeau et al., 1998) with my methods underlining place-making in the rural. Experimenting with multimedia, visual methods engages young people in order to understand participation and everyday citizenship. Exploring the everyday, through the visual and physical foregrounds the ludic, mico-engagements of young people with their localities. (Horton and Kraftl, 2009: 19). By understanding playfulness as subversion (Bakhtin, 1984),(Sutton-Smith, 2009), the chapter foregrounds a way to access forms of participation outside institutional, state activity. To be playful is an approach and reflects how young people are in the world. The chapter focuses on methodological approaches and empirical tales from the field.

Item Type:	Book Chapter or Section
Keywords:	youth, participation, multi-media research methods
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Bath School of Art, Film and Media
Research Centres and Groups:	Centre for Media Research
Date Deposited:	04 May 2021 14:46
Last Modified:	16 May 2022 13:39
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/13998

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