Children seem to have been forgotten by cities (urban planners?). This is what the urban philosopher, Thierry Paquot, was led to conclude in 2015, at the end of a series of conferences over three years held in Dunkerque (France) about the place of children in the city. This cycle of conferences ended with an exhibition in the Halle au Sucre of Dunkerque, and the publication of a book, La Ville recreative (2015). In the same year, the on-line revue, Metropolitiques, dedicated an entire issue to children in the city. This issue was edited by two sociologists, Carole Gayet-Viaud and Clément Rivière, and a philosopher of urban spaces and architecture, Philippe Simay. The report is the same: “urban studies have not been interested in children yet”. However, in 1991, the city of Fano, in the centre of Italy, organised a workshop called “The Children’s City” whose work would become a reference for urbanists, associations, councils and children. The experiment was developed and led by a psychologist, Francesco Tonucci.
Research on the material culture of childhood has for a long time been interested in toys, children literature, cartoons and video games, have hitherto not engaged in dialogue with urban studies. On their side, geographers, sociologists, anthropologists, architects and urbanists, inspired by the Children’s Studies, has questioned the place of the Child in the City and its spatial practices. One of the main purposes of this issue would be to bring together scholars working in the social sciences and literary and visual studies. The City would be approached as a built, lived and imagined space, following Heidegger’s speech in Darmstadt, in 1951, Building Living Thinking.
During one year, five workshops have been led about the questions of the Child and the City. Videos of the communications are still on line on the Afreloce website (https://magasindesenfants.hypotheses.org/10013). Four main topics have organised these workshops but they revealed some shadow areas that this call of paper wants to brighten. This publication is not, for us, a simple and unique resumption and publication of the communications mentioned above but rather a supplement of them with papers on subjects which were not or little treated during the 5 workshops and which refer to the child in the city.
Children have been marginalized for a long time in anthropological, sociological and geographic studies. However, as the anthropologist Lawrence A. Hirschfield, underlines, “children are strikingly adept at acquiring adult culture and, less obviously, adept at creating their own cultures” (Hirschfield, 2002). They acquire very quickly and very strikingly the faculty to adapt to the cultures that surround them. Judith Harris, writes in 1998: “A Child’s goal is not to become a successful adult, any more than a prisoner's goal is to become a successful guard. A Child’s goal is to be a successful child… Children are not incompetent members of adult’s society; they are competent members of their own society, which has its own standards and its own culture” (Harris, 1998).
In La Forme d’une ville (The Shape of a City), French writer Julien Gracq expresses how much growing up behind the walls of a boarding school, in the centre of Nantes, had “shaped him, as he writes, that is to say, partly encouraged him, partly forced him to see the imaginary world, that I discovered through my readings, through a distorted reality. […] When access to the city is for so long denied you, it ends up symbolizing freedom itself.”
It seems that during the 70s, a sort of realization is operated by anthropologists, sociologists and psychologists. The City has got rid of the Children from the street, wrote Philippe Ariès in 1979, seeing in the cities of today some “antivilles”. In 1976, the Centre d’Ethnologie sociale et de psychologie publishes a survey, ordered by the Caisse nationale des Allocations familiales and directed by Marie-Josée Chombart de Lauwe : Enfant en-jeu. Les pratiques des enfants durant leurs temps libre en fonction de des types d’environnement et de l’idéologie. The survey is interested by a very new experimentation led in Villeneuve, nearby Grenoble, and the development of adventure playgrounds. Between october 1977 and february 1978, the Centre Georges Pompidou dedicates an exhibition to « La ville & l’enfant ». It gives rise to a catalog directed by Jean-François Grunfeld, expositery comissioner. A very important part of the book regards the history of the Child and the City. An article by Marie-José Chombart de Lauwe questions the place of the Child in the City in the 70s : « la ville et l’enfant : oublié, enjeu ou messager ? » The Child in the City, by Colin Ward, in 1978, is another proof of the interest for the Child. This is the first geohistorical synthsesis about the subject. Colin Ward observes that the City is become a jungle for children, the territorialzation of the urban space by the gangs, the masculinization of public spaces.
However, some people try to find solutions. In 1991, the city of Fan, in the center of Italy, starts to create a laboratory named « La Citta dei Bambini » whose works could be references for urbanists, associations, officials and children. The experiment is initiated and lead by the psychopedagogist, Francesco Tonucci. He is followed by a hendred of cities in the World that receives the label « Child Friendly City ».
The workshops had pointed four directions that can constitute some orientation axes for the papers which will be submitted. But these axes are in no way exclusive axes for treating subjects on children in the city.
Most of the urbanists, architects, educators, counsellors and parents ignore children’s rights (1959). “The overwhelming majority of children are condemned to play in confined spaces called “playgrounds”, sometimes they escape in derelict areas and other wastelands. School yards are generally ugly and unsuitable. The school run is often unsafe and bleak. The place where the child feels happiest is, most of the time, at home, in front of his computer screen or his i-pad. In fact, we could say that he lives in a world he constructs from his dreams and his desires “(Paquot, 2015). How do contemporary architects and urbanists take into account urban children? How is urban space built for children?
Children either live in their daily lives in the city, or when they visit. They have a praxis of the City: they have their own places, their habits. How is the City lived by children? What are children’s practices in urban spaces? Do they change as children grow up? Are these urban practices different in each country in Europe? In the world?
Toys, games, movies, children books evoke the city or often are set in the city. From around 2000 onwards the city has even become a regular subject in children’s picturebooks (Meunier, 2016). This final theme is interested in both the city as told to children and the city as understood by children. Cartoons (Street 2 Rue, Tom-Tom and Nana…), comics (Titeuf, Seuls…), mangas, movies (Divergente…), TV series (13 Reasons Why, Riverdale…) describe cities where children are the heroes. What is the image of the city that these media products project to children? How do children perceive the city through these different media? And what about children themselves, what kind of image do they have of the City? Not just the one they live in but also about the one they would like to live in?
In La Citta dei Bambini, Francesco Tonucci builds in Fano a city in which children can express themselves about the development of their city. Tonucci refers to Riccardo Dalisi’s experiments in Naples or Gordon Matta-Clark’s works in New York. How make children aware of planning policies of their city? What exeprimentations could be generalized? What is the city that children imagine for them ?
Deadline for abstract submissions, sent to strenaee@revues.org, with a short biography and bibliography (2 000 à 3 000 signs, spaces and bibliography included): 14/01/2023
Notification of acceptance: 04/02/2023
Deadline for complete articles (30 000 signs, spaces and notes included): 04/06/2023
Final deadline for revised article: 27/08/2023
Issue online: November 2023
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