IN-PERSON: Prague – Section B

Abstract

Childhood is a fleeting period in the life course, and the experience of being a child changes from generation to generation, and is marked by social inequalities. Playgrounds are complex sites where the political and social constructions of childhood are written into built and natural environments. Playgrounds are relatively new spaces and emerged with the modern conception of childhood and changed as conceptions of childhood shifted. Contemporary urban playgrounds, for example, often reflect a renewed desire to contain and eliminate risk to children by using built equipment that prioritizes safety. Playgrounds also work as a form of surveillance by delineating appropriate public spaces for children and by structuring forms of social interaction. While playgrounds may work to contain and control childhood, children are also agents in the public spaces of play and may resist and reimagine built spaces. Playgrounds also signal the emotional geographies of childhood. They are sites of joy and escape, and mark both the social and physical development of children, and the nostalgic transition out of childhood. The paper asks whether playgrounds have a heritage, and whether such a heritage should or could be preserved. After offering a sociological analysis of the public spaces of childhood and play, the paper examines a case study of a small community playground in Canada. It explores how this playground has changed, largely because of adult design, and examines the themes of belonging, community, place, and play to ask how childhood is remembered in built and natural environments.