Abstract
This is a tale of a lilac and a linden tree. It is a tale of how children play with places, and how places play with children. It is a tale about a city that is increasingly hostile towards children’s play, and how children find ways of overcoming the boundaries of their environment. By exploring the relationship to trees, it is brought forward how seemingly trivial ‘things’ in everyday life play an important role in how children construct spaces for play, exploration and calm, as well as find meaning in their everyday life. Through two individual, but also representative, examples of how children relate to trees, it is shown how children engage in active relationships with the trees. Through various embodied narratives, the children express how the trees are agential rather than passive objects. Through the narratives, it is also clear that children actively create physical and mental spaces where they ‘fit in’ when the surrounding environment is too restrictive and controlling.
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Cele, S. (2019). Trees. In: Rautio, P., Stenvall, E. (eds) Social, Material and Political Constructs of Arctic Childhoods. Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3161-9_1
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