Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Slipping as a Sociospatial Negotiation: Teenagers and Risky Landscapes

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Space, Place, and Environment

Part of the book series: Geographies of Children and Young People ((GCYP,volume 3))

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the circumstances of how and where young black men grow into maturity within a small area of East London. The focus is on how a small, connected group of young black men balanced, understood, experienced, and reacted to the opportunities and threats of competing types of belonging as they grow up. In particular, the chapter focuses on a socio-spatial construction these young men called “slipping.” It describes how they conceptualized and evaded risky places and practices and balanced different scales of belonging while also offsetting encounters with the unknown, fear, and marginalization. “Slipping,” rather than constituting a simple description of their growing maturity, describes the sophisticated ways they negotiated space/place and their own agency at a time of their lives when they were on both sides of the threshold to adulthood. Theoretically, it examines how spatial imaginaries are created and represented. “Slipping” therefore adds to the literatures on street practices and accounts of how young people negotiate risk and fear within the city. It gives a more subtle description of young men’s lives from their perspectives, which illustrates the complexity of belonging, by emphasizing different linkages between space, place, personal history, and identity.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Aanensen, D. M., Huntley, D. M., Feil, E. J., al-Own, F. A., & Spratt, B. G. (2009). EpiCollect: Linking smartphones to web applications for epidemiology, ecology and community data collection. PLoS ONE, 4(9), e6968.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aitken, S. (2013). Global childhoods: Globalization, development and young people. Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, E. (2000). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York: WW Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, M. (Ed.). (2004). Cultural shaping of violence: Victimization, escalation, response. Ashland: Purdue University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Arendt, H. (1970). On violence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid times. Cambridge: Polity. Beck, 2009.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity (Vol. 17). London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (1996). Risk society and the provident state. Risk, Environment and Modernity: Towards a New Ecology, 31, p29–43.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, U. (2009). World at risk. Cambridge: Polity.

    Google Scholar 

  • Backett-Milburn, K., & Harden, J. (2004). How children and their families construct and negotiate risk, safety and danger. Childhood, 11.4, 429–447.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Benwell, M. C. (2009). Challenging minority world privilege: Children’s outdoor mobilities in post‐apartheid South Africa. Mobilities, 4(1), 77–101.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. J. D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bromley, R. D. F., & Stacey, R. J. (2012). Feeling unsafe in urban areas: exploring older children’s geographies of fear. Environment and Planning A, 44.2, 428–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bufacchi, V. (2005). Motivating justice. Contemporary Political Theory, 4.1, 25–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cahill, C. (2000). Street literacy: Urban teenagers’ strategies for negotiating their neighbourhood. Journal of Youth Studies, 3(3), 251–277.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chatterton, P., & Hollands, R. (2003). “Urban nightscapes.” Youth cultures, pleasure spaces and corporate power. Nueva York: Routledge.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Clayman, S., & Skinns, L. (2012). To snitch or not to snitch? An exploratory study of the factors influencing whether young people actively cooperate with the police. Policing and Society, 22.4, 460–480.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crampton, J. W. (2009). Cartography: Maps 2.0. Progress in Human Geography, 33.1, 91–100.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241–1299.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1986). Risk acceptability according to the social sciences (Vol. 11). London: Russell Sage Foundation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (1992). Risk and blame: Essays in cultural history. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, M. (2013). Risk and blame. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, B. (2008). Geographies of youth/young people. Geography Compass, 2(5), 1659–1680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Evans, K., & Furlong, A. (1997). Metaphors of youth transitions: niches, pathways, trajectories or navigations. In J. Bynner, L. Chisholm, & A. Furlong (Eds.), Youth, citizenship and social change in a European context. Ashgate: Aldershot, Hants, England. ISBN 9781859725412.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freeman, C., & Tranter, P. J. (2011). Children and their urban environment: Changing worlds. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furedi, F. (1997). “Culture offear.”Risk-taking and the morality of low expectation. Londres: Cassell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Furlong, A., & Cartmel F. (1997). Risk and uncertainty in the youth transition. Young: The Nordic Journal of Youth Research, 5.1, 3–20.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Furlong, A., Woodman, D., & Wyn, J. (2011). Changing times, changing perspectives: Reconciling ‘transition’ and ‘cultural’ perspectives on youth and young adulthood. Journal of Sociology, 47.4, 355–370.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garfield, G. (2010). Through our eyes: African American men’s experiences of race, gender, and violence. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilchrist, E., et al. (1998). Women and the ‘fear of crime’ challenging the accepted stereotype. British Journal of Criminology, 38(2), 283–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goodey, J. (1997). Boys don’t cry masculinities, fear of crime and fearlessness. British Journal of Criminology, 37(3), 401–418.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gough, K. V. (2008). ‘Moving around’: The social and spatial mobility of youth in Lusaka. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 90.3, 243–255.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunter, A. (2008). Growing up bad: Black youth, ‘on road’ culture and badness in an East London neighbourhood. Crime, Media, Culture, 4(3), 349–366.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gunter, A., & Watt, P. (2009). Grafting, going to college and working on road: Youth transitions and cultures in an East London neighbourhood. Journal of Youth Studies, 12.5, 515–529.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harden, J. (2000). There’s no place like home the public/private distinction in children’s theorizing of risk and safety. Childhood, 7(1), 43–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Her Majesties Inspectorate of Constabulary (2014). Crime recording: A matter of fact. An interim report of the inspection of crime data integrity in police forces in England and Wales, HMSO: London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, S. L., & Valentine, G. (2000). Spatiality and the new social studies of childhood. Sociology, 34.4, 763–783.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holdsworth, C. (2009). ‘Going away to uni’: Mobility, modernity, and independence of English higher education students. Environment and Planning A, 41.8, 1849–1864.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Horschelmann, K., & Van Blerk, L. (2013). Children, youth and the city. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jeffrey, C. (2010). Geographies of children and youth I: eroding maps of life. Progress in Human Geography, 34.4, 496–505.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson‐Hanks, J. (2002). On the limits of life stages in ethnography: Toward a theory of vital conjunctures. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 865–880.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Latham, A., & McCormack, D. P. (2004). Moving cities: Rethinking the materialities of urban geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 28(6), 701–724.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lemos, G. (2004). Fear and fashion. The use of knives and other weapons by young people. London: Bridge House Trust, Lemon & Crane.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mannheim, K. (1970). The Problem of Generations. Psychoanalytic Review 57(3), 378–404

    Google Scholar 

  • May, T. (2011). Social research. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

    Google Scholar 

  • Mythen, G. (2014). Understanding the risk society: Crime, security and justice. Palgrave Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nayak, A. (2003). Race, place and globalization: Youth cultures in a changing world. Bloomsbury Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ness, C. D. (2010). Why girls fight: Female youth violence in the inner city. New York: NYU Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Owen, R., & Sweeting, A. (2007). Hoodie or goodie. The link between violent victimisation and offending in young people: a research report. London: Victim Support, BMRB Social Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (1991). Space, sexual violence and social control: Integrating geographical and feminist analyses of women’s fear of crime. Progress in Human Geography, 15(4), 415–431.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. H. (1995). Elderly women and fear of violent crime: The least likely victims? A reconsideration of the extent and nature of risk. British Journal of Criminology, 35(4), 584–598.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (1997). Whither women’s fear? Perceptions of sexual violence in public and private space. International Review of Victimology, 4(4), 297–312.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (2000). Place, social relations and the fear of crime: A review. Progress in Human Geography, 24(3), 365–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (2003). Youth, age and the representation of fear. Capital & Class, 27(2), 151–171.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (2006). Paranoid parenting? Rematerializing risk and fear for children. Social & Cultural Geography, 7.02, 221–243.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (2008). Whose fear is it anyway? Resisting terror fear and fear. Fear: Critical Geopolitics and Everyday Life, 211.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R., & Townshend, T. (2002). A safer city centre for all? Senses of ‘community safety’ in Newcastle upon Tyne. Geoforum, 33.1, 105–119.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R., Grundy, S., Gill, S., Towner, E., Sparks, G., & Hughes, K. (2005). ‘So Long as I Take my Mobile’: Mobile phones, urban life and geographies of young people’s safety. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 29(4), 814–830.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pain, R. (2009). Globalized fear? Towards an emotional geopolitics. Progress in Human Geography.

    Google Scholar 

  • Parkes, J., & Conolly, A. (2011). Risky positions? Shifting representations of urban youth in the talk of professionals and young people. Children’s Geographies, 9.3-4, 411–423.

    Google Scholar 

  • Percy-Smith, B., & Matthews, H. (2001). Tyrannical spaces: Young people, bullying and urban neighbourhoods. Local Environment, 6(1), 49–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pickard, S. (2014). “‘The Trouble with Young People These Days’: ‘Deviant’ Youth, the Popular Press and Politics in Contemporary Britain.” Labelling the deviant: Othering and exclusion in Britain from past to present. French Journal of British Studies, 19(1), 91–121.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pickering, J., Kintrea, K., & Bannister, J. (2012). Invisible walls and visible youth territoriality among young people in British cities. Urban Studies, 49.5, 945–960.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prout, A., & James, A. (1997). A new paradigm for the sociology of childhood? Provenance, promise and problems. In Constructing and reconstructing childhood: Contemporary issues in the sociological study of childhood (2nd ed.).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ralphs, R., Medina, J., & Aldridge, J. (2009). Who needs enemies with friends like these? The importance of place for young people living in known gang areas. Journal of Youth Studies, 12(5), 483–500.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Randall, P. (2001). Bullying in adulthood: Assessing the bullies and their victims. Psychology Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Seidler, K. (2010). Crime, culture and violence: Understanding how masculinity and identity shapes offending. Bowen Hills: Australian Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shildrick, T., & MacDonald, R. (2006). In defence of subculture: Young people, leisure and social divisions. Journal of Youth Studies, 9.2, 125–140.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shirlow, P., and Pain, R. (2003). The geographies and politics of fear. Capital & Class, 80, 15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Silvestri, A., Oldfield, M., Squires, P., & Grimshaw, R. (2009). Young people, knives and guns. A comprehensive review, analysis and critique of gun and knife crime strategies. Gun and knife crime survey

    Google Scholar 

  • Skelton, T. (2009). Children’s geographies/geographies of children: Play, work, mobilities and migration. Geography Compass, 3, 1430–1448.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skelton, T. (2013). Young people’s urban im/mobilities: Relationality and identity formation. Urban Studies, 50(3), 467–483.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Skelton, T., & Gough, K. V. (2013). Introduction: Young people’s im/mobile urban geographies. Urban Studies, 50.3, 455–466.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stanko, E. A., & Hobdell, K. (1993). Assault on men masculinity and male victimization. British Journal of Criminology, 33(3), 400–415.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, R., Bell, R., Holland, J., Henderson, S., McGrellis, S., & Sharpe, S. (2002). Critical moments: Choice, chance and opportunity in young people’s narratives of transition. Sociology, 36(2), 335–354.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thomson, R., & Taylor, R. (2005). Between cosmopolitanism and the locals Mobility as a resource in the transition to adulthood. Young, 13.4, 327–342.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tucker, F., & Matthews, H. (2001). ‘They don’t like girls hanging around there’: Conflicts over recreational space in rural Northamptonshire. Area, 33.2, 161–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tulloch, J., & Lupton, D. (2003). Risk and everyday life. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, V. (1969). Liminality and communitas. In The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure (pp. 94–130).

    Google Scholar 

  • Turner, V. (1987). Betwixt and between: The liminal period in rites of passage. In Betwixt and between: Patterns of masculine and feminine initiation (pp. 3–19).

    Google Scholar 

  • Valentine, G. (2004). Public space and the culture of childhood. Aldershot: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • van der Burgt, D. (2015). Spatial avoidance or spatial confidence? Young people’s agency in the active negotiation of risk and safety in public space. Children’s Geographies 13(2), 181–195.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valentine, Gill. (2007). Theorizing and researching intersectionality: A challenge for feminist geography*. The Professional Geographer, 59.1, 10–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Gennep, A. (2011). The rites of passage. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vigh, H. (2006). Navigating terrains of war: Youth and soldiering in Guinea-Bissau (Vol. 13). Oxford: Berghahn Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walklate, S. (1995). Gender and crime: An introduction. Hertfordshire: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whelan, M. (2010) Detached youth work. In What is youth work? Batsleer, Janet R., and Bernard Davies, eds. What is youth work?. Exeter: SAGE, p48–68.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whelan, M. (2013). Street violence amongst young men in London: Everyday experiences of masculinity and fear in public space. Dissertation of Brunel University School of Sport and Education PhD Theses.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wood, B. E. (2012). Crafted within liminal spaces: Young people’s everyday politics. Political Geography, 31(6), 337–346.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wulff, H. (1995a). “‘Inter-racial friendship.” Consuming youth styles, ethnicity and teenage femininity in South London’. In V. Amit-Talai & H. Wutff (Eds.), Youth cultures. A cross-cultural perspective. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wulff, H. (1995b). Introducing Youth Culture in Its Own Right: The State of the Art and New Possibilities. Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective (1995): 1–18.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Working with Children, Young People and Family Team, Newman University, B32 3NT, Bartley Green, Birmingham, UK

    Femi Adekunle

Authors
  1. Femi Adekunle
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Femi Adekunle .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Education, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Karen Nairn

  2. School of GEES, University of Birmingham , Birmingham, United Kingdom

    Peter Kraftl

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Crown Copyright

About this entry

Cite this entry

Adekunle, F. (2016). Slipping as a Sociospatial Negotiation: Teenagers and Risky Landscapes. In: Nairn, K., Kraftl, P. (eds) Space, Place, and Environment. Geographies of Children and Young People, vol 3. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-044-5_4

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation