Exclusion and reappropriation: experiences of contemporary enclosure among children in three East Anglian schools

Abstract

Transformations of the landscapes which children inhabit have significant impacts on their lives; yet, due to the limited economic visibility of children’s relationships with place, they have little stake in those transformations. Their experience, therefore, illustrates in an acute way the experience of contemporary enclosure as a mode of subordination. Following fieldwork in three primary schools in South Cambridgeshire, UK, we offer an ethnographic account of children’s experiences of socio-spatial exclusion. Yet, we suggest that such exclusion is by no means an end-point in children’s relationships with place. Challenging assumptions that children are disconnected from nature, we argue that through play and imaginative exploration of their environments, children find ways to rebuild relationships with places from which they find themselves excluded.