Suchergebnisse

More than half of the global and around 80 per cent of the Western population grow up in cities. This text provides a vivid picture of children and youth in the city, how they make sense of it and how they appropriate it through their social actions.

AbstractThis paper examines the various mechanisms by which alternative care giving occurs in the context of the AIDS pandemic in southern Africa. High infection rates and the clustering of illness and death among families and communities, has resulted in large numbers of orphans coupled with an extended family support system which is already over‐burdened and in some cases disintegrating. Drawing on a series of case studies from qualitative research carried out with young people, aged between 10 and 17 years, and their guardians in urban and rural communities in Malawi and Lesotho, the changing nature and increasing complexity of family, household and community relationships around care giving are discussed. The concept of inter‐generational contracts as a mechanism through which extended families operate is used to explore the diverse arrangements for the care of young people, and their increased involvement as carers for family and surrogate family members. The paper identifies three ways in which contracts are changing in relation to orphan care. For many there is a reduction in the time frame within which contracts take place, the contracts have become more explicit and there is an emerging inequality in the provision of resources related both to the stigmatisation of orphans and the greater impoverishment of care givers. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

For some decades now, human geography has sought to engage with the narratives of those deemed least powerful in society. This interest in the experiences of those who have traditionally been sidelined from political agendas has been part of move towards an increasingly critical approach to the social sciences, and ultimately as a way of using the academy as a tool for social justice. Researching the experiences of socially, politically and economically marginalised groups of people, is no longer a new endeavour. What is new, however, is the rapidity in the growth of interest of researchers seeking to engage with these populations, and the variety of the toolkit of methods, for research and analysis, available to support this engagement. Whilst this special edition seeks to draw out and explore a variety of novel approaches to research methods and practice, the particularly unique contribution presented by this publication is a candid exploration of the ethical challenges of engaging with populations identified as 'vulnerable' as expressed through the discussion of first-hand fieldwork experience.

Over the past two decades, southern Africa has experienced both exceptionally high AIDS prevalence and recurrent food shortages. International institutions have responded to these challenges by framing them as security concerns that demand urgent intervention. Young people are implicated in both crises and drawn into the securitisation discourse as agents (of risk and protection) and as (potential) victims. However, the concepts of security deployed by global institutions and translated into national policy do not reflect the ways in/security is experienced 'on the ground' as a subjective and embodied orientation to the future. This paper brings work on youth temporalities to bear on social and cultural geographies of in/security and securitisation. It reports on research that explored insecurities among young people in Lesotho and Malawi. It concludes that, by focusing on 'threats' in isolation, and seeking to protect 'society' as an abstract aggregate of people, global securitisation discourses fail either to engage with the complex contextualised ways in which marginalised people experience insecurity or to proffer the political responses that are needed if those felt insecurities are to be addressed. However, while securitisation is problematic, in/security is nonetheless an important element in young people's orientation to the future.

Over the past two decades, southern Africa has experienced both exceptionally high AIDS prevalence and recurrent food shortages. International institutions have responded to these challenges by framing them as security concerns that demand urgent intervention. Young people are implicated in both crises and drawn into the securitisation discourse as agents (of risk and protection) and as (potential) victims. However, the concepts of security deployed by global institutions and translated into national policy do not reflect the ways in/security is experienced 'on the ground' as a subjective and embodied orientation to the future. This paper brings work on youth temporalities to bear on social and cultural geographies of in/security and securitisation. It reports on research that explored insecurities among young people in Lesotho and Malawi. It concludes that, by focusing on 'threats' in isolation, and seeking to protect 'society' as an abstract aggregate of people, global securitisation discourses fail either to engage with the complex contextualised ways in which marginalised people experience insecurity or to proffer the political responses that are needed if those felt insecurities are to be addressed. However, while securitisation is problematic, in/security is nonetheless an important element in young people's orientation to the future.