| |
| Project title |
Young
People Creating Belonging: spaces, sounds and sights |
| Funding details |
Funded by the ESRC |
| Research
team |
Sarah Wilson (Principal
Investigator), ‘EJ’ Elisabeth-Jane Milne (Research
Fellow), Samantha Punch |
| Dates |
February 2011 to
January 2013 |
| Type of project |
Children and young
people, relationships |
| Keywords |
Young people; looked after children;
belonging, not belonging and ambivalence; spatial and sensory
experience; sensory, visual and audial methods |
| Project
description |
The project aims to explore
the notion of belonging in domestic spaces. It will do so in
relation to the experience, and draw on the expertise of, young
people who have spent time in kinship, foster or residential
care. The project will explore the means through which these
young people have established a comfortable sense of belonging
in varied ‘home’ circumstances and spaces over time.
Equally, attention will be paid to experiences of ambivalence
or ‘not belonging’, whether comfortable or not,
in particular domestic environments. These concerns will be
explored in part through sensory experience and the project
will develop and employ innovative, visual and audial qualitative
methodologies in two semi-structured interviews with each participant.
The role of material objects in constructing belonging will
also be explored. The project therefore combines theoretical
sociological interests in the sociology of family and relationships
and of sensory experience with the developing area of sensory
methods. It also draws on social work theory and responds to
current UK policy concerns to incorporate a more relational
approach to social care practice and to improve outcomes for
‘looked after’ children.
Thirty 10-18 year olds who are ‘looked after’ or
supported between the ages of 10-18 will be interviewed. This
will be split equally between those living with their parents
with some form of statutory or voluntary social care support,
those living in foster or kinship care or those living in a
form of residential care (including supported accommodation)
away from their family of origin. The first group would include
young people cared for by their parents or other kin in their
home under a supervision order, a group which includes over
half of Scottish ‘looked after’ children. This sample
reflects ‘belonging’ in different circumstances,
from living at home with support, to ‘home-like’
circumstances (foster care) to early independent living (supported
accommodation). It is important to point out that in this sample,
young people may be looked after for any reason. This is because
the aim is to study successful practices of belonging which
have been incorporated into different households. There will
be a balance between respondents in respect of sex, age, location
(rural-urban) and different lengths of time in each circumstance.
The overlapping elements of the overall objectives summarised
above are:
1a) The exploration of these young people’s understandings
and constructions of belonging and not belonging through family
and ‘family-like’ relationships over time. The project
aims to explore the importance and the construction of ‘family’
in these young people’s notions of belonging or not belonging.
The young people’s constructions of ‘family-like’
relationships with unrelated others wherever located will form
an important aspect.
1b) The exploration of these young people’s constructions
of belonging and not belonging through space. Notions of belonging
to a family are often linked normatively with a place identified
as ‘home’. This project will explore and map the
young people’s sense of feeling at home or not onto different
spaces within the place they live, as well as the links they
make to other spaces. The connections they draw between feeling
at home and the degree of control over their access to and use
of particular spaces will form part of this exploration.
1c) The exploration of the role of material objects in the young
people’s constructions of belonging or not belonging within
a space. The project aims to explore the importance to the young
people of objects in the construction of their sense of self
and relationships and to their sense of feeling at home over
time. This aspect of the research will explore the way their
‘belongings’ and those of others may have reinforced
a sense of belonging or not, and of how ‘belongings’
may be used to reinforce boundaries within a particular space
or represent links to elsewhere.
1d) The exploration of the role of sensory experience in the
young people’s constructions and understandings of belonging
and not belonging through space. The project aims to examine
young people’s comfortable, uncomfortable or ambiguous
sensory experiences of belonging or not belonging in different
home space over time, as well as their own use of sensory experience
to construct and communicate a sense of belonging or not.
2) The exploration of different methods with which to explore
the young people’s sensory, particularly visual and audial,
experience of space. This project aims to contribute to the
developing methodological literature on capturing sensory and
ethereal experience. Reflecting on visual and audial participative
methods and the ethical dimensions of these methods, used singly
and in combination, will form an important aspect of this endeavour.
3) To translate the empirical findings of the project into social
work and other caring practice. The project aims to engage in
a process of knowledge exchange involving practitioners and
service users to translate the knowledge produced into professional
and other caring practice.
The work will be guided by a project advisory group of people
connected with young people who are looked after, including
young people with experience of being looked after, members
of statutory and voluntary sector organisations, social workers
and academic researchers.
|
Publications/
dissemination |
|
| Contact |
Sarah Wilson sarah.wilson@stir.ac.uk
E-J Milne elisabeth.milne@stir.ac.uk
|
|
