TGiving Children the Chance to be
Children:
Giving children a change to be children:
Memory, Identity and Holidays in the
Countryside
Tea Tverin
Department of Geography
Cornwall Campus
London Showcase Event, 23.04.2012, Church House Conference Centre
Outline:
Outline:
* Introducing CHICKS
* Research Aims
* Care
* Memory as an intervention
* Social & Emotional tools
* Conclusions
Country Holidays for Inner City Kids
RESEARCH AIMS
Aim 1. How are happy memories created and sustained, creating
a happy remembered place to return to at times of stress and
anxiety?
Aim 2. What are the immediate and longitudinal effects, which
extend months possibly years beyond the holiday, of these
holidays on these young people?
Aim 3. What is the role of nature in creating a ‘therapeutic’
holiday experience?
CREATING MEMORIES THROUGH CARE (1)
• Increasing number of children and young people in the UK with nonpleasant memories (Lepper, 2012).
• Hampl (1995, in Jones, 2005) “Remembering through the heart”.
• “Body boarding that was amazing. I loved like being on top of the wave
and the supervisor got this amazing picture of me...I was on top of the
wave and he was in front of me and it is an amazing photo cause there is
the wave and then me”.
Personal interview with Ally, 14
CREATING MEMORIES THROUGH CARE (2)
• “Landscaping” (Wylie, 2007)  entanglement of self, other and landscape.
• Constructing autobiography through storytelling (e.g. Leyshon & Bull,
2011).
• High adult to child ratio at CHICKS  concept of care
• Care often top to bottom and impersonal
• Flat ontology of care
“...I expected them kind of to be more like teacher...but they were just
happy and fair and you could get away with doing stuff but not like too
much stupid stuff. I see you like you are really like at our level. Like if
someone would have a problem they wouldn’t really hesitate to go and
speak to one of you. Seeing more like friend rather than a figure of
authority”.
Personal interview with Laura, 15
• Geographies of Love (Harrison, 2007, Wylie, 2009)
MEMORY AS AN INTERVENTION
• Memory and memories play a great role in the process of becoming (e.g.
Lee, 2001, Jones, 2011)
•
Jones (2011)  memory as a trajectory where a host of different affective
states overlap  can one override the other?
• Flat ontology of care and geographies of love can produce pervasive
positive emotional geographies  this can be enhanced through the
concept of fun (Harker, 2005)  forgetting
SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL TOOLS
TT: Feel different at CHICKS than in everyday life?
Jake: Yeah cause you don’t know people but you get used to them and know
what they are doing and everything and you get your confidence up every
day.
TT: What is it about CHICKS that builds your confidence?
Jake: Everybody is welcoming you all the time and making you feel safe.
Everybody is nice to you yeah.
Personal interview with Jake, 13
“People are easy to make laugh...Instead of like always thinking people hate
you, you just join in”.
Personal interview with Dylan, 10
CONCLUSIONS:
Flat ontology
of care
Geographies
of Love
The concept
of fun
Emotional &
Social tool
box
Forgetting
Landscaping
Memory as
an
intervention
Thank you for listening – Any Questions?
• Research presented here was conducted during an ESRC Studentship
under its Capacity Building Clusters Award (RES-187-24-0002) in
partnership with CHICKS-Country Holidays for Inner City Kids
• For more information about this project and the work of the Centre for
Sport, Leisure and Tourism research, see
www.ex.ac.uk/slt/ourresearch/holidaysfordisadvantagedyoungpeople/
• PhD Researcher Tea Tverin, tmt204@exeter.ac.uk, 01326 253707