Between place and territory: Young people's emotional geographies of security and insecurity in Brussels' deprived areas |
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Affiliation: | Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium;Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University, Toronto, Ontario, M3J 1P3, Canada;The University of Melbourne, Australia;Western Sydney University, Australia;Department of Ecological Anthropology, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Na Florenci 1420/3, Praha 1, Praha, 110 00, Czech Republic;The Centre for European Research and the Department of Historical Studies at University of Gothenburg, Box 200, S-405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden;School of Culture, History and Languages, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Acton ACT, 2601, Australia;School of Art, Design and Architecture, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom |
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Abstract: | While much of literature on place attachment describes it as an affective bond between a (young) person and place, with positive psychosocial consequences such as identification, rootedness and belonging, some authors are cautious and stress that an enhanced attachment to place, termed “territoriality”, may have negative consequences such as hostility towards outsiders and a sense of non-belonging elsewhere. In this paper, I ask how we should understand this difference and how the analysis of young people's emotional geographies of (in)security can bring light to this question. The paper finds that emotional geographies of (in)security are instrumental in understanding how a “positive” attachment to place may lead to a “negative” attachment to territory, how some young people emotionally attach to places and some are inclined to claim these places against outsiders (and also at the expense of other members of the community). This explicit appropriation of public spaces in the home neighbourhood is co-constituted by feeling secure inside and insecure outside the area. Territoriality may be a response to or an expression of ontological insecurity and of the inner unease that prompts them to strange avoidance and contorted strategies for manipulating spaces and setting boundaries designed to secure the self. |
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Keywords: | Young people Brussels Place attachment Territoriality (in)security Ontological insecurity Belonging |
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