Thirteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

This paper introduces a new ‘mapping tool’ developed as part of a 3-year comparative study into spatial and social im/mobilities of young people - involving over 180 young people across 20 fieldwork sites across all four corners of the UK. A key focus of the project was to foreground geography in our understandings of young people’s university transitions and im/mobility intentions, capturing the diverse spatial vantage points from which their choices are oriented. The ‘mapping tool’ involves participants using different colours to express their subjective perceptions and feelings about the geography of the UK (in this case), which is then followed-up by an interview orientated around their map. Their map, like all maps, are visual representations of how these young people cognitively configure space, including the array of identities and resources that exist across it – it is their geography of the UK. Use of this tool in our research elicited rich spatial imaginaries of our participants, and we report here on its particular affordances for allowing a relational construction of social class and ethnic differences to be captured. We draw on interview data to show how the tool helped to reveal how young people came to define their classed and ethnic identities and orientations to mobility in relation to the perceived other. The distinctive characteristics of the tool - including its weak framing of space and place - allowed this relationality to come through in unique and in-depth ways during interviews.