Naslov
Babies and social space

Autori
Ivković Hodžić, Željka

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
International Scientific and Artistic Conference Rethinking Childhood II: Child and Space

Mjesto i datum
Zadar, Hrvatska, 01.06.2023. - 03.06.2023

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Međunarodna recenzija

Ključne riječi
babies, social space, sociability in early childhood, research with babies, materiality and discursiveness of social space

Sažetak
Although conducting research with children as research subjects has become common in the social sciences in the last couple of decades, research with babies outside the field of developmental psychology is still rare. Research with babies can show us the range of human agency, as well as the limits of what we call human, which entails a series of political, ethical, and religious questions. However, questions of agency, power, culture, interpretation, politics, and rights in research with children still largely exclude babies. The intention of this paper is to build on research that problematizes the above-mentioned questions by analyzing the relationship between babies and the social space through the example of the author's personal experience of pregnancy and the first year of life with a baby. The analysis covered two periods: the time before the baby's arrival when the family was preparing for a new member and the time after the baby's birth filled with intense familiarization of the baby with the environment. The research method combines autobiographical narrative and elements of visual ethnography. The research focus was on four spatiotemporal points: early pregnancy and the space of the female body, late pregnancy and the space of gender roles in the context of buying, borrowing, and giving away children's clothes, the movement of the baby in the space of the family apartment throughout the first year of life, and the movement of the baby 92 in neighborhood space with the help of a stroller and parents, with an emphasis on the coastal urban space and the social capital of the local community. The results of the analysis are in line with similar research into the social space of a baby's life, which show that babies break normative expectations. However, the analysis also shows that the modern social space of babies is shaped and limited by the capitalist form of work, production, and consumption, which manifests itself in the everyday material and social features of the space in which the child moves and grows up. The conclusion of the paper is that although research with babies is epistemologically, ethically, and methodologically challenging, it can provide interesting and intriguing findings about contemporary sociality

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA