Children and young people are at the forefront of the movement to address the environmental crisis through transformative action. At the same time they find themselves locked into a situation of generational disadvantage in terms of their educational and economic opportunities as a result of the pandemic.

The Young Citizen’s Atlas is a participatory mapping project with children and young people currently being developed by Livingmaps to address these issues.

In this webinar members of the Livingmaps team will be in dialogue with other researchers and practitioners who are working on related projects:

Phil Cohen – The Youth Citizens Atlas: towards a critical pedagogy of participatory mapping in the post pandemic city

Phil Cohen introduces a short film which sets out the main issues addressed by the Citizen’s Atlas project and its approach to participatory counter mapping. He discusses why it was decided to focus in on the urban experiences of children and young people and some of the problems and possibilities opened up by the impact of the Covid pandemic on young people’s perceptions of urban futures.

Phil is the co-founder and research director of the Livingmaps Network and an Emeritus Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of East London.. As an urban ethnographer he has worked with children and young people growing up in the East End of London over several generations. Among his many books are Knuckle Sandwich :growing up in the working class city (Penguin 1978), Rethinking the Youth Question:Education,Labour and Cultural Studies (Palgrave 1998) , On the Wrong Side of the Track :East London and the Post Olympics (Lawrence and Wishart 2013). He is a member of the Left of centre think tank Compass and recently published a pamphlet There Must be Some Way of of Here:Mapping the Pandemic from Left Field.

Giade Peterle – Drawing maps: illustrations as mapping practices and educational tools

The presentation explores the narrative use of maps and the integration of drawing as a creative method in educational projects with young people from the double perspective of a geographer-cartoonist. Through a series of creative mapping projects I was involved in as both a geographer and illustrator, I will discuss the integrated use of maps and drawing in educational laboratories with young people of different ages, from the primary to the secondary school. The first example is an illustrated book for children titled La geografia spiegata ai bambini [Geography explained to children] (BeccoGiallo 2021), realised in collaboration with the Museum of Geography of the University of Padua and the Association of Italian Geography Teachers (AIIG), and used an educational tool during didactic laboratories with children to stimulate their cartographic skills and imaginations. The second example, 'In20Amo il Paesaggio' (available at https://in20amoilpaesaggio.it/), was designed to read the European Landscape Convention and celebrate its 20th anniversary and involved over 50 classes of the secondary school in a challenge that led to the realisation of a collective 'Map of the Landscape of Care'. The integrated use of maps and creative drawing techniques helps young citizens in mapping their present and imagining a different future. These projects, thus, function as prolific examples of how and why to integrate verbo-visual methods in the realisation of the Young Citizen's Atlas of London.

Giada is Researcher and Lecturer in Literary Geography at the University of Padua. Working in the emerging field of the geohumanities, her research interests lie in the interconnections between geography, literature, comics, creative mapping and art-based practices. She is the author of the book Comics as a Research Practice: Drawing Narrative Geographies Beyond the Frame (Routledge 2021) and her works have been published in international journals, among which Mobilities, Social & Cultural Geography, and Cultural Geographies. As a comics author she published the children book La geografia spiegata ai bambini (BeccoGiallo 2020) and co-edited with Adriano Cancellieri the comic book anthology on Italian peripheries Quartieri. Viaggio al centro delle periferie italiane (BeccoGiallo 2019)

Joel Seath – Children and lockdown play: observation of the socio-emotional impact of the pandemic on primary school-aged children

This presentation will explore and utilise the key playworker skill of observation, coupled with a deep reflective practice, in an on-going auditing of children’s direct, indirect and metacommunicative interactions as the Covid environment has progressed. Whilst children play for the sake of playing and not for adult agendas, an emotional map can begin to be built if attention is paid to the content and intent of continuing or specific frames of play. Additional artefacts of a more concrete nature, such as children’s drawings, can aid the reflective process. What begins to emerge is a language, in play, that either shouts or whispers, or communicates in any given mode between: we, the adults, can and must be aware of what we are being told; we can and must consider what it is to be a child in the specific localities of our more generalised and difficult modern times.

Joel is a playworker of some thirty years’ standing. He currently provides play and classroom support to primary school-aged children, and has also worked in a variety of play-based environments including adventure playgrounds, after school clubs, playschemes, nurseries, outreach street play, and festivals. Other experience includes work as an Adult Education tutor for playwork course students, NVQ Assessor in Playwork and Early Years, and independent playwork trainer and consultant. He has delivered presentations at playwork conferences and been published in various play and playwork literature and in LivingMaps Review.

Andy Minnion – Sensory Objects and Multi Media Mapping : Learning with The purpleSTARS

Andy Minnion will introduce the work of the RIX Centre at University of East London. RIX is a research centre specialising in the development of software tools and practices with and for people with learning disabilities. RIX has developed the RIX Wiki software and ‘multimedia advocacy’ approach that enables people to gain more choice and control in their lives, identify and communicate what they want and shape the ways they are supported to pursue their aspirations and live the lives that they want to live. (see: www.rixresearchandmedia.org )

The purpleSTARS group emerged from the inclusive community of practice that has grown around the RIX Centre, particularly in partnership with Kate Allen, a sculptor and Associate Professor of Fine Art based at University of Reading. Andy will present material from the Sensory Objects project which led to the formation of the purpleSTARS group. STARS stands for Sensory, Technology and Arts Resource Specialists and the group works with Museums, Arts & Heritage sites to make them more relevant and inclusive for people of all abilities. (see www.purplestars.org )

On the Young Citizens Atlas project the purpleSTARS will be sharing their tools, expertise and insights with those developing the learning resources to help make sure that people with learning difficulties can fully engage with the themes of the project and contribute their ideas and guidance on making the Atlas as inclusive as possible.

Andy Minnion is Professor of Media Advocacy and Director of RIX Research and Media at University of East London, a Centre that takes an inclusive co-production approach to researching applications of digital media for people with intellectual disabilities. His research develops and pilots software, working methods and implementation strategies for the use of the Web and multimedia to promote choice and control for people with disabilities and their families, with education, health and care service providers. Andy was awarded an MBE for ‘Services to the Education of People with Special Needs’ in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2012.

Kelda Lyons – The notion of the child-friendly city and the importance of mapping with marginalised children and young people

This presentation will discuss the notion of the child-friendly city, by giving a brief overview of some key recent UK policy, publications, toolkits and campaigns that promote and offer guidance on creating child-friendly cities. Kelda will also share a more personal and professional view of why she thinks mapping with children is important. Particular attention will be paid to the importance of mapping with, and hearing from children that are often marginalised, such as girls and disabled children. Signposting to relevant literature and campaigns will be shared to help you explore these subjects further.

Kelda works across the fields of children's play and inclusive built environment design and has recently completed a postgraduate diploma in social research methods. Prior to this, she worked in an access auditor role at a London-based architectural inclusive design consultancy. Her working life began as an inclusion playworker, supporting disabled and marginalised children to access mainstream adventure playgrounds. She has done extensive inclusion development and community engagement/consultation work in various playwork and play development jobs in London, UK. Since 2009 she has shared knowledge on children's play and inclusive design through local authority development work, delivering training with school staff, as a Design Council Built Environment Expert, and through consultation, speaking and publishing work.

[ Image courtesy of Kimbal Bumstead ]