Mapping Emotions, Building Belonging: How Children with Different Immigration Backgrounds Experience and Picture Their Parisian and Berliner Neighbourhoods
Author(s): O. den Besten
This article is an attempt to explore the sense of belonging of immigrant children living in Paris and Berlin. This research distinguishes between three types of immigration backgrounds: (1) first-generation immigrants, who arrived in Paris and Berlin very recently and attend special "adaptation" or "reception" classes; (2) second-generation immigrants and (3) children from expatriate families. 233 children took part in the study (118 in Paris and 115 in Berlin). Children were asked to draw their way home from school and all the objects that attracted their attention on this way. They were also asked to mark on their map places that they like, and those that they dislike or fear. On the next page of the questionnaire, children were asked to explain why they liked, disliked or feared the places which they had marked on their maps. Verbal explanation proved very useful to understand the exact meaning and function of objects pictured on children's maps. The research shows that both children's experience and representation of their city areas are influenced by a complex interplay of factors: not only by age and gender, which are more often taken into account, but also by the length of time the child has lived in the area, social infrastructure of the area, architectural and urban planning structures, type of school that the child attends and other educational opportunities present, and others. The objects that children encounter in their area reflect children's experience, a certain activity associated with it; they are "anchors" of their belonging to their city area, which for some children is new and yet to be explored. Moreover, they reveal the social structure in the given geographical area, and the opportunities for the children in this area. For example, as we have seen, while children from expatriate or German-American families in the Berliner district of Zehlendorf are engaged in extracurricular activities (including such sports as horse-riding), second-generation children of mostly Turkish origin living in Kreuzberg struggle to find a place to practice an activity that would be of interest to them.