Making sense of the dwelling place: A psico-socio-cultural study among

urban children in Amazonia

Maria Inês Gasparetto Higuchi

INPA - National Institute for Research in AmazoniaManaus - Amazonas State - Brazil

The significance of dwelling place

It is a process historically constituted.

Has a distinctive significance for the formation and interpretation of people’s identity.

It compasses a complex system of intertwined physical and social references which are contained in one another.

Place-based origins A formative aspect of social distinction that

embodies existential aspects.

A category central to the understanding of people’s relationships.

Through the materiality of the world that ideas of person and sociality are made manifest.

Dwelling places are aspects of how people situate themselves in relation to others.

General objectives

To analyse how children constitute their ideas of dwelling places over time

To analyse how particular relations have informed children’s ideas of place and how they make sense of it

Why children?

Children are good sources for revealing the developing process of making sense of the world.

Here psychology and anthropology become intertwined disciples to study the principles that govern people’s relationship with the environment.

Methodology A combination of unstructured and semi-

structured tasks:

Children spontaneous comments during field work.Drawing task and comments.

Sampling strategy:

Boys and girls ranging from 5 to 14 years-oldSchool groups (pre-school to fourth grade)Stratified sampling (10% of all 4 school children)

Participants

Age

Sex5+ 6+ 7+ 8+ 9+ 10+ 11+ 12+ 13+ 14+

TOTAL

GIRLS 7 8 6 7 6 7 6 6 6 4 63

BOYS 7 6 9 5 6 8 9 8 4 5 67

TOTAL

14 14 15 12 12 15 15 14 10 9 130

Number of children arranged by age and sex

Geographical position of the field work in Brazilian Amazoniaand in Manaus

Low income settlement (BAIRRO) in the city of Manaus - Capital of Amazonas State - Brazil.Area of 25 hectares formed in the late 1980s. Appropriation by squatting (INVASÃO)Population: + 5,000 inhabitantsImmigrants from inner parts of the State and Northeast of Brazil - most unemployed

Results

Regularity in defining distinct spatial realms for organizing specific social relations.

Developmental sequence of ideas

Different places echoed different degrees of significance for children, whose nature varied according to age and sex

Patterns of spatial organization

The sociality of the house realm

•Encompasses kinspeople and the domestic objects they use and share•Space that is exclusive to the co-residents•Kinship relations through acts of eating, working, helping, resting, etc.•Conveys endurance and protection.

The sociality of the garden/patio realm

•Conveys both interior and outdoor spaces, but not beyond the limits of the site. •Relatively open shared space for other people that do not belong to that private domain.•Allows the integration of siblings and parents to pets and close friends.

The sociality of the street realm

•Extension of spaces for collective use (fusion of privacy and communal domains).•Multipurpose locus of behaviour.•The street mediates a number of relationships along with kinship.•Conveys opposite meanings and involves distinct relationship (good;bad, frequent/rare, intimate/distant, in/out, etc.)

The sociality of the block realm

•Conveys a place of many social and spatial units (houses) forming another big unity (block) of intense interaction across households.•Na space of varying degrees of interaction showing relationships that are close or distant, peaceful or problematic.•Provides a group of relationships that complements those of the house (family) and in many ways legitimates the relationship produced within the limits of the house in the

nearby location.

The sociality of the large neighbourhood realm

•The spatial and social horizon is broadened out to include public space, which are not necessarily frequented by themselves, but which may be resources for the use of other people, co-residents or not. •Conveys a larger scale place where their houses develop vis-à-vis other clusters of houses and institutions.•Represents complementary modes of experiences exercised on a daily basis such as worker, student, churchgoer or player.

Age related variations ofthe developmental sequence

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Gender related variations ofthe developmental sequence

CONCLUDING REMARKS

Children make sense of their dwelling place through elaborations that are not simply cumulative but are constructive in their nature.

Children’s ideas of place show a singular transformation over time that is closely related to the horizon of social reach (relationships they engage).

In the process of making sense of dwelling place the child brings events, people and other non-human beings into a comprehensible relational socio-spatial system. Social life occurs in a diversity of places.

These ideas are clearly age and gender determined (certain places mediate the process by which children come to an understanding of gender and age differences).

The overall pattern that is found in this group of children is not to be taken as universal.