Itineraries of mobility and precariousness: children’s experiences and narratives about the housing crisis

Abstract

This article analyses children’s experiences of the economic crisis and the housing insecurity situation in Spain drawing on their narratives. These were gathered through comparative ethnography in two state-led schools located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods in the Barcelona metropolitan region. Interviews with children were conducted by implementing child-oriented visual and participatory techniques. The narratives of these children are marked by their identification with family strategies, thereby highlighting the collective dimension of these processes and acknowledging the actions of the household members. The children reproduce dominant – and adult – ideologies about housing, although they also produce their own representations of what constitutes a “home” and of how they are affected by their housing situation. Finally, the narratives enable identifying links between mobility trajectories at various scales, connecting residential patterns with dynamics within the household.