Adolescent Dilemmas of Landscape, Place, and Religious Experience in a Suffolk Parish

Abstract

Geographers have traditionally discussed adolescence as an experience of turmoil and anxiety, which is often class and gender-specific. Almost invariably, that analysis has focused on the manifestations and interactions of rebellion, violent conflict, and social disadvantage. In this paper, however, elements of stability and less dramatic activity, as well as themes of change and anxiety within adolescence, are emphasised. The experience of dilemma within adolescence is shown to accommodate a plurality of influences and expressions beyond the relatively narrow experiences of violence and aggression. In order to examine these nuances of adolescent dilemmas, I will pursue a critical discourse analysis of data drawn from an extended programme of indigenous ethnography. The central theme of this analysis will consider the ways in which dilemmas within individual religious experience can inform, and remain informed by, the landscape and place interpretations of ten adolescents living in a Suffolk Parish. These interpretations include references to Christian ecumenical festivals. Consequently, this paper may be of interest to social and cultural geographers, particularly those interested in religio-geographical problems, as well as religious leaders and their lay assistants who arc involved in the instigation and organisation of festivals and similar religious events attended by adolescent people.