Lived citizenship between the sandpit and deportation: Young children’s spaces for agency, play and belonging in collective accommodation for refugees

Abstract

Based on 8 months of ethnographic research, this article focuses on the everyday spatial practices of young children living in collective accommodation for refugees in Berlin. We examine how physical spaces and social relationships are appropriated, affecting the relational agency of children in this restrictive context. Using case study material from three families with limited prospects of permanent residence, we discuss the children’s lived citizenship as enacted – not only symbolically – between the sandpit (as a space for children to act and play as a child) and deportation (as an extreme limit for enacting agency related to refugee status).