Proximal or peripheral: temporality and spatiality in young people's discourses on gender violence in Sweden

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how young people in Sweden talk about and understand violence, with a particular emphasis on how violence, gender, space and time are co-constructed in this discourse. We found that young people display an ambivalent attitude to violence, reinforcing several contradictory discourses of violence. Young people adopt various understandings that place violence differently in time (ongoing vs. past) and space (distant/absent vs. close/present). They discursively construct the school as a non-violent space while considering digital spaces to be violent. Yet, they still find that violence occurs at different places and times at school. These ‘discursive manoeuvres’ highlight how views on violence that territorialises and re-territorialises places as being ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ is part of the gendered spatial regulation of young people's lives. By specifically analysing time and space in young people's discourse on violence, this article contributes to research on their perspectives on gendered violence.