Archival fieldwork and children’s geographies

Abstract

This chapter outlines how children’s geographers have used archival fieldwork and engaged with historical material as a research method. The chapter considers several questions: What is an archive? What are the central ways children’s geographers have engaged with archival fieldwork? What are some of the ethical and methodological challenges of archival research? How do wider practices of collection and display represent past childhoods? And what possibilities do digital technologies and social media afford children’s geographers seeking to research the ‘past’? Overall, the chapter uses a number of examples to showcase the potential for diverse archival engagements and encounters that can stimulate current debates in children’s geographies.