Researching Children’s Popular Culture: The Cultural Spaces of Childhood

Setting a fantastical yet critical tone for their book, Claudia Mitchell and Jacqueline Reid-Walsh frame the typical relationship between researchers and their child subjects as a fairy tale.In their portrayal, the researchers gallop in on strong steeds to rescue the innocent children who are victims of popular culture.They employ the dramatic nature of the genre to problematize the notion that children are in need of such salvation.Ironically, the authors themselves proceed by conducting a similar, albeit less problematic, rescue mission as they embark on a quest to obliterate traditional, homogenized concepts of passive childhood and save popular culture from the academic trash heap.While this secondary intention underscores their writing, Mitchell & Reid-Walsh's primary interest is in the adaptation and development of methodologies for the study of children's popular culture, a site they believe is an entry point into the study of childhood itself.Through their focus, the authors move beyond writing a standard methodology guide, becoming advocates, storytellers, and at times research subjects in the process.Although the topics of both childhood and popular culture are expansive, Mitchell & Reid-Walsh narrow the field of study by approaching the subject matter from various conceptions of space.They employ the concept physically and metaphorically, framing each chapter by a particular space: political, memory, visual, physical, virtual, and historical.Each space/chapter not only covers different objects of study (movies, toys, bedrooms, et cetera), but different methodologies and bodies of literature as well.Some sections cover expected fare, such as Fiske's work on active viewers of popular culture and Buckingham's "situated audience."The authors also incorporate a wide variety of at times unexpected bodies of work, including research on bedroom culture, art installations, and memory work.Mitchell and Reid-Walsh contextualize their work in chapter 1, "Political Spaces."They consider the various investments of those who study children's popular culture (toy manufacturers, toy collectors, and researchers often studying their own children), reflect on the issues that arise regarding the adult/child research dynamic, and map out children's popular culture as a space of resistance that is often overlooked.In doing so, they establish the marginalized state of their subject matter and make a case for incorporating children as experts of their popular culture.In addition, they problematize the personal nature of such work, focusing on the inclination to react emotionally rather than analytically to work on children and popular culture.After exposing this problem, Mitchell & Reid-Walsh suggest methodologies for incorporating personal experiences and memories into this work, while maintaining a more analytical approach.Chapter 2, "Memory Spaces," shifts the emphasis from the memory itself to questions of how things are remembered and why it is that these are the moments recalled.Providing a protocol for this kind of memory work, the authors stipulate that while adult memory work is a useful supplement in studying children's popular culture, it should not supplant children's voices, once again establishing child experts as integral to this work.The authors hit their stride in chapters 3 and 4, finding the right balance of literature review, methodological development, and case study.Chapter 3, "Visual Spaces," focuses on methods for accessing children's insights into their popular culture.Noting the visual nature of these objects, the authors recommend incorporating visual tools into their study, namely photographs and videos.Based on similar work by Wendy Ewald and Kamina Walton, among others, on documenting the experience of children and other marginalized groups, Mitchell & Reid-Walsh argue that by asking a child to visually document themselves, their toys, and their bedrooms, researchers can gain access to children's spaces and perspectives.

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