ABSTRACT
The chapter aims to introduce the broader conceptual framework that guided the research and thinking presented in the following chapters, while also functioning as an analytical lens to interpret the different studies in the qualitative meta-analysis. In the first part of the chapter, the refiguration of spaces is introduced together with its three sensitizing concepts of mediatization, translocalization, and polycontexturalization. Second, we elaborate on our understanding of the categories of space and spatial knowledge, thereby drawing on a relational conception of space and the German sociology of knowledge. Finally, based on insights from the academic fields of children geographies and new social studies of childhood, we present our notion of childhood and youth as culturally variable social constructions that are shaped by different categories of difference. Furthermore, we discuss the consequences such an understanding of childhood and youth has on the subject of our research: the spatial knowledge of young people.
