ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how young people accommodate latent-objective and/or manifest-subjective conflicts experienced in their everyday lives into their spatial knowledge. It is claimed that through this internalization, young people manage to spatialize conflicts by way of their spatial perceptions and practices. For example, conflicts emerge from the discrepancy between intended and actual perceptions and uses of spaces. Furthermore, the notions of “place” and “territory,” understood as “spatial figures,” are drawn upon to shed light on spatial conflicts. Existing literature on the interplay between youth, conflict, and space argues that young people's presence and practices are remarkably subject to control and regulation. Particularly in public spaces they are attracted to, young people are positioned as being both “risky” and “at risk”—and thus in need of taming and safeguard. Against this backdrop and based on case studies located in the cities of Berlin and Lima, manners in which the binomial control + regulation is made operative (by adults) and endured (by young people) are identified. All in all, the researched young people are, figuratively speaking, being brought up inside an “imperceptible cage” that visibly territorializes their everyday lives and therewith reproduces the being-risky-and-at risk loop they are ensnared in.
