'It's their world' - expanding narratives on childhood multispecies secret places beyond romanticizing and risk-avoidant discourses

Abstract

Abstract

Childhood multispecies secret places, whether found in a blanket fort, video game or imagination, entice curiosity as spatial expressions of childhood secrecy. Current thinking on them is dominated by two converging Western narratives: academic discourses, influenced by nostalgia for childhoods past, mourn their supposed decline due to increased supervision and advocate for their contribution to children’s healthy development, while societal narratives focus on minimizing risks to ever-more vulnerable children in the current era of neoliberalist competition, climate change, and other threats, leading to restrictions on children’s spatialities, temporalities, and mobilities reducing their ability to co-create secret places. This article introduces alternative narratives from children's literature and archeological research, broadening these dominant discourses beyond the traditional disciplines of childhood studies and developmental psychology. By examining archaeological sites, classic literature like The Secret Garden, and the modern novel The Barren Grounds, it highlights the relational, multispecies, and Indigenous expressions of childhood secret places. These expanded narratives challenge the too easy inclusion of adult- and anthropocentric interpretations of children’s experiences in childhood studies, advocating for adult researchers’ epistemological humility.