Young People, Bedrooms and Materiality

Abstract

As one of the first spaces that many young people can call their own and are able to exert any kind of control over, bedrooms can be important ‘representative’ spaces for them and are representative in a number of different ways. For example, as I argued in the previous chapter, a young person’s use of their bedroom can represent their relationship with other family members within the home and the internal dynamics and politics of the household as well as their relationship with friends, peers and partners. Their bedrooms can represent their perceptions of the public sphere as well as their uses of it and they can also represent other aspects of young people’s everyday lives too, for example, their hobbies and interests, their consumption practices and even their production practices (Kearney, 2007).

The position of identity — and the lifestyle issues and identity politics associated with it — is one that is topologically complex. The space of identity is a heterogeneous, folded, paradoxical and crumpled space in which a distinct singular position is not possible. (Hetherington, 1998, p. 23)

all the stuff I’ve picked myself, even if I haven’t meant it to represent me, it does ’cos I’ve picked everything that’s in it, so it does say something about your character, if you know what I mean? (Charlotte, 18 years old)