Social Engineers on the Swings: The changing environmental and social landscapes of children's play in British and Canadian parks, 1918-1939

AHRC: Jonathan Winder: AH/L50 3861/1从联合国的国际倡议到学术期刊的特别版，创建儿童友好型城市近年来一直是学术界和公众关注的焦点。尽管如此，在加拿大或英国，专门为儿童设计的公共景观的历史几乎没有专门的研究。乔纳森在英国的研究发现了20世纪初英国和加拿大儿童观念与游乐场技术之间联系的证据。在不列颠哥伦比亚大学（UBC）的实习将为他提供独特的机会来收集档案数据，否则在英国是不可能的。它还将提供来自多个学科的获奖加拿大学者的智力和实践支持，包括环境史、儿童史和景观建筑。他已经与加拿大各地的学者进行了初步的讨论，他很有能力进一步发展这些关系，并探索国际研究合作的机会。这个项目的核心思想是娱乐作为一种社会和政治中介活动，它传达了对社会控制和身份政治的重要历史反思。因此，一个关键的目标将是探索如何创造游戏空间来容纳、控制、培育和滋养，以及当局认为儿童使用这些空间是适当的还是颠覆性的程度。此外，该项目将调查英国和加拿大之间的思想和游乐场技术运动的过程，以及它们如何适应当地的社会和文化背景。使用在线目录进行的初步档案研究表明，加拿大档案中有大量相关材料。该研究项目将对公共和学术话语做出重要的原创贡献，并将有助于解决加拿大和英国面临的社会挑战。揭示游戏空间的历史发展，以及儿童在城市环境中的地位，将为英国和加拿大的国家和国际倡议的工作提供重要的背景。它将对与游戏空间的发展、管理和可持续性相关的学术知识和专业实践做出重要贡献，特别是绿色空间。该项目将通过提供研究能力来收集原始档案数据，并促进对加拿大历史上研究不足的领域的探索，从而使加拿大受益。该项目将通过提高英国研究人员的技能和国际网络使英国受益。它还将通过为参与联合国儿童基金会儿童友好城市倡议的英国和加拿大地方政府的工作以及英国公园行动小组的工作提供重要的背景信息，帮助解决两国面临的紧迫社会挑战。如果这个项目不能继续下去，我们将面临一个巨大的风险，即使我们的城市更加适合儿童的努力将缺乏以可持续、包容和有意义的方式改善城市环境所必需的历史背景。

AHRC : Jonathan Winder : AH/L50 3861/1From international UN initiatives to special editions of academic journals, the creation of child friendly cities has been the focus of both scholarly and public interest in recent years. Despite this, there has been little dedicated research into the history of public landscapes designed specifically for children in either Canada or the UK. Jonathan's research in the UK has identified evidence of early twentieth-century links between British and Canadian notions of childhood and playground technology. A placement at the University of British Columbia (UBC) will provide unique opportunities for him to collect archival data that would otherwise be impossible from the UK. It will also provide intellectual and practical support from award-winning Canadian scholars across a number of disciplines, including environmental history, histories of childhood, and landscape architecture. Having already held preliminary discussions with academics across Canada, he is well placed to develop these relationships further and explore opportunities for international research collaboration.Central to this project is the idea of recreation as a socially and politically mediated activity, one that communicates important historical reflections on social control and identity politics. As such, a key objective will be to explore how play spaces were created to contain, control, nurture and nourish, as well as the extent to which authorities perceived children's use of these spaces to be appropriate or subversive. In addition, the project will investigate the processes that were involved in the movement of ideas and playground technology between the UK and Canada and how they were adapted to local social and cultural contexts. Preliminary archival research using online catalogues has shown that there is a significant amount of relevant material in the Canadian archives.The research project will make an important and original contribution to public and academic discourse and will help to address social challenges facing Canada and the UK. Uncovering the historical development of play spaces, as well as children's place in the urban environment more generally, will provide important context for the work of both national and international initiatives in both the UK and Canada. It will make an important contribution to both academic knowledge and professional practice in relation to the development, management and sustainability of play spaces specifically and green spaces generally. The project will benefit Canada by providing research capacity to undertake original archival data collection and facilitate an exploration of an under-researched area of Canadian history. The project will benefit the UK by improving the skills and international networks of UK-based researchers. It will also help to address pressing social challenges facing both countries by providing important contextual information for the work of British and Canadian local governments involved in the UNICEF's Child Friendly Cities Initiative, as well as the work of the UK's Parks Action Group. If this project does not go ahead, there is a significant risk that efforts to make our cities more child friendly will lack the historical context necessary for improving the urban environment in sustainable, inclusive and meaningful ways.