Gill Valentine Research Paper

I decided to do a research and evaluate Gill Valentine because through some quick background check, I was very interested in that she focused her research on culture of the youth and childhood that are influenced by urban societies and environment. To me, it was her interest in the youth and her ambition toward making contributions to younger generation that made me wanted to know more about the goals of all her researches. Through my research on Gill Valentine, I realized that she is a great geographer because she concentrated on the correlation between the people and the urban environment. In many of her research, she argued that woman and children could often fear public spaces due to stranger danger and parent’s restrictions. According …show more content…
Many people do not really focus on these aspects of public space because to most people, public spaces are simply known for communication, activities and interactions. However, to make public more aware and realize the correlation between specific group of people and public spaces, Valentine showed how the concept of risks were built and connected to specific spaces. For example, she used children and children’s parents as an example to explain the problems of younger people feeling lost when they are in public space. She described parents as the cause of this because they “negotiated limitations on their children’s freedom of movement in order to protect them” (Karsten). When they feel contained, children tend to increase their freedom by playing off their parents (Karsten). Through the book “Public space and the culture of childhood, Valentine exposed the consequences of parental restrictions. She believed that parents try to find substitutes for their children playing outside, yet these privatized institutionalized activities are not open to all children to the same extent (Karsten). In addition, many parents, including mine, communicated public space as potentially risk-full, while private space is considered to be safe, …show more content…
The researches itself were a lot more interesting than others because it covered something that was unexpected. For example, I would have never thought deeply about how children might fear public space and how the way parents interacted with their children about public space is corrupted. Valentine also expressed woman as another specific group of people that could fear public space because of violence that male caused and the way male thought of pubic space (Valentine). She brought up examples of chaos caused by male such as death of Deborah Linsley, a woman who was found dead on a train (Valentine). She was brutally stabbed and the case was still unsolved even after 25 years have passed (Valentine). With examples like this, it’s hard to not pause and really think about what Valentine is trying to portray. Situations like these will have influence in the way woman perceive public space. People just do not realize the negative after effect on society because it simply didn’t happened to them. It is true that patriarchy exists because women are treated differently in our society simply because of their gender (Valentine). We cannot blame anyone for women to feel certain way about public space because we are simply not aware of the way they think. I considered research like