Remote Childhoods

: Exploring What Matters for Children on St Helena Island

Abstract

There are 14 British Overseas Territories with a quarter of a million British citizens dispersed across the world. Each territory has a unique history of development, which can often be seen through textual analysis and the violence of colonialism. Whilst existing knowledge provides a backdrop to understanding the complex governance that exists, there is little research to understand the lives of children and young people on these islands. This matters, because the islanders are British yet are situated far from the mainland, marginalising their voices in research to date. This thesis focuses on the Island of St Helena. This project was completed during four months’ fieldwork on St Helena in 2020/2021 and inevitably was impacted by world events, including the global pandemic, which shaped the research structure and interactions with children and families on St Helena Island, providing unique insights into decision-making in a remote island community. Drawing on the works of Paolo Freire, this project edges towards transformative foundations, drawing on constructivist grounded theory analysis, shaped by children’s participation. The thesis introduced creative methods to explore the emergence of children’s voices in the project through a series of ‘World Café’ events to support conversation about what matters to children and how children learned what was important to them. Through this approach, a situated understanding emerged to explain how children’s future aspirations are realised, alongside what mattered to them in the here and now. This process of discovery evolved as children grew in their awareness as being within or outside of their island context, through a process that is termed within this thesis learning mattering.

Date of Award	7 Feb 2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Winchester
Supervisor	Louise Pagden (Supervisor) & Kerry Ball (Supervisor)