Children's and parents' perspectives on risks and safety in three Belgrade neighbourhoods

Abstract

The article examines children's and parents' perspectives on risks and safety in the neighbourhood in the context of Serbian society undergoing turbulent transformation. The evidence for the analysis comes from a small-scale survey with parents and 13-14-year-old schoolchildren and eight group interviews with the children in three Belgrade urban settings. The data show that the main difference between children's and parents' perspective is situated along the axis general risks in broader society vs. particular knowledge of risks and coping strategies embedded in the neighbourhoods. Such difference is related to different social positions of adults and children but is also significantly marked by specific social context. Bearing in mind recent brutalisation of Serbian society, risk anxiety in general is lower than might be expected. Due to weak institutions parents still rely considerably on social safety nets within the neighbourhoods. Their practices are generally more instructive than restrictive, thus implicitly supporting the practices through which children exercise significant agency in using places. Different spatial characteristics of the studied neighbourhoods emerged as an important contextual variable in both children's and parents' perspective on risks. The under-urbanised suburban locations are perceived as more risky, contrary to experience in the West.