Growing up in the ‘Ghetto’: children's ambiguous attachment in racialised communities in Denmark

This article examines the community attachments of children living in stigmatised non-profit housing estates in Denmark. Drawing on childhood studies’ emphasis on children's agency, the analysis explores how children shape their place attachments within urban landscapes. Methods include ethnographic fieldwork in two neighbourhoods, walk-along interviews and photo-elicitation. The findings reveal how architectural, material, and symbolic aspects of a neighbourhood may afford children's pluri-ethnic social relations and attachment practices to a local community, based on acts of care in everyday interactions. While these practices are common, the analysis also explores how the territorial stigma racialises children's social spaces and catalyses differentiations, both internally and beyond their neighbourhood. Thus, the study deepens our understanding of children's ambiguous perceptions of and reactions to growing up in stigmatised communities.