Space, Marginality, and Youth in Urban Spaces: Pedagogical Practices in the Quartieri Spagnoli

The Quartieri Spagnoli (QS) in Naples represent a central urban area of the city affected by extreme levels of disadvantage. The area is characterized by crime, together with high unemployment and school dropout rates, and virtually no social integration in the wider urban landscape. With the highest population density in the city, the area is low in services and green spaces, and its spatial arrangements are characterized by narrow streets and restricted accessibility. In this chapter, I aim to present an account of children’s lived experiences and self-perceptions of space, power, and violence in an urban space that is facing a process of change due to recent capitalist developments such as deepening deprivation and marginalization in advanced capitalist societies (Wacquant, Urban outcasts: a comparative sociology of advanced marginality. Polity, Cambridge, 2008), and expulsions (Sassen, Expulsions: brutality and complexity in the global economy. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2014). Moreover, I focus on teachers’ perceptions of their role as pedagogical actors in a marginalized urban space.