Through the city with Walter Benjamin’s miniatures - an analytical approach to children’s mobility

Abstract

In spatially sensitive qualitative childhood research on children’s independent mobility, mobile and visual data collection methods—such as the go-along—are widely used to capture emotions, experiences, and memories related to public spaces or forms of movement. In contrast, less attention has been paid to analysis, which often proves complex due to the heterogeneity and amount of data. Within this paper I explore the potential of an analytical approach grounded in the writing of empirical miniatures, inspired by Walter Benjamin’s prose texts. Drawing on the linguistic and historical specificities of the miniatures in Berlin Childhood around 1900, I trace Benjamin’s conceptualization of childhood and its relevance to current challenges in childhood studies. Using empirical data from New York City, I illustrate how empirical miniatures may enrich qualitative research, both as a methodological step for analysing a phenomenon and as an alternative form for displaying data.
Keywords: Walter Benjamin, miniatures, go along, childhood, mobility research, urban studies

Bibliography: Freutel-Funke, Tabea: Durch die Stadt mit Walter Benjamins Miniaturen – ein Analyseweg zur Annäherung an die Mobilität von Kindern, Diskurs Kindheits- und Jugendforschung / Discourse. Journal of Childhood and Adolescence Research, 3-2025, pp. 307-321.