Resilience from the young: Examining slum-based leisure as a form of resilience among slum-dwelling children in the Philippines

Abstract

This work examines how slum-dwelling children negotiate the idea of “leisure” within the materiality of their slum neighbourhood. In contrast to structured leisure spaces for children such as playgrounds, this work explores informal spaces governing children’s leisure in slums. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through conversations with 9–12-year-old children living in a slum in San Jose del Monte City (Philippines), I discuss how children co-create their own narratives of leisure through negotiating what “leisure” means to them. Conversations with children reveal that they create their version of resilience during the pandemic through their leisure activities. The children served as mediators of resilience-through-leisure, which is never static and in constant change within the constellations of their everyday experience. They demonstrate a “continuum of negotiations” of resilience, referring to the way they balance both their optimism and pragmatism to enliven their neighbourhood’s culture such as engaging in bio-culture and leisure activities. The implications are two-fold: First, children in slums are not passive subjects to their social and material environment. Second, children’s narratives of leisure provoke questions on the extent of unheard and unseen leisure among marginalised children. Such observations intersect with the call toward cross-cultural dialogue concerning the activities of marginalised children. This work hopes to continue conversations on how children serve as agents of creativity and leisure amidst their fragile environments and how these might be sustained through further research in the slums of the global South.