BETWEEN SHADOWS AND SCREENS: EXPLORATIONS ON SPACE, FEAR AND CHILDHOOD

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 Covid-19 pandemic led to the transfer of multiple activities to virtual spaces, influencing a spatial restructure, mainly due to the change of public-school spaces to residential spaces. In this sense, children are strongly vulnerable, which causes an impact on their developmental processes, specially in the development of social identity, due to the fact that a mandatory confinement and social isolation measures were taken by governments, and
the access to social space was prohibited. Since this is an essential part for the construction of human identity, it affected them deeply. Besides, this situation occurred in the midst of fearful environments promoted by Media and Government. In this framework, two cases were studied in public schools in urban areas: Puebla (Mexico) and Medellín (Colombia). The research was approached from Thought and Complex Systems point or view, Socio Territorial focus, Social Cartography as a method and tools such as puppets to get in touch with the target population, complemented with semi-structured interviews to family tutors and teachers. Initial findings proved that the lockdown measures put children's identity at risk, because of the increasing social inequalities, the exposure to violence, and the disregardance of their needs. This situation had a big impact on their behavior, and the ways that they used to interact and relate with their peers, which can affect social stability in the future.