TY - JOUR
T1 - 'Got my shoes, got my Pokémon': spaces of children's popular culture
AU - Horton, John
PY - 2012/1/1
Y1 - 2012/1/1
N2 - This paper considers a particular popular-cultural phenomenon: ‘Pokémon’. Specifically, it concerns a social–historical juncture – a so-called ‘Pokémania’ – wherein Pokémon toys, games, collectables and merchandising were ‘must-have’ items for many children in South-East Asia, Europe, North America, and Australasia. Drawing upon research with Pokémon fans aged 5–8 in the UK, the paper explores some ways in which global cultural phenomena become intimately, complexly and constitutively co-implicated with/in everyday geographies. In so doing, I argue that the quotidian social and spatial import of Pokémon – and other analogous phenomena – should sensitise accounts of children’s everyday spatial practices to the ever-presence of contemporary popular cultural forms, and sensitise accounts of global popular culture to the importance of multifarious, contingent spatial practices
AB - This paper considers a particular popular-cultural phenomenon: ‘Pokémon’. Specifically, it concerns a social–historical juncture – a so-called ‘Pokémania’ – wherein Pokémon toys, games, collectables and merchandising were ‘must-have’ items for many children in South-East Asia, Europe, North America, and Australasia. Drawing upon research with Pokémon fans aged 5–8 in the UK, the paper explores some ways in which global cultural phenomena become intimately, complexly and constitutively co-implicated with/in everyday geographies. In so doing, I argue that the quotidian social and spatial import of Pokémon – and other analogous phenomena – should sensitise accounts of children’s everyday spatial practices to the ever-presence of contemporary popular cultural forms, and sensitise accounts of global popular culture to the importance of multifarious, contingent spatial practices
U2 - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.07.005
DO - 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.07.005
M3 - Article
SN - 0016-7185
VL - 43
JO - Geoforum
JF - Geoforum
IS - 1
ER -