Bojana Bogdanović
Abstract: This paper focuses on children’s urban experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically examining how public spaces in the city were used in the first months that followed the lifting of the state of emergency. Declared in the Republic of Serbia on March 15, 2020, it was imposed in response to the outbreak of the infectious respiratory disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The use of public space was observed in the broadest possible sense – as the sum of activities in the „shared” urban space – without a particular focus on some of the key aspects of children’s urban experiences, such as children’s mobility, their spatial autonomy, institutionalization of free time, etc. In this context, the focus of the research is on children’s daily life, specifically their everyday activities in the public space of the city during the period of the so-called „new normal“. Methodologically, the paper relies on the results of field research conducted in September 2024, involving 10 elder school-age children (7th grade), aged 12 and 13, of both genders, living in the urban neighbourhood of New Belgrade (Block 62).
Keywords: children, children’s urban experiences, COVID-19 pandemic, Belgrade
sp. Antropologia_12_2_5.Bojana Bogdanović
