The death and life of urban public spaces: an atmospheric analysis of spatial reclamation by young people

Abstract

Young people play a central role in shaping public spaces, yet in contexts marked by control and surveillance their presence often generates tension. This study examines how young Iranians in Gorgan, aged 18–30, navigate and reshape restrictive urban environments, with a particular focus on the interplay between affect, atmosphere, and infrastructures. Drawing on photovoice, ethnographic observation, online and in-person interviews, we show that Iranian youth reproduce both on and offline counter-atmospheres as short-term tactics for asserting their agency and identity within the socio-spatial constraints imposed by the state, the morality police and conservative cultural forces. Young people also enact resistance through normalising these counter-atmospheres and building solidarity as long-term tactics to engage with and challenge restrictive institutional and social forces. Together, these tactics highlight how young people in Gorgan navigate their spatial and social realities to assert autonomy while simultaneously working to reshape the broader structural conditions of public life. The findings contribute new knowledge to children’s and youth geographies in the Global South by theorising counter-atmospheres as spatial, temporal and affective tactics that generate alternative infrastructures of solidarity and care through which youth reconfigure everyday urban life.

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