Health & Place 62 (2020) 102304 Available online 24 February 2020 1353-8292/© 2020 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Spatial agency as a source of resistance and resilience among Palestinian children living in Dheisheh refugee camp, Palestine Guido Veronese a, * , Cindy Sousa b , Federica Cavazzoni c , Hala Shoman c a University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126, Milano, Italy b Bryn Mawr College, 101 N Merion Ave, PA, 19010, USA c University Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126, Milano, Italy A R T I C L E INFO Keywords: Spatial agency Resilience Children Child development Political violence Political oppression ABSTRACT Research has widely documented the effects of war and political violence on the functioning and well-being of children. Yet, children’s agency in the face of political violence remains underexplored. The present study aimed at exploring the sources of spatial agency that children draw on to counteract the harmful consequences of ongoing exposure to trauma. Based on drawings and walk-along interviews with 29 Palestinian children from Dheisheh refugee camp, we offer an analysis on how children use domestic and social spaces to actively maintain positive function and subjective well-being. Five themes were identifed: the mosque as a place of spiritual resis- tance, the school as a source of happiness and personal improvement, internal spaces as a safe place for growing and developing, community spaces as places where children have fun and play an active role, and inhabiting the outdoor spaces in the camp despite environmental dangers and the Occupation. The study draws attention to spatial activities as forms of embodied resistance through which children promote their subjective well-being and maintain positive functioning. 1. Introduction Despite enduring ongoing, widespread social suffering and severely disrupted living conditions, children living in contexts of systematic violence and political oppression engage in various forms of resistance as they strive to maintain good psychological and emotional functioning (Diab, Palosaari, & Punam€ aki, 2018; Habashi, 2008; Veronese and Castiglioni, 2015; Veronese et al., 2017a, b). In these contexts, chil- dren’s resistance and resilience are closely interwoven, arising from a variety of sources, including education; family unity and closeness; playing and sports; socializing with family and friends; political activism; and religion (Marshall, 2016; Massad et al., 2018; Nutt- man-Shwartz, 2018; Peltonen et al., 2014; Sousa et al., 2013; Veronese et al., 2017a). Children’s active mobilization of resources and skills protects their psychological functioning (Veronese et al., 2018; Gilligan, 2006, 2009). Indeed, this body of literature on children in settings of political violence points to how, as active, socially situated subjects, children in confict settings tend to defy the conventional and static image of child pathology and suffering (Marshall, 2014; Marshall et al., 2017; Rabaia et al., 2014; Veronese and Cavazzoni, 2019; Watson, 2015). (see Fig. 1) A key element to understanding childhood development within these settings is the notion of agency. Scholarly work on childhood agency has uncovered several key components of the concept of agency, including social interaction (James, 2009), competence, self-determination, and practical action (Stoecklin and Fattore, 2018). Yet, while the topic of agency as applied to the study of childhood has garnered increasing attention in recent years (James, 2009; Oswell, 2013), there is much work left to be done. Of particular concern is a lack of attention to the centrality of place as a root of children’s well-being and a primary structurer of children’s realities (Hart, 1979; Jack, 2008). Hence, the aim of our work is to explore and analyze agentic per- formances and sense of place as a continuum between ease and disease in a group of Palestinian children living in occupied Palestine. There- fore, the article will focus on and analyze the concept of spatial agency and its impact on individual and collective well-being of children living in a refugee camp. * Corresponding author. Clinical Psychology, Family Psychotherapist ad Trauma intervention specialist, Department of Human Sciences "R. Massa", University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell’Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126, Milano, Italy. E-mail addresses: guido.veronese@unimib.it (G. Veronese), csousa@brynmawr.edu (C. Sousa), f.cavazzoni1@campus.unimib.it (F. Cavazzoni), halashoman44@ gmail.com (H. Shoman). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Health and Place journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthplace https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2020.102304 Received 19 September 2019; Received in revised form 8 February 2020; Accepted 11 February 2020