You could quite easily walk past a cage and not even notice it. For many people in inner-city London, though, the cage – or "their" cage – is a place drenched in meaning and significance.
Sometimes referred to as ball courts, pens, or Multi-Use Games Areas (MUGAs), cages often consist of nothing more than a concrete surface, fencing, and a couple of goals and basketball hoops. They are among the most rudimentary structures to be found in any city, and yet the social life of a cage is a complex thing. For different people, the cage may evoke memories of fun, friendship, and laughter, or of fear, danger, and intimidation.
I've sought to become an expert on the cages in my home borough, Hackney, in north-east London, where I've been a youth worker for the past ten years. Through a series of projects, I’ve spoken with children and young adults, parents, youth workers, and sports coaches about the role cages play in the social life of the local neighbourhood.
Thinking about social infrastructure ‘from the cage’ can help illuminate important considerations about why, how, and for whom particular parts of the city become significant sites for sociality. In a recent academic publication co-authored with Fraser Curry and Stephen Crossley, I make two main points about cages which I think have relevance for all forms of social infrastructure.
The value of social infrastructure can only be understood in relation to local context
Firstly, the role of cages can only be understood with reference to the complexities of the local context: you can't get very far in grasping their value to young people if you don't consider the local area's characteristics, strengths, tensions, and inequalities. In some cases, young people have made clear to me that the cage on their estate has particular significance for them because of their experiences elsewhere in the local area, in which they feel unfairly prejudged by adults, treated as a nuisance or inconvenience, and over-policed, for instance. Quite often they also feel that school constrains their freedoms of expression, association, play and friendship. The cage, by contrast, is a place in which they feel they belong, in which they can be exuberant and expressive – a place they can be themselves, with their friends. In the cage, they are free.
Apparent here is a striking paradox at the heart of what these spaces represent for young people. Playing in a cage, they are by definition caged – hemmed in by metal fencing. Particularly when considered alongside the historical neglect and stigmatisation of the social housing estates on which cages are often sited, this could be seen as a kind of containment, constricting young people within a designated area, signifying their exclusion from the wider public realm. Indeed, the increased proliferation of MUGA facilities in the early twenty-first century has been associated with a desire to see young people in some public spaces and not in others. However, from the perspective of young people I’ve spoken to and worked with, this encaging is – paradoxically – an enabler of freedom: it allows lively unconstrained play, facilitates a sense of spatial ownership, and provides a canvas for collective creativity. The cage is a piece of the city that is theirs: a space in which they can have greater autonomy and agency than perhaps anywhere else.
For some, then, the cage is a place of mutually affirmed safety and freedom, insulated from the harms and difficulties they experience elsewhere. At the other extreme, it can also be a dangerous place, in which the area’s social problems are all too apparent. It might be the site of harm, violence or exploitation. The issues that Hackney has with territorialism, “martial masculinity”, and (semi-)organised criminal activity can intrude upon the cage.
Though I’m always eager to emphasise the valuable role that cages can play in young people’s lives, I’m not naive to these more negative experiences. No cage is simply a site of safety or of danger for all; of universal freedom or constraint. The cage can be an ambiguous and ambivalent space, and – as with all social infrastructure – the question has to be asked: for whom is this a beneficial site of sociality?
All social infrastructure is contested
This brings me to the second key point: understanding the role of the cage means exploring the ways in which it is contested. No social infrastructure – no place, arguably – is wholly uncontested. Individuals and groups lay claim to particular places at different times for specific reasons. The pub, the community centre, the youth club, the library, the park, the bench, the alleyway: they are all subject to claims to usage or ownership made by different people. One person or group can purchase their access to or ownership of a space at the expense of others. In places that are free to use, subtler forms of contestation may occur: one person’s belonging can be another person’s exclusion; one person’s playful exuberance can be viewed as intimidating obnoxiousness by another. These processes are, of course, affected deeply by social differences and inequalities of all kinds.
We can aspire for all social infrastructure to be sites of multicultural conviviality, equity, and mutual care, but that always requires thought and work. Who is and isn’t here, and why? Who feels safe and welcome here, and who feels alienated, excluded, or threatened? For whom should this place be curated? For whom does this place provide forms of safety, security, fun and freedom that they do not or cannot experience elsewhere?
Contested cages
Cages can be fruitful case studies for considering the ways in which social infrastructure can be contested. I have witnessed moments when they have played host to a wide variety of activities simultaneously: a bike lesson in one corner, a family picnic in another, and a casual kickabout at the other end. As with any social infrastructure, though, there can be friction between contesting users and uses.
Different forms of power can be mobilised to claim the cage for different purposes. Developers and councils can view cages as sites ripe for redevelopment. Even on densely populated estates, without any other play spaces, cages can be demolished to make way for “in-fill” development. Developers use their political influence and financial power to override local residents who may wish to retain their cage. Councils use their agenda-setting power to claim that cages are “underused” facilities, and thereby justify their demolition.
On a more everyday level, different cage users mobilise different kinds of claim to the space. Some cages can be rented – a group of users claim the cage through a financial transaction. There can then be tension with local residents: particularly when these cages are situated near or within large housing estates, local people can contest the right of paying customers to claim the cage. Purchasing power faces off against a sense of local ownership. Other forms of tension can arise in cages which are freely accessible all hours: between people of different ages or people who want to use them for different things. “First come, first served” can be the informal rule, or you may have to earn the right to join in, through sufficient skill and confidence.
The cage, then, can be a kind of concrete collective garden or living room.
Cages can have especial significance for particular demographic, social and cultural groups. In my experience, Hackney’s cages are often enjoyed by children of all backgrounds at primary school age, but once adolescence kicks in, they tend to be most frequented by young men from working-class, Black and Global Majority backgrounds, using the cage to play football or basketball, or to more casually hang out. In some cases, these are young people whose homes are overcrowded, and they are very unlikely to have access to any private outdoor space. The cage, then, can be a kind of concrete collective garden or living room. Young people I’ve spoken to have contrasted the homeliness, comfort, and solidarity they encounter in the cage when compared to their experiences of structural racism elsewhere in the city, or within educational settings. As Hackney goes through rapid gentrification, places which they feel are “theirs” can be vanishingly few, and so the cage is a precious place. Tyrell Williams’ recent stage play Red Pitch portrays this brilliantly: the pitch is an oasis of belonging for three Black boys who are watching their neighbourhood change beyond recognition.
Enhancing the inclusiveness of cages
The challenge with cages, as with all social infrastructure, is to ensure they are sites of inclusive belonging, safety, and sociality. In particular, cages are not always sufficiently hospitable places for girls and women. The campaign group Make Space for Girls has rightly emphasised the inadequate provision of play space for girls in our cities, and the need for greater consideration of girls and women in our public realm more broadly. Play spaces – as with roads, pavements, and arguably whole cities – are too often designed with non-disabled males in mind. Every neighbourhood should have a varied ecosystem of play facilities, aimed at different age groups and demographics. And curation is key: though there is great value in cages being freely accessible most of the time, the provision of structured sessions on cages can aid their inclusiveness substantially. In Hackney, for instance, local charities and sports groups run a range of different activities on cages aimed at appealing to a maximal diversity of local young people, including girls-only sessions and provision for disabled young people. Cages aren’t only for team sports – they can be places for roller-skating, archery, or dance, for instance.
The coaches and youth workers running these sessions can become hugely significant figures in the lives of local young people, too: trusted and relatable adults who they see regularly, helping them to develop new talents and interests, to feel safe in their local area, to make new friends, and, ultimately, to affirm their belief that the city is for them, too.
As I continue to work alongside others to enhance the benefits of Hackney’s cages for all local residents, I remain convinced that how we perceive and treat our cages can say a lot about what and who we value in our borough. If we give them the depth of consideration that they deserve, we can learn a lot from our cages about what life is like for young people: about how and where they experience safety and harm, exclusion and belonging, and about how we can better support them to flourish.
Luke Billingham is a youth and community worker for Hackney Quest, an independent youth charity, and a Research Associate at the Open University. His academic publications have focused on young people’s safety and wellbeing, educational exclusion, and social infrastructure.
