The city of Ghent has a long history of orphan houses, the first one from the 13th century. In this paper we will focus on the last period in the history of the orphan houses, running from World War II until 1984. That year the last Ghent orphan house, Home Prince Filip, permanently closed its doors. This orphan house opened in 1962 and brought the orphan boys and girls together in one building, although there were separate sleeping and eating rooms. Before, the orphan boys and girls always lived in two completely different settings. In this paper the focus is on the years before this ‘joint venture’, as well as on what happened later on.

In this contribution we want to look at all our research sources from a ‘geographer’s point of view’. Besides the methodological considerations (see below) our main research questions are:

(1)     What can each of these different sources teach us about the meaning of being an orphan, and thus about the meaning of being perceived as a ‘child at risk’? By using a ‘spatialised approach’ we want to gain insight in the construction of images of childhood regarding children perceived as at risk, in a certain context. In this case the orphan houses of Ghent after the Second World War. How is specific knowledge about ‘the orphans’ constructed in all these different settings/ in different perspectives?

(2)     Additionally and in order to answer the above research question we want to draw attention to the ‘materialities of schooling’ in our diverse sources. We especially want to concentrate on the connection of objects, routines/rituals and the label orphan. How are these children ‘taught’ to be(come) orphans? And (how) is the typical image of an ‘orphan’ perpetuated?

- Burke, C., Cunningham, P. and Grosvenor, I., Editorial in Special Issue of History of Education Journal, 'Putting Education in its Place: Space, place and materialities in the history of education. History of Education, Volume 39, Number 6, November 2010. P 677-680. - Edited by Lawn, M & Grosnevor, I. Materialities of Schooling: design, technology, objects, routines. Symposiums books. 2005, P 218. - Grosvenor, I. Geographies of risk: an exploration of city childhoods in early twentieth-century Britain, Paedagogica Historica, 2009, P 45. - Livingstone, D. Putting Science in Its Place: Geographies of Scientific Knowledge. University of Chicago Press, 2003, P 244 - Steedman, C. Dust: The Archive and Cultural History. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. xi, 195 pp.