ABSTRACT
One of the most widespread crises in recent history, which profoundly reshaped children’s everyday lives and well-being by temporarily and significantly restricting their social contacts and spatial mobility, was the COVID-19 pandemic. While international studies have examined the subjective well-being of children during the pandemic, little attention has been paid to the spatial dimensions of their perspectives. This article explores the reciprocal relationship between children’s spaces and their subjective well-being in this specific crisis context. The empirical basis consists of photographs taken by fourteen children aged seven to nine (partly in collaboration with their parents) in German cities, which were annotated by them with markers indicating their well-being or discomfort. In the course of the analysis, four key categories were identified, each of which reveals insights into the well-being of children facing social and spatial constraints and affordances during the pandemic: (new) ritualised practices, retreat and recreation, transitions, and (non-)encounters. In the discussion and contextualisation of the findings, additional central concepts in childhood studies also became relevant, such as generational order, vulnerability, and agency. Overall, the study contributes to ongoing debates in childhood research on how crises affect children’s subjective well-being with a spotlight on their everyday spaces and underscores the value of visual methods in capturing their situated perspectives.