Paper short abstract:

This proposal explores how intra-actions of young humans and non-humans in educational settings come into being. Using a relational map to analyse an empirical example, this new materialist perspective challenges human-centred notions as well as ethnographic research and writing methodologies.

Paper long abstract:

New materialist perspectives are slowly broadening the spectrum of how young humans in educational settings are being researched (a.o. Taylor 2013; Murris 2016; Taylor/Pacini-Ketchabaw 2019). In my paper, I want to take a closer look at processes of intra-action (Barad 2007) between young humans and more-than-humans. These intra-actions, I argue, call for diverse, entangled, inclusive and complex understandings of early childhood (Hamilton/Taylor 2017: 112) and require in-depth analysis.

By unfolding multiple intricacies of an empirical ethnographic example from a kindergarten into a relational map, I slow down and pay attention to emerging relationships between humans and non-humans. In conclusion, I will summarize how this perspective challenges my own entrenched thought patterns by the paradox of focusing more on young humans – a neglected focus in STS – while at the same time decentring them theoretically and analytically (Pacini-Ketchabaw/Taylor/Blaise 2016).

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.

Hamilton, L., & Taylor, N. (2017). Ethnography after humanism: Power, politics and method in multi-species research. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53933-5

Murris, K. (2016). The Posthuman Child. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315718002

Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., Taylor, A., Blaise, M. (2016). Decentring the Human in Multispecies Ethnographies. In: Taylor, C.A., Hughes, C. (eds.): Posthuman Research Practices in Education. Palgrave Macmillan UK, 149–167. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137453082_10

Taylor, A. (2013). Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203582046

Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2019). The common worlds of children and animals. Relational ethics for entangled lives. Routledge.