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Accepted 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.
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.
Thinking beyond scientism in early childhood education
Session 1 Tuesday 16 July, 2024, -