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Considering the entanglement of materials and objects in children’s lives through a posthuman reading of curricula, this chapter follows on closely from Chap. 5 to investigate children’s relationships with materials and nonhuman objects. Its focus is on how children’s lives are shaped by regulatory documents, and as our first example, we examine Aotearoa New Zealand’s internationally acclaimed early childhood curriculum Te Whāriki. As a national curriculum this document moves away from a developmental approach to adopt a holistic, relational and bicultural focus, that is closely aligned with potential posthuman pedagogies. The chapter illustrates how the curriculum might be read through a posthuman lens, and how such a reading could support pedagogies built on insights into the critical relationships that children have with materials and objects. Two further case studies then illustrate how rules, regulations and policy can shape conceptions of childhood, to postulate what this might look like through a posthuman lens. Throughout, our focus is on children’s intra-relationships with the people, places and things in their lives.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Entangling Childhoods, Materials, Curriculum and Objects. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 143 -164.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Entangling Childhoods, Materials, Curriculum and Objects. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():143-164.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Entangling Childhoods, Materials, Curriculum and Objects." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 143-164.
In this chapter, we examine the new sociological ways of thinking about children and childhoods introduced in critique of the dominant developmental theories in the later part of the twentieth century. The chapter seeks to clarify some of the rethinking of childhoods beyond developmental frameworks and towards the posthuman, new materialist perspectives that are further unpacked throughout the book. Foregrounding the book’s aim, which is not to negate biological or developmental views of childhoods altogether, the chapter seeks to acknowledge the important contributions of prior theoretical perspectives on contemporary views of childhoods in the twenty-first century. Although these paradigms in isolation no longer dominate ways of theorising childhoods, tracings of past views remain visible and have helped to shape the focus of this book. They are an unmissable link in framing new theorisations of childhoods.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Reconfiguring Childhoods and Theories. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 29 -55.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Reconfiguring Childhoods and Theories. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():29-55.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Reconfiguring Childhoods and Theories." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 29-55.
Re-positioning ways in which we see children’s entangled realities with and in the world, this chapter places a posthuman lens on children’s lives and their affective relationships with human and non-human entities and things. Throughout the chapter, we provoke the posthuman thinking which we have built up throughout the book by conceptualising how not only language, discourse and culture matter, but how matter itself matters. We rethink children’s performance of their lives as, and intra-relating with, beings and worlds, using scenarios and theorisations as illustrations of the shifts provoked throughout the book. Exploring various ways for moving beyond the discursive, beyond our linguistic thought, this chapter considers the question of whether or not language has been granted too much power. It offers ways of thinking of children and their childhoods that bypass the dominance of language, which continues to illustrate the strong reliance on social constructivist views. The chapter offers a posthuman performance of social, cultural, humanly inhabited and experienced community, built, natural and human reality, and world.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Performing the Posthuman. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 187 -211.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Performing the Posthuman. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():187-211.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Performing the Posthuman." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 187-211.
Outlining the complex relationship between childhood studies, philosophy and education, this chapter maps the story of the child and childhood, from a non-biological and non-medical perspective tracing philosophical perspectives over time. In the chapter, we interweave conceptions of the child subject with the philosophy and history of education, acknowledging the instrumental and important role these disciplines play and perform in shaping views on the child, childhoods and children’s educational futures. While illustrating how particular historical views on children and childhoods can help us to understand their lives and realities, the chapter foregrounds philosophical and theoretical perspectives. It considers how they are useful foundations to challenge and elevate contemporary understandings of children as subjects, and their relationships with both discursive and material aspects of this world. This chapter serves as a theoretical foundation for the concepts and shifting positions in childhood studies towards a posthuman lens.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. History and Philosophy of Children and Childhoods. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 1 -27.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. History and Philosophy of Children and Childhoods. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():1-27.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "History and Philosophy of Children and Childhoods." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 1-27.
The final chapter of the book outlines some of the potential implications of the posthuman and new materialist framings of this book on researching the child and contemporary childhoods. It explores how using philosophy as a method of inquiry supports engaging with the complications of posthuman research paradigms and offers a range of perspectives on what this may mean. Throughout the chapter philosophical methods of inquiry are interspersed with a mapping of historical and then contemporary conceptions of researching the child, to illustrate some of the shifts from researching on, to researching with and then by the child.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Re-searching with Children in Posthuman Worlds. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 213 -236.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Re-searching with Children in Posthuman Worlds. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():213-236.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Re-searching with Children in Posthuman Worlds." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 213-236.
The glossary outlines some of the ways in which we have used key concepts throughout this book. Its intention is to be a useful guide, and by no means a conclusive or complete representation of the meanings of any of the terms listed. The glossary gives insights into particular meanings as they relate to the topics of this book and to our collective approach to conceptualising children and childhoods through a posthuman and new materialist lens. Where relevant, we allude to contemporary thinkers who inspire us in a particular use of the concepts in the ongoing evolution of our thinking on and treatment of children and childhoods.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Glossary Key Posthuman Childhood Studies Concepts. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 237 -251.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Glossary Key Posthuman Childhood Studies Concepts. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():237-251.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Glossary Key Posthuman Childhood Studies Concepts." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 237-251.
Rethinking constructions of childhoods, and what it means to be a child, this chapter builds on the foundations developed in the first three chapters of the book. While those chapters challenged the rational, naturalising, social, universal or oppositional, binary constructs of childhood and addressed the concept of childhoods as plural, this chapter begins to resituate childhoods in contemporary times. In this chapter, we debate how children share agency as one among many agentic actors in the ecological collective of human and nonhuman worlds. The chapter further introduces and applies the posthuman and new materialist thinking introduced in Chap. 3, through a focus on agency and childhoods in children’s entangled posthuman worlds. This chapter examines the idea of agency, discussed in earlier chapters and expands this in order to explore what agency might look like when it is shared with a range of human and nonhuman entities and beings.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Rethinking Childhoods and Agency. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 81 -101.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Rethinking Childhoods and Agency. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():81-101.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Rethinking Childhoods and Agency." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 81-101.
This chapter focuses on the multiplicities of theoretical thinking and the means for pursuing new ways of being and knowing about children and about childhoods. To do so we utilise theories, think with theories and with contemporary scholarship and conceptual thinking. We recognise the development of thought over the past two decades that has been labelled by different scholars and in various publications as posthumanism, new materialism, new empiricism and other scholarly thought as part of the cartographies of materialism. These theories have emerged and shaped our thinking about the way children learn, grow up and play, as we examine in this chapter. As cartographies of materialism, these theories illustrate how the evolution of our scholarly and childhood study traditions provide a solid basis for an approach that addresses the implications and challenges of living with and beyond the Anthropocene.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Cartographies of Materialism: Thinking with Child(hood) Theories. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 57 -80.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Cartographies of Materialism: Thinking with Child(hood) Theories. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():57-80.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Cartographies of Materialism: Thinking with Child(hood) Theories." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 57-80.
Exploring possibilities and potentialities arising out of the comprehensive, all-encompassing movements of life and matter in and through children’s learning environments is the focus of this chapter. It brings together the theoretical shifts outlined in Chaps. 1, 2 and 3 with the focus on people, places and things in the curriculum from Chap. 6, into the everyday entanglements of children’s learning environments. The idea of place and what it means in terms of children’s learning environments is central to this engagement as we explore through scenarios and possibilities offered by a posthuman conceptualisation. The examination frames hopeful, ethical ways to live in environmentally, economically and politically challenging times, among, with and as species, places and energies. In this chapter, we unpack some of what such intra-relationships might mean and look like, as they are intra-actively and ongoingly created and recreated by humans and other things and forces.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Children’s Worlding of/in Learning Environments. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 165 -186.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Children’s Worlding of/in Learning Environments. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():165-186.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Children’s Worlding of/in Learning Environments." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 165-186.
This chapter explores posthuman pedagogies as relational ontologies in childhoodnature. It situates the reconceptualization of children and childhoods in the Anthropocene, as with nature rather than outside of nature, to present a range of ways to think about humans, and particularly children and their encounters, relations and response-ability with the nonhuman world. The chapter engages with definitions of childhoods and childhood studies as a field to illustrate the blurring of the boundaries between children and nature, to acknowledge that children are nature, that we human/animals are always part of the ecosystem in which we are entangled. This chapter maps out the philosophical and pedagogical notions that underlie these ideas and their implications for a new lens on childhood studies. Using children’s images, texts and relations the chapter illustrates a pedagogical framing of child/nature by children that moves beyond human exceptionalism as a further response to the Anthropocene, and to living childhoods differently in the world.
Karen Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. Posthuman Pedagogies in Childhoodnature. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 103 -142.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marek Tesar, Sonja Arndt. Posthuman Pedagogies in Childhoodnature. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():103-142.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marek Tesar; Sonja Arndt. 2020. "Posthuman Pedagogies in Childhoodnature." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 103-142.
Drawing on a posthuman lens we walk — with Deborah Bird Rose and her conceptual framing of shimmer. We explore shimmering as incorporating a sensorial richness, as beauty and grandeur, as constantly in flux, moving between past, future and back again. Shimmering has potentiality in a posthuman context in its encompassing of spiritual and ancestral energies and illumination of the human (settler) story of exceptionalism. By theorising shimmer with this posthuman lens, we acknowledge and honour the eco-ethico consciousness raised by Australian ecophilosophers and ecofeminists such as Deborah Bird Rose and Val Plumwood, and the social ecologists who have continued to walk with them. In order to disrupt anthropocentricism and present a moral wake-up call that glows from dull to brilliance in these precarious times, we bring to environmental education the potential of holding the shimmering past tracings of theory along with us on our journeys.
Karen Malone; Marianne Logan; Lisa Siegel; Julie Regalado; Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen. Shimmering with Deborah Rose: Posthuman theory-making with feminist ecophilosophers and social ecologists. Australian Journal of Environmental Education 2020, 36, 129 -145.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Marianne Logan, Lisa Siegel, Julie Regalado, Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen. Shimmering with Deborah Rose: Posthuman theory-making with feminist ecophilosophers and social ecologists. Australian Journal of Environmental Education. 2020; 36 (2):129-145.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Marianne Logan; Lisa Siegel; Julie Regalado; Bronwen Wade-Leeuwen. 2020. "Shimmering with Deborah Rose: Posthuman theory-making with feminist ecophilosophers and social ecologists." Australian Journal of Environmental Education 36, no. 2: 129-145.
We were excited to speak with Karen Malone at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference in New York, 2018.
Karen Malone; Claudia Diaz-Diaz; Paulina Semenec. Interview with Karen Malone. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies 2020, 181 -193.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Claudia Diaz-Diaz, Paulina Semenec. Interview with Karen Malone. Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies. 2020; ():181-193.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Claudia Diaz-Diaz; Paulina Semenec. 2020. "Interview with Karen Malone." Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies , no. : 181-193.
The purpose of this chapter is to assemble a theoretical toolkit, a greedy bag of possibilities, that can enable childhoodnature encounters to flourish in the Anthropocene and beyond. In this undertaking, our aim is not to put diverse theoretical perspectives into competition with each other but rather to assemble theories as tools which can produce sparks when knocked together. These are theories that can be packed up and taken for a walk. Theories that can help us to get out of sticky situations. And theories which children themselves can use to address the crises which they will inevitably inherit (and already are). As such, this theory-infused section seeks to put multiple philosophical perspectives into consequential relations such that they can become productive in their directions and differences. In this chapter we take stock of theories that have been productive in the field childhood-nature up to this point, while at the same time seeking new theories, which are emerging in direct response to the contemporary planetary turn.
Karen Malone; Iris Duhn; Marek Tesar. Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories. Springer International Handbooks of Education 2020, 19 -29.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Iris Duhn, Marek Tesar. Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories. Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2020; ():19-29.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Iris Duhn; Marek Tesar. 2020. "Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories." Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 19-29.
There has been much debate about where the boundaries lie that would mark the arrival of the new epoch of the Anthropocene. There have been a number of possibilities proposed: the start of the Industrial revolution in the eighteenth century or the beginning in the mid-twentieth century known as the great acceleration of population, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, plastic production, and the beginning of nuclear age with the first atomic bombs spreading detectable radiation to every stratum of the planet. But for many scholars in the humanities, these arguments are not as relevant as what taking up the premise or challenge of the Anthropocene provides. As an unsettling ontology that disrupts a persistent “humanist” paradigm, the concept of the Anthropocene allows new conversations to happen around human-dominated global change, human exceptionalism, and the nature/culture divide. In this chapter through stories from fieldwork with children in La Paz, I will propose the means for considering the ontological openings of the naming of the Anthropocene for the field of childhoodnature.
Karen Malone. Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated? Springer International Handbooks of Education 2020, 507 -533.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated? Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2020; ():507-533.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2020. "Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated?" Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 507-533.
Weaving my personal narrative with a cartography of the theoretical field of childhoodnature, this chapter is the account of being a scholar working in the field of environmental education and more recently childhoodnature for close to two decades. To do this disruptive work, I am exploring the use of Barad’s (Parallax 20(3): 168–187, 2014), this notion of a “re-turn” in her diffractive theorizing. Spanning a series of theoretical turns from critical theory, ecophilosophy, human geography, social cultural theory, feminist theory, and more recently posthumanist and new materialist theory, this account is embedded in the interdisciplinary fields of childhood studies, children’s geographies, children’s environments, and environmental/nature education. Littered with the intersection of stories of children growing up in a variety of “places” across the globe, the account seeks to acknowledge and trouble the view that childhoodnature does not exist without a philosophical past by tracing its theoretical ghosts.
Karen Malone. Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns. Springer International Handbooks of Education 2020, 57 -86.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns. Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2020; ():57-86.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2020. "Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns." Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 57-86.
Karen Malone. Uneasy assemblages of childearthbodies. Nurturing Nature and the Environment with Young Children 2019, 11 -23.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Uneasy assemblages of childearthbodies. Nurturing Nature and the Environment with Young Children. 2019; ():11-23.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2019. "Uneasy assemblages of childearthbodies." Nurturing Nature and the Environment with Young Children , no. : 11-23.
There has been much debate about where the boundaries lie that would mark the arrival of the new epoch of the Anthropocene. There have been a number of possibilities proposed: the start of the Industrial revolution in the eighteenth century or the beginning in the mid-twentieth century known as the great acceleration of population, carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, plastic production, and the beginning of nuclear age with the first atomic bombs spreading detectable radiation to every stratum of the planet. But for many scholars in the humanities, these arguments are not as relevant as what taking up the premise or challenge of the Anthropocene provides. As an unsettling ontology that disrupts a persistent “humanist” paradigm, the concept of the Anthropocene allows new conversations to happen around human-dominated global change, human exceptionalism, and the nature/culture divide. In this chapter through stories from fieldwork with children in La Paz, I will propose the means for considering the ontological openings of the naming of the Anthropocene for the field of childhoodnature.
Karen Malone. Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated? Springer International Handbooks of Education 2019, 1 -27.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated? Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2019; ():1-27.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2019. "Children in the Anthropocene: How Are They Implicated?" Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 1-27.
Weaving my personal narrative with a cartography of the theoretical field of childhoodnature, this chapter is the account of being a scholar working in the field of environmental education and more recently childhoodnature for close to two decades. To do this disruptive work, I am exploring the use of Barad’s (Parallax 20(3): 168–187, 2014), this notion of a “re-turn” in her diffractive theorizing. Spanning a series of theoretical turns from critical theory, ecophilosophy, human geography, social cultural theory, feminist theory, and more recently posthumanist and new materialist theory, this account is embedded in the interdisciplinary fields of childhood studies, children’s geographies, children’s environments, and environmental/nature education. Littered with the intersection of stories of children growing up in a variety of “places” across the globe, the account seeks to acknowledge and trouble the view that childhoodnature does not exist without a philosophical past by tracing its theoretical ghosts.
Karen Malone. Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns. Springer International Handbooks of Education 2019, 1 -30.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns. Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2019; ():1-30.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2019. "Re-turning Childhoodnature: A Diffractive Account of the Past Tracings of Childhoodnature as a Series of Theoretical Turns." Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 1-30.
Humans are neither exempt from the ecological world nor exceptional to those they are acting with in the world. By acknowledging uneasy ties that bind us to multiple others’ past, present, and in our imagined future, humans no longer have the singularity of being the only acting subject. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s notion of kin and “being worldly with”, Mick Smith’s “posthumanist ecological communities”, and extending Jean Luc-Nancy’s theorizing of “sensing with bodies”, this chapter explores alternatives to dominant humanist environmental education pedagogies. Focusing on multispecies kin, the chapter traces posthumanist ecological narratives enmeshed in uneasy human-nonhuman relations within the everyday lives of animals in cities. This theorizing transcends the transformative potential of environmental education and supports a case for sensing ecologically in pedagogical practice.
Karen Malone. Co-mingling Kin: Exploring Histories of Uneasy Human-Animal Relations as Sites for Ecological Posthumanist Pedagogies. Animals in Environmental Education 2019, 95 -115.
AMA StyleKaren Malone. Co-mingling Kin: Exploring Histories of Uneasy Human-Animal Relations as Sites for Ecological Posthumanist Pedagogies. Animals in Environmental Education. 2019; ():95-115.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone. 2019. "Co-mingling Kin: Exploring Histories of Uneasy Human-Animal Relations as Sites for Ecological Posthumanist Pedagogies." Animals in Environmental Education , no. : 95-115.
The purpose of this chapter is to assemble a theoretical toolkit, a greedy bag of possibilities, that can enable childhood-nature encounters to flourish in the Anthropocene and beyond. In this undertaking, our aim is not to put diverse theoretical perspectives into competition with each other but rather to assemble theories as tools which can produce sparks when knocked together. These are theories that can be packed up and taken for a walk. Theories that can help us to get out of sticky situations. And theories which children themselves can use to address the crises which they will inevitably inherit (and already are). As such, this theory-infused section seeks to put multiple philosophical perspectives into consequential relations such that they can become productive in their directions and differences. In this chapter we take stock of theories that have been productive in the field childhood-nature up to this point, while at the same time seeking new theories, which are emerging in direct response to the contemporary planetary turn.
Karen Malone; Iris Duhn; Marek Tesar. Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories. Springer International Handbooks of Education 2019, 1 -11.
AMA StyleKaren Malone, Iris Duhn, Marek Tesar. Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories. Springer International Handbooks of Education. 2019; ():1-11.
Chicago/Turabian StyleKaren Malone; Iris Duhn; Marek Tesar. 2019. "Greedy Bags of Childhoodnature Theories." Springer International Handbooks of Education , no. : 1-11.