Theorising Posthuman Childhood Studies (Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives and Materialist Theories)

This book is a genealogical foregrounding and performance of conceptions of children and their childhoods over time. We acknowledge that children's lives are embedded in worlds both inside and outside of structured schooling or institutional settings, and that this relationality informs how we think about what it means to be a child living and experiencing childhood. The book maps the field by taking up a cross-disciplinary, genealogical niche to offer both an introduction to theoretical underpinnings of emerging theories and concepts, and to provide hands-on examples of how they might play out. This book positions children and their everyday lived childhoods in the Anthropocene and focuses on the interface of children's being in the everyday spaces and places of contemporary communities and societies. In particular this book examines how the shift towards posthuman and new materialist perspectives continues to challenge dominant developmental, social constructivist and structuralist theoretical approaches in diverse ways, to help us to understand contemporary constructions of childhoods. It recognises that while such dominant approaches have long been shown to limit the complexity of what it means to be a child living in the contemporary world, the traditions of many Eurocentric theories have not addressed the diversity of children's lives in the majority of countries or in the Global South. "This is an incredibly well-written, thoughtful, scholarly and timely book. The first few chapters offer a genealogy of 'how we got to posthuman theorizing in childhood studies', with the latter offering more empirically-informed accounts of what those studies could and should look like with a very welcome series of nuanced and important reflections on methods, ethics and, as the authors put it, 'performing' posthuman childhood studies. The book also offers an important analysis of how an attention to the posthuman could be entangled with critical questions of social difference." - Peter Kraftl, University of Birmingham, UK Posthuman Childhood Studies: An Introduction Aims and Intentions Book Overview Contents 1 History and Philosophy of Children and Childhoods Children and Childhoods The Evil, Rational and Free Child Philosophy of Childhoods Histories of Childhood Education Classical and Early Modern Philosophies of Childhoods Dewey and Childhood Analytic Philosophy of Education, Radical Tradition and Childhoods Postmodernism and Poststructuralism in Philosophy of Childhood Philosophy of Childhood in Action Biopolitics and the Governing of Childhoods Toy Story 3: Childhood and Imagination Towards the Posthuman Child References 2 Reconfiguring Childhoods and Theories Child as not Fully Human Child Bodies Under Scientific Scrutiny Children as Social Beings Limiting Views of Childhoods Disrupting the Dominant Framework with the New Sociology of Childhoods Postdevelopmental Challenges of Childhoods Postdevelopmental Theories as a Plurality of Childhoods Viewing Children and Childhoods Differently Children as Ontologically Complete Social Constructivist Theories of Childhoods Challenging Ideas on Structures and Agency Reconfiguring Childhood Studies References 3 Cartographies of Materialism: Thinking with Child(hood) Theories Interrogating Child as a Construct Child as a Vibrant Becoming Child as a Hybrid Assemblage Child as a Body Child as Other and More-Than-Human Subject Multiplicities of Child-Constructs References 4 Rethinking Childhoods and Agency Agency in Contemporary Times Socio-cultural Agency Unequal Childhoods/Unequal Agency Complicating Agency Through a Posthuman Lens Rethinking Agency Thing-Power Agency Back to Clementine “Deep History” and Shared Agency Freedom and Shared Agency Political Agency Concluding Comments References 5 Posthuman Pedagogies in Childhoodnature Time and Temporalities of Childhood(s)nature Childhoodnature Disconnect Posthuman Pedagogies Sensorial as Pedagogy Encounters as Pedagogy Relations as Pedagogy Response-Ability Learning with Childhoodnatures Concluding Comments References 6 Entangling Childhoods, Materials, Curriculum and Objects Introduction Why Curriculum? Understanding Te Whāriki’s Posthuman Potential Contextualising Te Whāriki’s Influence A Posthuman Childhood Studies Lens Posthuman Curriculum Child ↔ Materialities ↔ Curriculum Rethinking Curricular Relationalities Case Study #1: Children’s Entanglement with Materials Case Study #2: Children’s Entanglement with Objects Concluding Entanglements References 7 Children’s Worlding of/in Learning Environments Introduction Learning Environments as Precarious Learning Assemblages: Meaning, Power and Circumstances Questioning Linear Expectations Hierarchical Power Picture Books and Learning Environments Learning Environments as Relational Encounters Patty’s Learning Environment Reconfiguring Learning Environments References 8 Performing the Posthuman Introduction: Matters and Worlds Children’s Posthuman Performance Cosmopolitics Performance as Productive and Dynamic Performing Nature Becoming-With Time and Place Learning from Indigenous Perspectives Performing ‘Thing-Hoods’ Performing Art Performing Technology Performing with Digital Technologies IPad Encounters Affecting Performance Assemblages Ethics and Protection Concluding Comments References 9 Re-searching with Children in Posthuman Worlds Introduction Shifting Childhoods and Research Objectives Thinking Philosophically in Posthuman Research Children as Knowledge-Able Posthuman Researchers Rethinking Data and Rethinking Posthuman Research Complex Posthuman Data Relations Children in Posthuman Worlds Conclusion References 10 Glossary Key Posthuman Childhood Studies Concepts Introduction Actant Affect Agency Agential Realism Anthropocene Assemblage Binaries Childhood Studies Conatus Cognitive Developmental and Behaviourists Theories of Childhood Deterritorialization Developmental Theories Dichotomy Diffraction Dualisms Entanglement Haecceity Human Exceptionalism Intra-action Intra-relationality Kin Mutualism Natureculture New Materialism New Metaphysics New Sociology of Childhood Onto-Ethico-epistemology Ontology Paideia Participation Performativity Plasticity Postdevelopmental Theories Posthuman Posthumanism(s) Post-anthropocentrism Porosity Posthumanist Theories of Childhood Postqualitative Research Power Representation Re-territorialization Rhizome Sensorial Social Constructivism Socialisation Theory of Childhood Spacetimemattering Structure Temporality Vital Materiality Walking-with Methodology References