The Generative Possibilities of Thinking Queerly About Time and Affect in Education

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 72
  In Roundtable Session: Queering the Possibilities and Promises of Elementary Education

Abstract

Proceeding with an understanding of queer as that which is unassimilable, destabilising and troubling of the totalizing logics underpinning normativity, this paper destabilises the idea that primary school communities are neutral sites of growth and development by thinking queerly about how time/temporality and affect play a role in mapping out children’s futures. Illustrated by a selection of accounts from an in-depth qualitative study in Ireland with twelve parents of trans* children aged between 5 and 12, six primary school principals and six primary school teachers, this paper provides new insight into gender identity in primary schools and elucidates the generative possibilities that thinking queerly about the interconnectedness of temporality and affect yields for realising the possibilities of public education.

Author

• Aoife Neary, University of Limerick