Childhoods in the Anthropocene: Rethinking Young Children's Agency and Activism

• In Event: Found in Translation: Connecting Reconceptualist Thinking With Contemporary Early Childhood Practices

Abstract

This presentation utilises a childhood studies lens to research childhoods in the time of Anthropocene, through the combination of the expertise of an academic researching childhoods, and an early years practitioner-activist, who embodies the theory into practice experiences. Rather than a dichotomous and independent combination of the two into one narratives, the purpose of this presentation in is to reflect the embodiment of a collaborative relationship between academic researcher and practitioner; established through reciprocal dialogue, to create an amalgamation of discussion around children’s agency and activism in Early Childhood Education. Presenters view such an approach as conducive in the portrayal of their rejection of hegemonic discourse positioning power in ‘theory’ over ‘practice’, ‘teacher’ over ‘learner’, and more specifically in this presentation; ‘adult’ over ‘child’. In this way, presenters seek to characterize these notions as interdependent and relational, positioning power and knowledge as a dynamic process between active subjects.

This presentation is driven by the questions: ‘What do childhoods mean for children in an early years centre in New Zealand?’, and ‘How do children perform their agency and become young activists in relation to the contemporary governance of childhoods, and their growing up in the time of the Anthropocene’? In particular, we question what the relationship between the scholarship and activism of the childhood studies field is, through contemplation of how the agency and activism of young children are conceptualised. The joint work, on the one hand, dwells on a childhood studies lens through philosophical thinking, and on the other; how these concepts come alive in thinking about children’s agency and activism in an early years centre from the teacher’s perspective. In this presentation, we will address some of these concerns, which have implications for other countries and early years policy landscapes, by challenging the view of a child as incompetent and too young, whose voice should not be taken seriously, thus challenging established notions of child development.

The argument in this presentation suggests that while adults seek to possess knowledge, and strive to make decisions regarding children that are in the children’s best interests, children are often excluded from the decision making about their own childhoods. We argue that children are victims, supporters, and rebels in their negotiations with the systematic ideologies in which they are growing up. Children thus participate as well-informed social actors, struggling with resistance, while also contributing to the necessary sustainment of order within their contextual environments. This argument suggests that an image of children as incapable of participating in issues of justice, and as submissive, passive victims of the systematic restrictions imposed on them needs to be reconsidered. Studies pertaining to children and childhood across diverse contexts, involving research methods and communication by children in their own languages and representing children’s voice, might be useful to better inform our understanding of children, children’s experiences, and of what is important to, and henceforth, for children, to perform their own agency and become activists from a very early age.

Authors

• Marek Tesar, The University of Auckland

• Bianca Jukes, Faculty of Education and Social Work Early Childhood Centre