Unraveling the Colonial Illusion of Representation: Material Agency for Relational Ethics in Early Childhood Art Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Poster Session Sunday 7:45 am
  In Poster Session: Childhoods, Materials, and Critical Learning Encounters

Abstract

This presentation examines the colonial illusion that restricts creativity in early childhood art inquiry and explores how material agency and relational ethics provide a pathway to reimagine art education for young children beyond developmental, representational, and Euro-human-centric paradigms. Grounded in critical posthumanism, new materialism, and social ecology, the study positions children's aesthetic inquiry as a co-constructive, ethical engagement with more-than-human entities. Drawing on ethnographic vignettes from early childhood classrooms, I demonstrate how children’s creative processes serve as a resistance to normative learning frameworks when supported by an attunement to material liveness, conatus, and uncertain and indetermined possibilities. This work presents a justice-oriented vision for art education and research for future generations, offering collaborative prompts for rethinking curriculum through a more-than-human lens.

Author

• Hyewon Oh, Growing Place Ocean Park Early Childhood Education Center