Abstract
Following Bourdieu (1998), Agbenyega (Chap. 3, this volume, p. x) reminds us of the importance of ‘reflexivity, reflectivity and critical mindfulness’ concerning the social worlds that we, as researchers, ‘conjure up’ in our research. Being critically reflexive and mindful requires us to interrogate our epistemological and ontological assumptions, the theoretical and methodological resources that we use, the practices in which we engage and the meanings that we assign. It involves looking beneath the surface, going beyond the commonly accepted, being wary of theoretical and methodological fads and attending to power relations and their effects. It also means recognising that our desires to formulate revolutionary ways of seeing (Agbenyega) may blind us to the limitations of those ways of seeing and lead us, inadvertently, to reproduce the social, theoretical and methodological status quo and in doing so possibly exacerbate the inequities that we may have set out to address. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a case study of critical reflexivity and mindfulness concerning our use of ‘baby cam’ (our term for small head-mounted cameras worn by children aged up to approximately 18 months) in our endeavours to understand babies and toddlers’ experiences of early childhood settings from the perspective of the children themselves. In particular, we consider the extent to which baby cam might be considered a participatory approach to researching with infants, insights it might enable and/or constrain and ethical dilemmas it can create.
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Notes
- 1.
Australian States.
- 2.
Here, we draw on the sixteenth-century origins of voyeuristic as ‘having a mental itching’ (Oxford Dictionary of English, 2003), in this case an insatiable (non-sexual) desire ‘to look in on’ infants’ private worlds), and Mulvey’s (1975) reference to the ‘looked upon’ being subject to, and objectified, by curious and ultimately controlling gazes.
- 3.
Details available at http://www.studiocodegroup.com
- 4.
Often considered Australia’s national sport.
- 5.
The idea came from our colleague Sharynne McLeod.
- 6.
Elwick et al. (in press-a).
- 7.
- 8.
Family Day Care Australia and KU Children’s Services were our Industry Partners. We deeply appreciate their support.
- 9.
For elaboration, see Elwick et al. (in press-b).
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Acknowledgements
The Infants’ Lives in Childcare project was funded by the Australian Research Council (LP0883913), Family Day Care Australia and KU Children’s Services. We also deeply appreciate the contributions of our fellow researchers: Linda Harrison, Sharynne McLeod, Frances Press, Joy Goodfellow and Sandra Cheeseman. We are indebted, too, to the children, educators and parents who participated in the project.
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Sumsion, J., Bradley, B., Stratigos, T., Elwick, S. (2014). ‘Baby Cam’ and Participatory Research with Infants: A Case Study of Critical Reflexivity. In: Fleer, M., Ridgway, A. (eds) Visual Methodologies and Digital Tools for Researching with Young Children. International perspectives on early childhood education and development, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01469-2_10
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