Abstract
This chapter critically analyzes the reconfiguration of agency evident in early childhood education (ECE) and childhood studies research concerned with the Anthropocene, which is mostly grounded in posthumanist and new materialist approaches. Applying Foucault’s ideas related to problematization and Bacchi’s method “What is the problem represented to be?”, we discuss forms of agency idealized in ECE research of the Anthropocene – distributed, relational, more-than-human agency – which radically contest more traditional understandings of agency as individual, intentional, rational, autonomous, and exclusively human. We argue that ECE research of the Anthropocene – while emphasizing relational forms of agency and the harmonic co-existence of species – runs the risk of failing to adequately address the human and planetary predicament entangled with complex systems of power relations by undermining possibilities for children’s political agency necessary for challenging social and ecological injustices. We contend that rethinking ECE for the Anthropocene requires addressing both the risk of depoliticization inherent in the re-conceptualization of children’s agency and critical elaboration of the possibilities opened up by posthumanist and new materialist theories for shaping alternative future(s) and ways of living.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Bacchi, C., & Eveline, J. (2010). Approaches to gender mainstreaming: What’s the problem represented to be? In C. Bacchi & J. Eveline (Eds.), Mainstreaming politics: Gendering practices and feminist theory (pp. 111–138). The University of Adelaide Press.
Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Bargetz, B. (2019). Longing for agency: New materialisms’ wrestling with despair. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 26(2), 181–194. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350506818802474
Bennet, J. (2010). Vibrant matter: A political ecology of things. Duke University Press.
Braidotti, R. (2019a). Posthuman knowledge. Polity.
Braidotti, R. (2019b). A theoretical framework for the critical posthumanities. Theory, Culture & Society, 36(6), 31–61. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276418771486
Brunila, K. (2012). From risk to resilience. Education Inquiry, 3(3), 451–464. https://doi.org/10.3402/edui.v3i3.22046
Brunila, K. (2014). The rise of survival discourse in the era of therapisation and neoliberalism. Education Inquiry, 5(1), 7–23. https://doi.org/10.3402/edui.v5.24044
Chakrabarty, D. (2021). The climate of history in a planetary age. The University of Chicago Press.
Chandler, D., & Reid, J. (2016). The neoliberal subject. Resilience, adaptation and vulnerability. Rowman & Littlefield.
Common Worlds Research Collective. (2020). Learning to become with the world: Education for future survival. Paper commissioned for the UNESCO Futures of Education report 2021.
Coole, D., & Frost, S. (2010). Introducing the new materialism. In D. Coole & S. Frost (Eds.), New materialisms: Ontology, agency, and politics (pp. 1–43). Duke University Press.
Crutzen, P. J., & Stormer, E. F. (2000). The Anthropocene. Global Change Newsletter, 41, 17–18.
Duhn, I., & Galvez, S. (2020). Doing curious research to cultivate tentacular becomings. Environmental Education Research, 26(5), 731–741. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2020.1748176
Edelman, L. (2004). No future. Queer theory and the death drive. Duke University Press.
Foucault, M. (1990). The history of the sexuality, volume 1. An introduction. Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1992). The history of the sexuality, volume 2. The use of pleasure. Penguin Books.
Foucault, M. (1994). Polemics, politics and problematizations. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: The essential works of Foucault (Vol. 1, pp. 111–119). The Penguin Press.
Friedrich, D., Jaastad, B., & Popkewitz, T. (2010). Democratic education: An (im)possibility that yet remains to come. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 42, 571–587. https://doi-org.pc124152.oulu.fi:9443/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00686
Gallagher, M. (2020). Childhood and the geology of media. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 372–390. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1620481
Hadfield-Hill, S., & Zara, C. (2020). Children and young people as geological agents? Time, scale and multispecies vulnerabilities in the new epoch. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 407–426. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1644821
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene (experimental futures). Duke University Press.
Hyunsun, S. (2022). Reading picture books including animal matters: Making space for discussing anthropocentrism with young children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2022.2031246
Kouppanou, A. (2020). Environmental education and children’s agency at the time of the Anthropocene. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 54(4), 944–959. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12483
Kouppanou, A. (2022). The posthumanist challenge to teaching or teaching’s challenge to posthumanism: A neohumanist proposal of nearness in education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 43(5), 766–784. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2022.2033534
Lakind, A., & Adsit-Morris, C. (2018). Future child: Pedagogy and the post-Anthropocene. Journal of Childhood Studies, 43(1), 30–43. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v43i1.18263
Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia. Eight lectures on the new climatic regime. Polity.
Lenz Taguchi, H. (2010). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. Routledge.
Lindgren, T. (2020). The figuration of the posthuman child. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(6), 914–925. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1576589
Lindgren, T., & Sjöstrand Öhrfelt, M. (2019). Fabricating the posthuman child in early childhood education and care. Philosophy of Education, 2017, 264–276. Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-2918
Merewether, J. (2019). New materialisms and children’s outdoor environments: Murmurative diffractions. Children’s Geographies, 17(1), 105–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2018.1471449
Mertanen, K., Mäkelä, K., & Brunila, K. (2022). What’s the problem (represented to be) in Finnish youth policies and youth support systems? International Studies in Sociology of Education, 31(3), 264–283. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2020.1752770
Murris, K. (2016). Posthuman child. Routledge.
Murris, K., Reynolds, R.-A., & Peers, J. (2018). Reggio Emilia inspired philosophical teacher education in the Anthropocene: Posthuman child and the family (tree). Journal of Childhood Studies, 43(1), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v43i1.18262
Mycock, K. (2020). Forest schools: Moving towards an alternative pedagogical response to the Anthropocene? Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 427–440. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1670446
Niblett, B., Hiscott, K., & Power, M. (2020). Partnering for outdoor play: A case study of forest and nature school programming in the context of licensed child Care in Ottawa, Ontario. Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, 23, 2.
Nxumalo, F. (2017). Geotheorizing mountain–child relations within anthropogenic inheritances. Children’s Geographies, 15(5), 558–569. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2017.1291909
Nxumalo, F. (2018). Stories for living on a damaged planet: Environmental education in a preschool classroom. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 16(2), 148–159. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X17715499
Nxumalo, F., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2017). ‘Staying with the trouble’ in child-insect-educator common worlds. Environmental Education Research, 23(10), 1414–1426.
Nxumalo, F., Vintmilla, C. D., & Narda, N. (2018). Pedagogical gatherings in early childhood education: Mapping interferences in emergent curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 48, 433–453. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2018.1522930
Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Kummen, K. (2016). Shifting temporal frames in children’s common worlds in the Anthropocene. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 17(4), 431–441.
Popkewitz, T. (2006). The idea of science as planning was not planned: A historical note about American pedagogical sciences (re)making society and individuality. In R. Hofstetter & B. Schneuwly (Eds.), Education nouvelle – Sciences de l’Éducation. The new education and educational sciences. Fin du 19e- milieu 20e siécle (pp. 143–167). Peter Lang.
Ritchie, J. (2015). Social, cultural, and ecological justice in the age the Anthropocene: A New Zealand early childhood care and education perspective. Journal of Pedagogy, 6(2), 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1515/jped-2015-0012
Sheldon, R. (2016). The child to come. Life after the human catastrophe. University of Minnesota Press.
Sherfinski, M., Slocum, A., & Lough, J. (2022). How might place be pedagogical in Appalachia? New possibilities for early childhood classrooms in the Anthropocene. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 30(5), 617–637. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2020.1836674
Silova, I. (2021). Facing the Anthropocene: Comparative education as sympoiesis. Comparative Education Review, 65(4), 587–616.
Sjögren, H. (2020). A review of research on the Anthropocene in early childhood education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463949120981787
Somerville, M. (2017). Thinking critically with children of the Anthropocene: (Un)learning the subject in qualitative and postqualitative inquiry. International Review of Qualitative Research, 10(4), 395–410.
Somerville, M., & Powell, J. (2019a). Researching with children of the Anthropocene: A new paradigm? In V. Reyes, J. Charteris, A. Nye, & S. Mavropoulou (Eds.), Educational research in the age of the Anthropocene (pp. 4–35). IGI Global.
Somerville, M., & Powell, S. (2019b). Thinking posthuman with mud: And children of the Anthropocene. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 51(8), 829–840.
Steffen, W., Crutzen, P., & McNeill, J. R. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are humans now overwhelming the great forces of nature? Ambio: A Journal of the Human Environment, 36(8), 614–621. https://doi.org/10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:taahno]2.0.co;2
Taylor, A. (2017). Beyond stewardship: Common world pedagogies for the Anthropocene. Environmental Education Research, 23(10), 1448–1461. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2017.1325452
Taylor, A. (2020). Countering the conceits of the Anthropos: Scaling down and researching with minor players. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 340–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1583822
Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2015). Learning with children, ants, and worms in the Anthropocene: Towards a common world pedagogy of multispecies vulnerability. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 23(4), 507–529. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2015.1039050
Taylor, A., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2020). Introduction to symposium: Childhood studies in the Anthropocene. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 333–339. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1779448
Termein, S., & Vaishnava, N. (2019). Thinking differently: An education for the Anthropocene from Uttarakhand, India, Germein. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 35(3), 250–261. https://doi.org/10.1017/aee.2019.26
Tsing, A. (2015). The mushroom at the end of the world. On the possibility of life in capitalist ruins. Princeton University Press.
Wals, A. E. J. (2017). Sustainability by default: Co-creating care and relationality through early childhood education. International Journal of Early Childhood, 49(2), 155–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-017-0193-5
Weldemariam, K. (2020). ‘Becoming-with bees’: Generating affect and response-abilities with the dying bees in early childhood education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 41(3), 391–406. https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1607402
Wolff, L., Skarstein, T., & Skarstein, F. (2020). The mission of early childhood education in the Anthropocene. Education Sciences, 10(2), 27. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10020027
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Yliniva, K., Brunila, K. (2023). Re-Conceptualizing the Political Agency of Young Children in the Anthropocene. In: Wyn, J., Cahill, H., Cuervo, H. (eds) Handbook of Children and Youth Studies. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-96-3_126-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4451-96-3_126-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-4451-96-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-4451-96-3
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Social SciencesReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences