SPATIAL PERSPECTIVES ON BABIES’ WAYS OF BELONGING IN INFANT EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE

• Authors: Sumsion Jennifer , Harrison Linda J. , Stapleton Matthew
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

In this article, we endeavour to think spatially about the texture of infants’ everyday lives and their ways of ‘doing’ belonging in the babies’ room in an Australian early childhood education and care centre. Drawing on data from a large, multiple case-study project, and on theorisations of space that reject Euclidean notions of space as empty, transparent, relatively inert containers into which people, objects practices and artefacts are inserted, and instead emphasise space as complex, dynamic and relational, we map the navigating movements (Massumi, 2002) of baby Nadia. Through the telling of ‘stories-so-far’ (Massey, 2005), we convey how Nadia, as part of a constellation or assemblage of human and non-human beings, found ways to intensify space and to mobilise new vantage points, thus expanding the spatial possibilities of what we initially took to be a particularly confined and confining space.

Keywords

EN

ECEC; CHILDHOOD EDUCATION; INFANTS; BABIES; SPACE; AUSTRALIA

• Publisher: Faculty of Education, Trnava University
• Journal: Pedagogický časopis (Journal of Pedagogy)
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 109 – 131

Contributors

author

Sumsion Jennifer

• Charles Sturt University, School of Education, 7/35 Gillies St, Wollstonecraft, NSW 2065, Australia

author

Harrison Linda J.

author

Stapleton Matthew

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/jped-2018-0006