Comic · Springer

Earthly Methodologies as Unfolding Childhoods

This book explores the emergence of earthly methodologies in early childhood education approaches for thinking, creating, and acting in generative ways. Beginning with a 'wool-ing' encounter on a small beach in Oslofjord, a collective of women gather without predetermined aims, opening space for listening, care, and relational attention to bodies, materials, and place. Through diffractive inquiries, the chapters ask how attunement to Earth reshapes education. Drawing on ecofeminist, Indigenous, and posthuman perspectives, the book reimagines childhood as of the Earth - entangled, relational, and inseparable from planetary futures. “Moving beyond anthropocentricism and human centered worlds is an urgent task and responsibility for today's scholars and educators. This creative, aesthetically engaging, and intellectually stimulating collection of examples and methodological invitations not only offers ways of knowing and doing 'otherwise’, but it also foregrounds multitudes of ecological and earthly (wool) becomings. Entangled multispecies care in action!” ----Mirka Koro, PhD, Professor of Qualitative research, Arizona State University “This book is a powerful and imaginative exploration of earthly methodologies and unfolding childhoods in the Anthropocene. It foregrounds skillfully crafted research-creation encounters, wool-ing, sensing, drawing, making-with, that trace more-than-human relations across times, places, and material histories. Drawing on ecofeminism, critical posthumanism, and Indigenous knowledges, it opens vibrant alternatives to human-centered pedagogies. A compelling, multifaceted read that lingers as an invitation to think, feel, and practice otherwise.” ----Camilla Eline Andersen, PhD, Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Inland Norway