Thanks to all who showed up for the online this morning! Fabulous discussion and much to consider in our Collective Reading Group conversation. I’ve sent a calendar invite for those interested in continuing to meet the same time next week in the hopes we can keep the conversation going.
See (below) for notes from our conversation (feel free to add/respond in comments if I’ve missed or if anyone else wants to weigh in on the conversation!). Grateful to all who contributed to this great conversation:
March 11th 9:15am – 9:45am Collective Reading Group:
Tiny human geographies: babies and toddlers as non- representational and barely human life? (Holt & Philo, 2020)
Participants: Josephine (Arbutus Place), David (Cedar Place), Celine & Suzanne (Acorn Place), Maureen & Karina (Juniper Place), Noreen & Meredith (Salal Place), Nina (Willow Tree Place), Sadaf, Kim, Narda
We began by reading the Abstract and moving slowly through the first two pages. Our first pause was to refocus attention on: purpose and intention of the piece (who do the authors had in mind in writing and publishing this piece?). While written for a ‘Human Geographies’ academic audience, the piece invites audiences into considerations about larger societal questions about who is considered fully human in the first place.
-the authors call is a ‘speculative’ piece. What are they speculating about? “What kind of human is at issue here?” Ethical, political and religious tensions are being raised, in connection with IT relations.
-On whose terms are babies and toddlers measured as ‘contributing’ members of society, or not?
-How might we meet with this article? As EC practitioners, working with children everyday (as advocates/researchers/educators/with curiosity/as learners…?)
–Who is the ‘we’ the authors refer to? And, if ‘we’ disagree with the ‘we’ the authors talk about throughout the piece, are we able to take note and think beyond initial reactions to consider where these ideas come from? How do these ideas continue to live in society? In policies that guide our work? What about our own complicity, from time to time, in using certain words to describe the behaviours of the children we are working with? For example, as Sadaf mentioned using the word ‘silly’ does something to frame/dismiss toddlers’ behaviour.
Co-author, Chris (Philo), highlights the “capable, responsible, autonomous, self-determining, ‘rational’ subject” (p. 2), which “tiny, barely humans” are often excluded from being considered as. As we discussed, the authors are making a ‘double’ move in this piece: 1) naming certain ‘modes of being’ that tends to set babies outside of being considered full subjects in Western society, 2) deliberately using language/words in a provocative way to do so (choosing words to ‘playfully’ try to get readers attention/students’ attention through slides chosen for a lecture).
We paused here too.
While acknowledging what the authors are trying to do, we wondered if they aren’t inadvertently doing the very thing they claim to be working against: demeaning infants and toddlers. This is not an easy piece, as Kim pointed out, but it has been great getting into such a deep discussion about these issues. We are still in early stages of reading the article and I welcome (and love!) digging into the tensions and believe it is always worthwhile stepping back to consider ‘on whose back’ any argument is framed/made/claims are made. This does not mean it is a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ piece. But it is doing something with us that might be worth noting as we move along.
Celine and Kim said they were offended at times reading the piece, in terms of the words chosen by the authors to describe babies (offensive, negative connotations with some of the words). As I (Narda) said, I had my back up at times too but reminded everyone that the point of sharing this piece was as a provocation for us to think together about some of the exclusions that continue to place IT outside of certain conversations in ECE. Also to examine how/why we, too, occasionally fall into the trap of narrating baby and toddler ‘doings’, in ways that align with seeing them as ‘lesser’ humans? It will be up to each of us to determine whether the authors are successful or not, in the way they approach writing the piece. What, if anything, does the piece offer that is worth considering?
Words that provoked/awakened/offended:
-dribbly; scrumpled; messy; lazy; odd;
Meredith raised a point about what this piece being up for her: how hard we try to be respected in this field, in a society that only sees babies, toddlers and children as ‘lesser’. This makes the struggle more more glaring (obvious). If this is what we are up against, it is no wonder our profession is so disrespected too! Material and political implications for these underlying assumptions.
Celine and Sadaf raised question about how these assumptions show up in our language (how we create binaries defining children on one side of the binary, the words we use without thinking about their impact on how babies, toddlers and children are viewed).
David spoke to the ‘strange’ language used in the box to describe (Chris’ slide he used in one of his geography classes). Of course, he never thinks of toddlers as “lazy”, “they are just being who they are!” It was so strange to think about infants and toddlers in this way (which is probably the point the authors are making, but funny/weird to consider them in this way). ‘Odd bodies’ too is a reference to proportionality in IT bodies. We talked briefly about underlying assumptions about who is considered ‘productive’ in society? Who is this productive, so-called normal body/mind that babies, toddlers, and children are being measured against? Nina raised a question of: What about adults who are the same? (more said here that I didn’t write down).
Suzanne picked up on the point about ‘odd bodies’, asking if this wasn’t exactly the point the author was trying to make by creating the slide in the first place. Deliberately drawing attention to the absurdity of ‘measuring’ children against this ‘rational, capable, responsible, autonomous, human subject (hope I have this correct Suzanne!).
Looking VERY forward to continuing the conversation/collective reading next week!
Thanks again,
Narda