Decentring the child human in qualitative research
A philosophical “toolbox”
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12645263 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Karin Murris (0000-0001-9613-7738, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publication date | 2025-06-16 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Qualitative Research Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1443-9883 • E-ISSN: 1448-0980 |
| Publisher | Emerald Publishing Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1108/qrj-03-2025-0080 |
| OpenAlex | W4411354476 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 13 |
Purpose Drawing on the philosophies of Donna Haraway, Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad, Jane Bennett and Erin Manning, this paper explores five “doing concepts” as methodological tools for qualitative inquiry: “sensing the minor gesture,” “tracing a phenomenon,” “attuning to flows of energies,” “attending to thing-power” and “making-with.” These concepts function as an open-ended “tool box” that resists prescriptive methodologies, instead encouraging researchers to unlearn power-producing binaries – such as Human/environment, Big/small and Adult/child – embedded in humanist traditions. Design/methodology/approach Posthumanist and feminist new materialist perspectives challenge traditional notions of child subjectivity by emphasising the relational entanglements of human and more-than-human bodies. The concept of the “posthuman child” (Murris, 2016) resists fixed definitions, instead emerges iteratively through dynamic relationalities. However, this raises critical methodological questions: Does decentering the child necessarily imply a “flat ontology” that erases power relations? How do researchers engage with more-than-human actors – air, insects and microbes – without sidelining children’s agency in qualitative research? Findings A diffractive reading of David Wiesner’s Mr Wuffles! (2013) demonstrates how these concepts generate new ways of thinking, sensing and engaging with research materials. Rather than reinforcing static subjectivities, the toolbox enables a fluid, processual approach to research that decentres the Adult human perspective without erasing the child. By continuously interrogating the assumptions embedded in research apparatuses, this approach fosters a more nuanced, ethically responsive engagement with children and the more-than-human world. Originality/value This is a highly original contribution to the urgent question of what it means to decentre the (child)human
Epistemology · Political science · Project commissioning · Publishing · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Toolbox · Children's Rights and Participation · Computer Science · Law · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Philosophy · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
Leveling the Posthuman Playing Field
Literacy and language as material practices
‘ What action did you see me do? ’
Diffracting Diffraction
Risking erasure? Posthumanist research practices and figurations of (the) child
Diffracting diffractive readings of texts as methodology
The Force of Things
A Thousand Trails to Work with Deleuze
Reconfiguring the use of video in qualitative research through practices of filmmaking
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |