‘Until we see them, we won’t know . . .’
The mundane politics of the minor gestures of literacy in childhood
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 24232168 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giovanna Caetano-Silva (0000-0002-8819-473X, Universidad de Sevilla) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-29 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Studies of Childhood (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2043-6106 • E-ISSN: 2043-6106 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20436106261449430 |
| OpenAlex | W7162794075 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 68 |
Approaching literacy from a more-than-human perspective can be a way of honouring the mundane politics that are part of children’s everyday lives globally. However, these politics require a different kind of attunement from adults, who are accustomed to not caring about events that seem to have no purpose and that, at first glance, appear to be unrelated to literacy. With that in mind, this study engages with the concept of the minor gesture to embrace those politics that are difficult to understand but that make us think about yet-unthought relations in the field of literacy. Through a series of sensorial vignettes, the researcher chronicles a dinosaur hunt initiated by children as part of a broader research project in Seville. Through dialogue with Manning’s work on the politics of minor gestures, this seemingly mundane event animates how the dinosaur hunt involved more-than-human literacies driven by unanswerable inquiries with the world, rather than by adult purposes. Furthermore, the author posits that non-normative political ways of understanding language emerge from the intense relationships between children and materials, where words lose priority if what is in-the-making is valued. Ultimately, this work contributes to a more profound comprehension of literacy that extends beyond prevailing parameters and embraces indispensable aspects to cultivating more equitable childhoods and literacies around the world attuned to specific body-minds, other-than-humans, and matters that transcend the linguistic realm.
children's lives · minor gestures · Literacy, Media, and Education · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Themes in Literature Analysis
Movement and Experimentation in Young Children's Learning
Posthuman literacies
The Posthuman Child
‘The toys you sleep with’
Tuning into ‘fleshy’ frequencies
(Re)Thinking children as fully (in)human and literacies as otherwise through (re)etymologizing intervene and inequality
“Jeg skal sjekke”
GoPro(blem)s and possibilities
Ten propositions for a democratic politics of early childhood education
‘ What action did you see me do? ’
Literacy practices in childhood from a posthumanist perspective
Karen Barad as Educator
More-Than-Human Literacies in Early Childhood
The Minor Gesture
Political Desirings
Immanent and diffractive critique in scholarship and publication
The Red Blanket
Lines in the snow; minor paths in the search for early childhood education for planetary wellbeing
Listening as rhizome
Children who carry stones in their pockets
Decentring the child human in qualitative research
Diffracting Diffraction
Animating classroom ethnography
Gopher Tales
Becoming through ‘the break
Troubling troubled school time
Tactful hands and vibrant mattering in the sand tray
Playgrounds as literacy spaces in early childhood education
Listening differently
Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research
Sound as affect
What if it Didn't All Begin and End with Containment? Toward a Leaky Sense of Self
Where are the words?' Silence/d more-than-human readings in children with developmental language disorder (DLD)
Top Ten+ List
Giving up the 'Good Research Child
Reconfiguring the use of video in qualitative research through practices of filmmaking
Why Post Qualitative Inquiry
Post Qualitative Inquiry in an Ontology of Immanence
A Theoretical Framework for the Critical Posthumanities
Sound, Sentience, and Schooling
| Highly cited | No |
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