Becoming-with sand
Taking matter seriously in childhood research
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6426328 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Meg Everett (Middlesex University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 363-387 |
| Publication date | 2024-12-23 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Global Studies of Childhood (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2043-6106 • E-ISSN: 2043-6106 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/20436106241305373 |
| OpenAlex | W4405764628 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 58 |
This article challenges anthropocentric views of childhood by adopting a posthumanist, new materialist perspective, positioning sand as an active agent in children’s world-making. Conducted through speculative, post-qualitative methodologies on a Scottish beach with two young children, this study disrupts traditional developmentalist and nature-based learning narratives, advocating for a more-than-human understanding of childhood. Sand is taken seriously as an agentic force, highlighting the complex relational entanglements between children and their material environments. By tracing the broader implications of sand—from global environmental impacts and colonial histories to its role in modern technologies—this research argues for a more inclusive and responsive approach to childhood education, one that moves away from human-centric discourse and acknowledges the tentacular interconnections between humans, nonhumans, and the environment. This study contributes to broader posthumanist field of inquiry, advocating for an imperative, ethical shift in how we engage with both children and the more-than-human world to ultimately imagine more equitable and sustainable futures
Anthropocentrism · Developmental psychology · Early childhood · Early childhood education · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Field (mathematics · Futures contract · Materialism · Narrative · Pedagogy · Perspective (graphical · Posthuman · Posthumanism · Sociology · Children's Rights and Participation · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychology
Romancing or Re-configuring Nature in the Anthropocene? Towards Common Worlding Pedagogies
Deconstructing Developmental Psychology
Introducing the New Materialisms
Using Nature and Outdoor Activity to Improve Children's Health
Nearby Nature
Cities for People, Not for Profit
Common Worlding Pedagogies
Childhood Development and Access to Nature
The Anthropocene’s Call to Educational Research
A Glossary for Doing Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research Across Disciplines
The Minor Gesture
The Aesthetics of Sand
Investigating Learning, Participation and Becoming in Early Childhood Practices with a Relational Materialist Approach
Putting posthumanist theory to work to reconfigure gender in early childhood
Mosaicking childhoodnature relations
Beyond stewardship
Weather worlding
This thing that we do’
Navajo Sandpainting in the Age of Cross‐Cultural Replication
Deleuzian Concepts for Education
From Child’s Garden to Academic Press
Thinking posthuman with mud
Risking erasure? Posthumanist research practices and figurations of (the) child
(Post)Feminist Methodology
Troubling the intersections of urban/nature/childhood in environmental education
Challenging anthropocentric analysis of visual data
Demarcating the granular frontier
Posthumanism as research methodology
Follow the Thing
Atmospheric Attunements
Urbanizing Islands
Countering the conceits of the Anthropos
Making
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |