Towards 'refiguring presences' as an anti colonial orientation to research in early childhood studies
Abstract In this paper, I craft a methodological orientation for attending to the intricacies of everyday place encounters in early childhood settings with particular attention to settler colonialism and more than human entanglements. Drawing from my work with children and educators in childcare settings located in what is now British Columbia, Canada, I use refiguring presences to describe this research methodology, and its particular attention to unsettling everyday place relations in early childhood pedagogies within the context of settler colonialism. I situate refiguring presences in everyday material discursive impacts in an effort to open up the potentialities and boundaries of political engagement in early childhood studies. I experiment with refiguring presences in relation to what I see as its most important elements. These elements include attending to colonialisms in everyday encounters, restorying contested places, foregrounding more than human relationalities and (dis)entangling researcher subjectivities.