Zsuzsanna Millei

I am interested in child politics in its broadest sense. I view early childhood education as a biopolitical, intergenerational, national and global space, childhood as a political form of being. Researching from these perspectives the institutional practices in early childhood settings allows to view children as both societal actors and biological organisms. In the Microbial Childhood Collaboratory we theorize child subjectivity and childhood inclusive if its biological basis enables to show the existing and emerging relationalities and mutual relevance between biological and social processes . This includes how a child’s biosocial sense of being and becoming, and agencies emerge; and the matters and processes the child is entangled with from the microscopic to biospheric communities.

I employ comparisons of different places and times to help highlight the taken for granted ways everyday nationhood, Cold War divides, ideologies and knowledge production operates. I am also passionate about creating kind and caring academic cultures both in our current projects and through TRANSIT Research Centre where I am the Chair of the Steering Group.

I am the leader of the Early Childhood Education Institutions, Policies and Practices (ECEPP) research group, and co-leader of Child politics and Child Ecology research groups.

I lead the Microbial Childhood: Restor(y)ing Daycare Ecologies project funded by Nessling Foundation (202400154) (EUR 99,783) and the ‘Friendly Microbes: Health-Promoting Preschool Practice for Young Children and the Planet’ funded by Stiftelsen Brita Maria Renlunds minne sr (nr. 7187) (EUR 60.000). 

I was also leading the Microbial Childhood Collaboratory network funded by Nordforsk (2022-2023) (345269) (EUR 43,000) 

I co-led the De-colonial and De-Cold War Dialogues on Childhood and Schooling project. It subproject titled Re-Connect / Re-Collect: Crossing the Divides through Memories of Cold War Childhoods received funding from KONE Foundation (201804719) (EUR 319,000)