Figurations of the child and more than human politics of childhood for the post-Anthropocene: The fossil, the microbe, the weather

This research examines the atmospheres of growing up in difficult times and proposes more than human figurations and politics of childhood. It draws from recent debates related to the Anthropocene, which highlight how the environmental crisis also is a crisis of emotions and ontology, and call for redefinition of nature-human-animal relations. First, ethnographic, arts based and narrative methods are used to examine children’s lives in informal education contexts. After that, a cross-disciplinary conceptual engagement follows, guided by the “pull foci” of (a) the microbe, (b) the fossil, and (c) the weather. These foci reconfigure notions related to childhood gesturing to distinct sets of relations, affects, temporalities, and politics. The outcomes are figurations, stories, methods, and political directions, which help children, educators and policy makers to re-assess their actions and emotions in ways that acknowledge childhood complexity and build more than human post-Anthropocene.

The Research Council of Finland, 01.09.2023 - 31.08.2027.

Academy Research Fellow Riikka Hohti, riikka.hohti [at] tuni.fi.