Is experimenting on an Immanent Level possible in RECE (Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education)?

Abstract

A professor’s experience of attending the 17th annual Reconceptualizing Early Childhood Education (RECE) Conference on pedagogies of hope demonstrates her desire to experiment on an immanent plane. As she looks back on her past experiences of depression, working in a revolutionary psychiatric clinic, experiencing a near catatonic state, and an action research study of women in early childhood education at the precipice of an immanent plane, the reader is led on their own journey to consider deeply the differences between transcendence and immanence. In the end, the author’s story of returning from a catatonic state through bodily movements and triumph in human relationships and connections demonstrates how one moves out of his or her own disconnection between mind and body. Further, the meaning in the experiences of the action research project - the phenomenon - occurs when a misrepresented group of early childhood workers discovers their own power and voice in overcoming transcended expertise. They rise in immanence like the Humpty Dumpties that needed to exchange and word their new agency, connecting in a worldwide rhizome (image of thought). Finally, the reconceptualists in early childhood education are asked to take in these experiences and play with them in order to resist transcendence and to determine their own outcome as an organization.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liane Mozère

Liane Mozère is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the Paul Verlaine University in Metz (France). She is a French sociologist and feminist born in China in 1939, who later participated in the early activities and commitments of the Psychiatric Clinic of La Borde. Liane met Félix Guattari and worked with him from 1965 to 1992 in a freelance research group (Centre d’Etude, de Rechercher et de Formation Institutionnelles - CERFI).

Liane met Gilles Deleuze in 1969 and has since tried to make experimental use of Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts (as well as many other unique considerations) in a range of different sociological fields including early childhood, gender, migrations, apolitical ethic of care, urban sociology, and Chinese society. All of her work, including her latest book Fleuves et rivières couleront toujours. Les nouvelles urbanités chinoises, has focused on giving voice to the invisible social agents and their unheard competencies.

Liane advocates for a grass root, vernacular sociology that is able to empower others and value their practices. E-mail address: [email protected]