Border Materials, Early Childhood Art Education, and the Ontological Persistence of American Flexibility

Abstract

This article draws comparisons between young children’s material explorations and the national and global politics surrounding the U.S.–Mexico border in order to theorize early childhood art education and art education curricular approaches, practices, and policies. Border theories of fluidity and new materialist notions of becoming are discussed in relation to children’s and artists’ explorations of unfamiliar and playful materials. The concepts tool analysis and apparatus are employed to discuss the onto-epistemological and political nature of border materials, processes, and art to advocate for the learners and citizens who are produced through these apparatuses.

Notes

¹ NAFTA = North American Free Trade Agreement; WTO = World Trade Organization; UN = United Nations; EU = European Union; and IMF = International Monetary Fund.

² Pseudonyms have been used to protect the children’s identities.