Infants as Others: uncertainties, difficulties and (im)possibilities in researching infants’ lives

Abstract

Increasingly, researchers are trying to understand what daily life is like for infants in non-parental care from the perspectives of the infants themselves. In this article, we argue that it is profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to know how infants experience their worlds with any certainty and, indeed, whether they do or do not possess well-worked out ‘perspectives’ on their experiences. Three key difficulties are discussed: firstly, the difficulty of interpreting non-verbal expressions and behaviour; secondly, the difficulty of knowing whether researchers’ constructions of the ‘infant’s perspective’ align with the infant’s experiences of their world; and, thirdly, the difficulty of providing opportunities for infants to disrupt researchers’ predetermined categories of understanding, meanings and expectations. Because of these difficulties, we argue that research endeavours to understand infants’ experiences in non-parental care should be seen as sites of ethical rather than epistemological practice.

Keywords:

• infants’ perspectives
• participatory research with infants
• non-parental care
• ethical practice
• radical ambiguity

Acknowledgements

This article has been informed by the Australian Research Council Linkage Project LP0883913 and is supported by Industry Partners, Family Day Care Australia and KU Children’s Services. We gratefully acknowledge the ongoing discussions with the research team that have helped clarify some of the ideas raised in the article. Also, we would like to extend our gratitude to reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions for improvement on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Notes

1. The two vignettes each describe concurrent moments that occurred in Sheena’s life in the early stages of writing the article. From the outset, it is important to note that placing the two events together does not suggest that adults with declining verbal language can be likened to infants. Instead, the two vignettes should be thought of as key moments that help bring clarity to the issues explored in the article.

2. A considerable amount appears to have been written about the topic in these countries. However, most articles are not written in English and therefore have not been included in the discussion.