How matter comes to matter in children's nature play: posthumanist approaches and children's geographies

Abstract

In the present paper, a posthumanist approach is used to analyse children's play activities in natural environments. The aim is to analyse intra-actions between children, the material environment and discourses, with a focus on the material and embodied aspects of these intra-actions. Forty-two children between six and eight years and from two Swedish schools participated in the study. Video observations of play activities have been the most important data source. For the analysis of how matter ‘acts’, play with sensorimotor content has been distinguished from play with symbolic content. In sensorimotor play, matter seems to ‘talk’ more directly to children's hands and bodies. In play activities with symbolic content, matter works both directly and through discourses, when objects are given symbolic meaning. In both kinds of play, discursive practices in the peer groups are influential.

Keywords:

• play
• natural environments
• matter
• agential realism
• embodiment

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my colleagues at Child Studies, Linköping University, especially Anette Wickström, and two anonymous reviewers, for their insightful comments, which have helped me to improve earlier versions of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In the present paper, ‘nature play’ refers to activities children are engaged in when they are free to decide for themselves what to do in natural environments. The expression ‘nature environment’ is used to talk about non-built environments. Nature and play in nature environments are seen as socially constructed.

2. Barad (2007) uses the concept of diffraction, which is borrowed from the physical sciences, to illustrate how agents change each other. She accounts for how waves, for example water waves, sound waves and light waves, change and are changed by each other as well as other obstructions that they encounter. In a similar way, all kinds of agents are changed by and change each other.

3. The authors use different concepts such as functional play or physical play, which here is referred to as sensorimotor play.

4. In the present paper, symbolic and fantasy play are used interchangeably.

5. These schools are called ‘I Ur och Skur’, which means approx. ‘All-weather’. They are a part of Friluftsfrämjandet, a large Swedish organization for outdoor, leisure-time activities.

6. The ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council were followed. The project was also evaluated and approved by an ethics review board.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Swedish Research Council [grant number 2009-5535].