Visualizing a Common World of Entanglement through Multiple Viewpoints

Abstract

The authors explore how multiple viewpoints can challenge our habitualised way of viewing and expand the area of thinking about children’s outdoor learning. They draw on micro-fieldwork in a Sámi kindergarten in Arctic Norway. There, learning through participation and practical experiences is a traditional strategy in child rearing. This method of learning is currently being transformed in Sámi kindergartens, wherein the goal is to strengthen the Sámi language, identity and culture. The authors’ aim is to explore how learning through participation in pedagogical practices could be made visible by employing different viewpoints. They used GoPro® cameras worn on children’s bodies, combined with their own gaze, as well as a handheld video camera used by one of the authors. Such a combination of viewpoints allowed gaining an insight into the complex outdoor kindergarten practices. Drawing on Jayne White’s polyphonic dialogical approach to video, the authors placed these diverse viewpoints in a dialogue during the process of analysis. These dialogues revealed our pre-defined human-centric view and effected a change in our theoretical approach, from socio-cultural learning theories to new materialist theories, to include the premise that children learn in all interactions and entanglements that they are part of in a socio-material world.

Transspråking i en samisk barnehageavdeling

“…Materialet er transkripsjoner av to språkbrukssituasjoner fra forskningsprosjektet «Styrking av samisk språk og kultur» initiert av barnehagen med mål om å forsterke bruken av samisk språk i barnehagen, og søke støtte til ulike framgangsmåter og utvikling av eget materiell til dette. Forfatteren og to andre BARNkunne-forskeres bidro med blant annet GoPro-teknologi for å observere, og gjorde deltakende observasjon i et mikroetnografisk design (Myrstad & Kleemann, 2022). Språkbrukssituasjonene i prosjektet ble valgt ut i samarbeid med barnehagelaererne.…”