Theoretical grounding

This article draws primarily on posthumanism, as well as new materialism and other related theoretical approaches. Posthumanist thinkers view phenomena as being “multiple, subjective, and produced from a series of complex relations” (Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017, p. 836). Ontologically, posthumanism acknowledges diverse ways of knowing and being in the world. The work of Donna Haraway has been foundational to much of the recent uptake in posthumanist research. Flourishing, or living well, in this world is possible, Haraway argued, but “only in multispecies alliances, across the killing divisions of nature, culture, and technology and of organism, language, and machine” (Haraway Reference Haraway2016, pp. 117–118). Ulmer (Reference Ulmer2017), in her article on posthuman research, explained that “posthumanism rejects that humans are the only species capable of producing knowledge and instead creates openings for other forms/things/objects/beings/phenomenon to know” (p. 834).

Posthumanist theory has been applied by many researchers in the field of early childhood for sustainability/early childhood environmental education in recent decades. As Malone et al. (Reference Malone, Tesar and Arndt2022) noted,

Many have suggested that children, and others live in “common worlds,” inspired by the work of Bruno Latour (Reference Latour2007), who coined the term “common world” when arguing that the social sciences and the natural sciences are not distinct domains and cannot be studied separately. Describing the social as “a very peculiar movement of re-association and reassembling” (p. 7), he argued that while the social sciences have been focussed on humanity, no science of the social can be carried out without first examining the “question of who and what participates in the action …, even though it might mean letting elements in which, for lack of a better term, we would call non-humans. (p. 72, emphasis in original).

The ideas of Haraway and Latour, among others, have greatly influenced the development of the common worlds research framework, which acknowledges the messy, entangled and culturally and historically situated relationships among humans and nonhuman others (Taylor, Reference Taylor2013). Attending to the shared worlds of humans, forces, objects, places and histories opens up new paths towards understanding lived experiences though a relational and ethical lens. In this way, researchers can attempt to move beyond exclusively human-based interests, instead assuming humans are entangled in complex ways with the being and becoming of other species (Elliott, Reference Elliott2019; Nelson, Pacini-Ketchabaw & Nxumalo Reference Nelson, Pacini-Ketchabaw and Nxumalo2018). The common worlds view of childhood is as a “situated, collective, and relational rather than as a universal developmental life stage that is experienced individually” (Nelson et al., Reference Nelson, Pacini-Ketchabaw and Nxumalo2018, p. 8). In the last few years, there has been a marked increase in publications using a common worlds framework (e.g., Blaise & Hamm, Reference Blaise and Hamm2019; Hodgins, Reference Hodgins2019; Taylor, Reference Taylor2017). The Common Worlds Research Collective (http://commonworlds.net/) includes researchers from around the world (including myself) conducting this type of research, many of whom engage with Indigenous philosophies, stories, and worldviews.

New materialism overlaps with posthumanism in its rejection of anthropocentrism. Although there are various branches of new materialist theories, they all “embrace the vitality of matter” (Sanzo, Reference Sanzo2018, para. 8). New materialism can “generate new ways of thinking and being where the world becomes present in all of its vibrant vitality rather than reduced to the dull and abstract forms of universal generalisations more typical of Western knowledge theorising” (Somerville, Reference Somerville, Cutter-Mackenzie-Knowles, Malone and Hacking2020, p. 114). As such, researchers can recognise objects not as mere background or simple props but as prominent agents operating within a relational encounter. Karen Barad (Reference Barad2007, Reference Barad2008) has been foundational to new materialist research, guiding others to consider what it means to think beyond the human. They suggested that matter is not merely a substance but is constantly intra-acting, shifting, becoming and thus an ongoing materialisation. In this sense, nature is not a background for human endeavours, but is an active force unto itself. As Rosiek, Snyder, and Pratt (Reference Rosiek, Snyder and Pratt2020) noted however, posthumanist theory was not discovered by contemporary Western researchers and philosophers; “Indigenous thinkers and scholars developed ideas about non-human agency thousands of years earlier” (p. 332) and this is often overlooked in the literature. Many researchers in the field of early childhood education have started to apply new materialist ideas to their work (e.g., Hackett & Somerville, Reference Hackett and Somerville2017; Harwood & Collier, Reference Harwood and Collier2017; Merewether, Reference Merewether2019; Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind & Kocher Reference Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind and Kocher2017; Weldemariam, Reference Weldemariam2020), and many work across posthumanism, new materialism, common worlds and Indigenous thinking (Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017).

Decentring the human?

While posthuman thinking is not a specific methodology or set of methods of inquiry (Jukes, Reference Jukes2021; Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017), decentring the human, or deanthropomorphising the research is one central concept often touted in order to counter the dominant view of human exceptionalism. Shifting the focus of research and trying new ways to study the world in a multispecies approach can offer new forms of knowledge (Born, Reference Born2019; Ogden, Hall & Tanita Reference Ogden, Hall and Tanita2013). Within Western thought, primarily guided by Cartesian systems of dualisms, knowledge is seen to be an objective truth that can be acquired by the knower (Riley, Reference Riley and Riley2023) and is decontextualised (Simpson, Reference Simpson2014). This sets up “social hierarchies in which certain knowledges are considered valid, and only appropriate for, and accessible to, particular learners” (Riley, Reference Riley and Riley2023, p. 49), which can be highly problematic (Jukes, Reference Jukes2021). Alternatively, knowledge can be seen as being a co-creation, a lived experience in relation to others. Some forms of knowledge, such as Indigenous stories, are recognised as being living agents even if/when no human exists to tell them (Rosiek et al., Reference Rosiek, Snyder and Pratt2020). As Simpson (Reference Simpson2014) wrote, meaning can be derived through “a compassionate web of interdependent relationships that are different and valuable because of that difference (p. 11). Further, Simpson (Reference Simpson2014) reminded us that “intellectual knowledge is not enough on its own. Neither is spiritual knowledge or emotional knowledge. All kinds of knowledge are important and necessary in a communal and emergent balance” (Simpson, Reference Simpson2014, p. 16).

This is particularly challenging in a traditionally humanist fields like education (Russell, Reference Russell2005; Taylor & Pacini-Ketchabaw, Reference Taylor and Pacini-Ketchabaw2015), where there is a long history of attention to human development. This decentring of children (and humans generally) can be potentially uncomfortable and challenging for researchers (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., Reference Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, Blaise, Taylor and Hughes2016). Additionally, while there are inherent issues in trying to move beyond the human experience, doing so then begs the question of what to then focus on? Russell (Reference Russell2005) asked who “draws our attention and is worthy of representation” (p. 436) in posthumanist environmental education and who we might include in our research. Affifi (Reference Affifi2020) recognised that we inevitably anthropocentrically select what to focus on and it may not be possible to completely remove the humanity from research, therefore it may be more fruitful to think of a fluid binary of anthropocentrism and how various approaches to deanthropocentrism such as multicentrism, may be useful. Figuring out where to “let go of the human frame, and to what extent we need to hold onto it” (Affifi, Reference Affifi2020, p. 1437) may be one of the challenges of posthuman research.

Further, posthumanism inherently problematises the defined distinctions between and among species (Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017) After all, being human is being host to a colony of microorganisms (Hird, Reference Hird2010; Ogden et al., Reference Ogden, Hall and Tanita2013). Where does a human researcher or study participant’s body end and nature/another species/the nonhuman begin? Living organisms co-create and live with each other (Smart & Smart, 2017). Hird reminds us that “any given human/animal body is a symbiont: 600 species of bacteria in our mouths and 400 species of bacteria in our guts, and the countless more bacteria that inhabit our orifices and skin” (p. 37). If we decentre our humanity, should we then assign a centre to each of these other living creatures, some of them within us? Or are we suggesting the lack of focus on any beings? These questions highlight the complexity of this practice and the importance of nuanced explanations of research practices.

Language and terminology

Language matters yet is tricky to contend with when trying to communicate posthuman and post-anthropocentric concepts through words and sentences, which are inherently human creations. As I sit and use my human brain to think and my human hands to type on a human-made computer through the English language (acknowledging there the multitude of other amazing languages that humans have developed throughout the world), I wonder: What role does language play in the enactment of posthuman theories and research? First one must critically examine words that are typically associated with conventional research methodologies (e.g., qualitative, quantitative), words like “data collection,” “reflection,” “analysis,” “research methods,” and even “research question.” These terms allude to human thinking, and to the conventions of research that have emerged from a positivist paradigm that positioned the research process as a systematic way to come to know the world by testing hypotheses or posing questions and then answering them in an organised and rational process. A whole range of terms can be found in the literature within the common worlds, posthumanist, multispecies realm, highlighting the tensions and challenges of this work, and the extent to which researchers are comfortable moving away from convention.

One phrase that has been adopted by many posthuman researchers is thinking with, which acknowledges that thought can be relational and involve others including other types of living beings (Jukes, Reference Jukes2021; Rowan, Reference Rowan, Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor2015). In some writing these are labeled “nonhumans” but, as Young (Reference Young and Born2024) noted, the term “nonhuman” automatically others and sets apart humans as being the norm, positioning animals as secondary to humans, thus the term “more-than-human” has emerged. This term helps place the emphasis on relationality and co-constitution (Merewether, Gobby & Blaise Reference Merewether, Gobby and Blaise2022). In terms of discussing what researchers use to think with, Jukes (Reference Jukes, White, Tytler, Ferguson and Cripps Clark2023) proposes the use of empirical materials instead of the word data, describing the former as follows:

Ulmer (Reference Ulmer2017) also offered a methodological vocabulary list that can she suggested can be helpful for researchers wanting to think differently.

In this paper, I have been intentional in my use of words that are typically associated with humanist approaches to research, without completely avoiding them to help situate similarities and differences. For fellow researchers eager to carry out posthuman and/or post-qualitative for the first time, I believe it can be very helpful to see where familiar terminology and concepts can be applied, and what terms are important to shift. However, as Jukes (Reference Jukes2021) aptly wrote, we, as humans and researchers, cannot exist without our humanness. We must strive to “challenge some forms of anthropocentrism while inevitably slipping into other forms” (p. 92).

Looking to the literature for methodological insight

In the early stages of planning my own doctoral research, I grappled with the planning of my study. My intended focus was on empathy, especially concepts such as entangled empathy (Gruen, Reference Gruen2015), which suggested possibilities for looking beyond a human developmental perspective. As the research context was going to be forest school program held in a park, I needed research methods that worked in an outdoor context, that worked with children on the move, that could potentially capture multisensory and affective aspects of child-nature relations, and finally that might somehow capture nonhuman voices as well. I found limited published information on how other researchers had conducted their posthumanist or common worlds research. Books such as Feminist Research for 21 ^st Century Childhoods: Common Worlds Methods (Hodgins, Reference Hodgins2019) and Posthuman Research Practices in Education (Taylor & Hughes, Reference Taylor and Hughes2016) did not provide me with enough details on how to plan and carry out, in practical terms, such a study with children in an outdoor context. It became apparent that many researchers applied posthumanist thinking to data that had already been collected during previous studies (e.g., Änggård, Reference Änggård2016, Harwood, Barratt & Collier Reference Harwood, Barratt and Collier2019; Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., Reference Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, Blaise, Taylor and Hughes2016) and that much of the literature was very theoretic in nature. Understanding that posthuman thinking “is not a specific set of protocols, but a divergent array of ideas for investigating specific situated contexts” (Jukes, Reference Jukes2021, p. 91), examples of how some researchers have carried out their common worlds and/or posthumanist studies is useful, and indeed, a few have described their process in practical terms.

Powell and Somerville (Reference Powell and Somerville2018), for example, described their “deep hanging out” methodology and use of iPhones to collect photo and video data in an outdoor study with young children. Photos were taken to capture moments, and video recordings (10 s to 2 minutes in length). They also used the iPhone to jot down notes, which were later written out in “comprehensive fieldnotes, providing a more detailed and descriptive narrative of what happened, both in an observational sense and in terms of things we, the researchers, experienced, felt, understood, were confounded by, thought and wondered” (p. 851). The researchers explored a segment of video showing a group of children drumming to “think different about literacy and sustainability through an ontology of sound” (p. 858).

Merewether et al. (Reference Merewether, Gobby and Blaise2022) applied a walking methodology, whereby walking was not simply the bodily practice but was a “scholarly research practice which mobilises embodied and affective ways of thinking with nonhuman others” (p. 206). The researchers applied a way to listen “in multiple registers” (Rose, 2013, p. 107, as cited in Merewether et al., Reference Merewether, Gobby and Blaise2022), specifically attuning to sense of sound and smell as a way to cultivate attentiveness and notice others. Theirs was deliberately an “exploratory study not bound by a pre-planned research plan” (p. 208), though they did describe visiting a site regularly and taking field notes and photographs while out walking with a group of children.

Malone et al. (Reference Malone, Tesar and Arndt2020) suggested that turning to philosophy to unpack children’s relations to other beings, materials, forces and elements is helpful and described using philosophy in itself as a methodology, as it can provide an alternative to the traditional structure of collecting data, analysing it and evaluating findings. This approach of inquiry “for researching children and childhoods pushes us to think to a deeper and more inventive level, ontologically and methodologically” (p. 217).

Some researchers have recently developed an approach termed a collaboratory. Nelson and Drew (Reference Nelson and Drew2024) present collaboratories as sites of collective thinking and experimentation that particularly focus on children’s more-than-human relations, offering “possibilities for reorienting understandings of our connections with plants, animals, fungi and other non-human creatures we share place with” (p. 166). In their study, Nelson and Drew (Reference Nelson and Drew2024) employed arts-based methods such as drawing and photography, as well as walking as part of their field work. They discuss using a relational approach and thinking that moves beyond seeing creatures and natural items as static objects. Specifically,

In their work, walking the forests and surrounding areas were an important aspect of the research.

In terms of data analysis, or generating knowledge through these methods of inquiry, many have applied the concept of diffraction. Murris (Reference Murris2016) described diffraction, a term borrowed from physics, as a wave-like motion: “like two waves rolling closely together to the shore adding to each other’s force and creating new patterns — a ‘superposition’ — in which the old is still ‘present,’ but has become entangled in new formations” (p. 30). Murris included “diffractive pauses” in her own work as transitional spaces woven into her chapters. She writes that she used no particular formula in creating these pauses, rather the idea was to diffract each story or photograph and, in the process, create something new.

Such an approach is more emergent and unpredictable, producing different thoughts, wonderings and questions (Mazzei, Reference Mazzei2013). As Riley (Reference Riley and Riley2023) noted, “diffraction does not refer to reflection, which results in the mirror of same-ness. Rather, metaphorically, diffraction can be used to think about differences that matter in attending to a variety of agents in their crisscrossing relations to each other” (p. 51). This can be generative of thought and can produce something new that does not need to be analysed for meaning but instead is helpful for shifting attention (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., Reference Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind and Kocher2017).

Research context: Exploring empathy with more-than-human others

The study setting for my doctoral research, which has led me to the methodological insight that will follow, was an urban park in Alberta, Canada, where a forest school program was taking place, providing a group of young children and educators multispecies encounters outdoors with dogs, birds, squirrels, trees and a plethora of other beings and objects. I aimed to examine the affective, embodied and empathetic aspect of children’s participation in a forest school program in Canada (see Boileau, Reference Boileau2022, for a full account of this study). I sought to better understand child-nature relations and to put into practice the concept of decentring the human during research (Pacini-Ketchabaw et al., Reference Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, Blaise, Taylor and Hughes2016) and attune to the multispecies relations and shared common worlds of beings, objects and weather that formed an assemblage.

The children met their educator once per week for a half day program on Fridays and spent the entire time outside in the public park, following a forest school approach — an educational approach grounded in play and child-led learning, immersed in nature and connected to the socio-cultural aspects of a place. The research participants in the study included six children aged three to six years, two educators and a myriad of other participants, namely dogs, trees, squirrels, sticks, grass, snow, GoPro cameras, birdsand the play and learning materials brought to the site.

I was inspired by a multispecies ethnographic approach, which provided a way to attend to human relations and interactions with animals, plants and other life forms (Aisher & Damodaran, Reference Aisher and Damodaran2016). As Young (Reference Young and Born2024) noted, scholarship in multispecies approaches is promising, yet remains “steeped in the terminology and practices of humancentric discourse that maintains hierarchical relations” (p. 15). I argue that this is not inherently bad and that being mindful of when anthropocentrism is taking over is key; a researcher’s humanity can never be completely erased.

The program and my research took place in a city park on Treaty 7 territory which is the traditional land of the Blackfoot confederacy, the Tsuut’ina, the Stoney Nakoda Nations and the Metis Nation, Region 3. Indigenous Ways of Knowing are valuable in offering an alternative understanding of human-nature relations that have often been presented through a Western approach. Although I am not Indigenous and did not utilise an Indigenous research methodology for my study, I was inspired by such Indigenous scholarship and human-Land relationships. As my research took place outdoors and out on the Land, I sought to respectfully learn of the Indigenous history and culture, which Calderon (Reference Calderon2014) wrote is essential in order to relearn about the place we live. Though they cannot be lumped together as one perspective, Indigenous worldviews do have commonalities, such as an understanding that plants, animals and landscapes are seen as kin and relations (Salmón, Reference Salmón2000). Land is seen as holding stories and knowledge that convey ethics and lessons for living (Simpson, Reference Simpson2014). Further, all life forms of creation possess consciousness (Bastien, Reference Bastien2004). Within the Indigenous paradigm, an individual’s “existence is ultimately dependent upon intimate relationships of reciprocity, humility, honesty and respect with all elements of creation, including plants and animals” (Simpson, Reference Simpson2014, p. 9–10).

With an intention to be respectful and attend specifically to local Indigenous cultures and Ways of Knowing (though admittedly, not all local cultures were explored within the context of my study), I consulted the writings of local Blackfoot author Betty Bastien (Reference Bastien2004) who wrote of the Ways of Knowing of the Blackfoot people, who are signatories of Treaty 7 and have lived on the Land where I conducted my study for thousands of years. Bastien wrote that the “Siksikaitsitapi [all Blackfoot speaking tribes] are dependent upon all creation for survival. Learning how life is interdependent is therefore a preeminent objective in the educational process” (p. 95). In Blackfoot culture, knowledge, science and religion are integrated. I agree with Harwood et al. (Reference Harwood, Whitty, Green, Elliot, Elliott, Ärlemalm-Hagsér and Davis2020), who suggest that “Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems offer powerful counter-narratives to human–nature divides, human exceptionalism and colonial hegemonic discourses that currently influence early childhood education for sustainability research and practices” (p. 25).

Posthuman practicalities of three research methods

As noted previously, in some posthuman-grounded research, there is no formal plan before embarking on a research project, or research inspired by posthumanist theory may be enacted in non-representational ways. However, I wonder whether having a set plan and objective is necessarily in contrast with the generation of this type of knowledge. Surely, a relational approach to research and inclusion of more-than-human other beings may also be done with a more structured approach to research? Researchers are humans with jobs, responsibilities, timelines and deadlines, who must often get their research plans read and approved by others who may be less familiar with unconventional methodologies. Routine and plans are realistically necessary for some researchers to carry out their ideas. I offer the following discussion of three of the ways in which I collected data to think with as part of my doctoral research (Boileau, Reference Boileau2022) with the hope that it can be helpful for those navigating a similar research space and grappling with the planning of a project. The methods I present were helpful in experimenting with the notion of decentring the human and enacting posthuman inquiry.

Navigating posthuman research creation

Posthumanist research has “radically shifted what is possible in research methodology” (Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017, p. 832), since it is not a new methodology that neatly fits into a traditional paradigm, but an array of possibilities that are in line with relational thinking. How to incorporate and adequately represent (if one is choosing representational approaches) more-than-human worlds in research endeavours through our own humanity is an obvious conundrum. Indeed, Merewether et al. (Reference Merewether, Gobby and Blaise2022) noted that, “even with the best of intentions, the challenge is finding ways to think with others that cannot talk to us” (p. 206). In the field of early childhood education, though, this is not a new problem since educators regularly work with pre-verbal young children. Thus, it is not surprising that it is in this field that much progress has been made in regard to thinking beyond the human (Merewether et al., Reference Merewether, Gobby and Blaise2022).

The three research methods described and discussed here provide some practical examples of what tools a researcher may use to collect data, or to document occurrences and experiences for a posthumanist, common worlds study. In the context of my research, non-participant observation was a useful way of intentionally casting my thoughts and attention wider than just the children’s play, perhaps an example of “applying multispecies awareness to educational observation,” as proposed by Born (Reference Born and Born2024, p. 97). This allowed me to play with the concept of decentring the humans/children from the study and to broaden my observations, including listening and feeling, to the entirety of the assemblage of beings, materials, histories, etc.

Observing the natural environment at the study setting through the practice of sit spots between the days where I accompanied the children was also very useful. This allowed for a layered approach to my thinking and for more-than-human beings and things to weave in and out of the research. For example, one day I observed Black-billed Magpies at the main meeting place for the forest school, a clearing between a stand of Balsam Poplar and other trees. I wondered if these cunning birds had learned to scavenging the area once the children had left, looking for leftover snacks. Such multispecies entanglements were highlighted by my attending to the place without any children present. While a human can never directly know about the subjective world of another human, let alone another being, we can use our imagination, aided by observations of other beings’ behaviours and activities to at least attempt to be inclusive of these other lived experiences of the world (Schroer, Reference Schroer2021).

Seeing the outward perspective of the children through the use of wearable cameras also helped me think with and to think differently (Ulmer, Reference Ulmer2017). While watching the video footage, the researcher’s eye is not drawn to the child’s body movements, voice and facial expressions, but rather to the adjacent plants, animals and materials when they are playing outside. The video can be viewed several times, allowing a researcher to choose a nonhuman aspect of interest to focus on while watching. In the case of my study, for example, I watched footage taken on snowy days several times and, applying a new materialist lens, asked myself “What is snow doing? How is it being moved? How is it affecting and intra-acting with other bodies and materials?” The close-up and intimate view of snow moving around on mittens, falling from the sky and sticking to snowpants and jackets was eye-opening. I was able to truly view snow as an inherently pedagogical agent that was able to teach children directly, without needing an adult to explain lessons about snow textures, shapes and temperatures (Rowan, Reference Rowan, Pacini-Ketchabaw and Taylor2015).

The practical research approaches described within this article show promise for conducting research that attends to the common worlds of children and that moves away from only examining what the children are learning and doing outdoors in an educational program. For those of us that have been entrenched in the field of early childhood education, it requires dedication and intentionality to switch from humanist to posthumanist thinking. Yet posthumanism is an approach that may be particularly useful within the field of early childhood education for sustainability (Somerville & Williams, Reference Somerville and Williams2015; Weldemarian, Reference Weldemarian, Franck and Osbeck2017).

The importance and urgency of accepting new ways of producing knowledge of engaging with Indigenous scholarship that offers important guidance in times of environmental crises cannot be understated. As we live through the remaining few years that remain before human lifestyles and values in the Western world lead to changes in earth’s climate and ecosystems to the point of no return and to the detriment of many beings, we surely have a duty to critical re-assess our relationships, seek insight where it may be uncomfortable and ethically think with things (Jukes, Reference Jukes, White, Tytler, Ferguson and Cripps Clark2023). Doing research differently may not be the one solution but it could be one possible path forward that speaks to a paradigm shift in how humans live and share this world.