This CFP has been inspired by multidisciplinary discussions about research theory and practice at the international conference Assembling Common Worlds, on the environment and young people’s literature and culture, in June 2022. As these exchanges among colleagues representing, among others, literary and cultural studies, early childhood education, and environmental humanities, have substantially expanded our thinking about different disciplinary approaches to expressions and experiences of children’s cultures during the Anthropocene, we would like to invite other scholars to join us by contributing to the edited volume we propose below.

We are interested in ways we might think about naturecultures (Haraway 2003) with children to disrupt anthropocentrism. We recognize that in all the activities and thinking we are describing below, adults and young people may be equally engaged or implicated. Barad (2011) and Haraway (2012) talk about response-ability, that is both taking care of and being responsive to the more-than-human world; we think it urgent to explore how we all can be response-able in our work with children and their cultures in times of climate change emergency, massive loss of biodiversity, and growing toxification of the planet.

Possible contributions to Multidisciplinary Entanglements in Children’s Cultures and Pedagogies in the Anthropocene may address the following questions:

• Are animals or plants ever not instrumental in human identity formation/development in pedagogic activities and/or children’s cultures?
• How are more-than-human teachers engaged and treated in pedagogy and/or children’s cultures?
• How is making kin with more-than-humans recognized, embraced, and nurtured?
• How are Indigenous epistemologies about our relations with land/water/animal and plant kin taught or expressed in/with children’s culture?
• How do children creatively respond to the current environmental crisis?
• What kinds of intergenerational creative and/or cultural projects address environmental issues?
• How might Gary Nabhan’s concept of regeneration rooted in re-story-ation (Nabhan 1991; Kimmerer 2013), listening to the stories of the land to re-learn connections between humans and nature, work in pedagogical practices or be expressed in literature and media for young people?
• How does the positioning of children and adults in relation to each other during environmental crisis reveal intergenerational (in)justices?
• Is hope a realistic or generative response to environmental crisis? How does it function?

The deadline for expressions of interest (an abstract of 300 words and a short biography) is November 30, 2022. Authors will be notified of preliminary acceptance by January 30, 2023. Full chapters (4000-6000 words) will be required by May 30, 2023. The essays should be original works not previously published and not under consideration for another publication. The commissioning editor for of a major academic press has expressed interest in this project.

Please submit proposals to:
Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak: justyna.deszcz-tryhubczak@uwr.edu.pl  
Terri Doughty: terri.doughty@viu.ca  
Janet Grafton: janet.grafton@viu.ca  

(Quelle: Aussendung)