THE IMPORTANCE AND CHALLENGES OF cross-culture research

TAVERNA, A. S.

Munich

Workshop; International Workshop Children and nature(s): An interdisciplinary dialogue; 2023

Munich University

At a time marked by unprecedented rates of biodiversity loss and extinction, the relationship between humans and the nonhuman world has come to the forefront of public and academic debates in Euro-American societies. Early socialization has long been recognised as playing a fundamental role in shaping the ways in people relate to “nature.” In particular, concerns about children’s lack of contact with “nature” or about the extinction of many species has reignited an interest in the role. Despite this renewed attention however, research has been carried out independently in distinct disciplines with very little done to bring together these different strands of research in a dialogue. This workshop brings together experts and scholars working in anthropology, psychology, early childhood education, the environmental humanities and the cognitive sciences whose research focuses on children’s relationship to the natural world. The workshop will address three main theoretical and methodological questions broadly arranged under three main topics:1) Nature(s) •How do we theorise nature? How do different understandings of nature shape our relationship to it?•How do we do research about the natural world? What methodologies and theories do we use to study children-nature relationships?•What are the assumptions that each discipline brings when it comes to the study of nature?•What can different concepts of nature and nonhumans tell us about how people experience and interact with the nonhuman world?•What practices or modes of relating give rise to particular concepts of nature, self, and the possibilities for interactions between them?•What do we mean with “nonhumans”? How do the assumptions we draw on affect the way the research is conduct? How can the researcher approach nonhumans - theoretically, but also in practice? •What methods can we apply when studying children’s interactions with nonhumans?2) Learning•How do children learn about the natural world? •How can we understand children’s modes of being and relating to the world as distinct from adults? For example, what are relevant differences in children’s attention, motivation, sensory worlds, experience? •How do different understandings of children, development and learning affect pedagogical practices? •How do culturally specific learning practices shape people’s relationship to the natural world in terms of conceptualisations and/or moral behaviour? •What methods can we use to investigate learning processes?•What do we mean with nature connectedness? How do we investigate cross culturally such a relationship? •What are the implications of this concept for thinking about environmental ethics and the Anthropocene?3) A political economy of child-nature relationships•What is the politics surrounding children´s relationship to the natural world? •How do economical and political factors play in children´s access and relation to the nonhuman world?•What is the relationship between the dichotomy nature/culture and capitalism? •Can we think about pedagogical ways to disrupt commodified practices of relating to the natural world?