The Entangled Enlivening of Being: Feminist Research Strategies in the Early Years

Abstract

In this chapter, I will examine four current challenges in the conduct of feminist research in the early childhood arena. The first challenge is to move beyond categorical analysis. Rather than categorization we need concepts that focus on movement, on what Barad (2007) calls the entangled enlivening of being. Our second challenge is to simultaneously develop repetitive research practices that are recognizable as ``research,'' while seeking out the breaks, the creative leaps that we, and those we research, might make into the not-yet-known. The third challenge is to move away from individualism, shifting our gaze away from individual intention toward events as they emerge, asking what is the event, and how is it made possible? The fourth and related challenge is to listen not for what we already know, but to listen with all our senses to the not-yet-known.