Mosaicking childhoodnature relations: situated encounters with country in times of climate change*

Abstract

This paper, by an intergenerational and international author collective, uses postqualitative ‘mosaicking’ to assemble and reassemble ‘material moments’ of childhoodnature encounters. Mosaicking is an experimentation that combines materials, digital devices, nonhuman nature, and humans to co-create something new; it enables us to ponder nature relations from multiple perspectives and in post-anthropocentric ways. Enacting this speculative inquiry, that works to blur the boundaries of diverse childhoodnature experiences, enables an exploration of the complex realities of climate change for children. This opens new post-anthropocentric orientations for Climate Change Education. We consider how the Aboriginal philosophy of Country and the posthuman concepts of childhoodnature, relational becoming, and nature relations can be interwoven and put to work towards this endeavour, thus challenging dominating minority world, humanist perspectives. Emerging from this we propose educational responses to climate change which are co-created, relational, place-oriented, embodied, transformative, and sensitive to children’s Climate Change becomings.