‘I felt uncomfortable because I know what it can be’: The emotional geographies and implicit activisms of reflexive practices for early childhood teachers

Abstract

Reflexivity is recognized as an important constituent in how teachers build their professional knowledge and develop their pedagogical practice. However, less is known about the function that emotions play in the reflexive process and how these emotions can act as a catalyst to mobilize action that can create spaces for small activisms. Implicit activisms are here understood to involve small-scale gestures, such as speaking against discrimination, that can support notions of social justice. In this article, a reading of emotions is undertaken to explore how emotions such as discomfort can influence the speed and type of reaction for an early childhood specialist teacher during peer-to-peer mentoring. The concept of emotional geography is used to understand the way emotions relate to the distancing of others in one teacher’s professional life and mobilize small-scale activism that can be interpreted as politically motivated.