Decolonizing place in early childhood studies: Thinking with Indigenous onto-epistemologies and Black feminist geographies

Abstract

This article aims to center Indigenous onto-epistemologies and Black feminist geographies in considerations of place, environment, and “nature” in early childhood studies. We consider how these perspectives might enact knowledge-making that politicizes, unsettles, and (re)stories place-based studies of childhood. In particular, we are interested in possibilities for unsettling the dominance of EuroWestern knowledges in both normative and critical encounters with nature/culture and human/non-human dualisms in environmental and place-based childhood studies, particularly in working from the premise that anthropogenic vulnerabilities, anti-Blackness, and settler colonialism are intimately entangled within North American contexts. While noting the tensions between posthuman geographies, Indigenous onto-epistemologies, and Black feminist geographies, we consider how together they might enrich critical place-attuned early childhood studies. Our intent is to contribute to ongoing dialogues on the urgency of anti-racist, decolonial, and non-anthropocentric approaches within current times of environmental precarity.