BECOMING (WITH) GARBAGE IN KINDERGARTEN. A study of intra-active bodymingling, affectivity and diffractions set in motion.

Abstract

My thesis "Becoming (with) Garbage in Kindergarten" aims to explore the transformative potential of waste materials within a kindergarten context, by seeking to reconceptualize their value within the kindergarten learning environment against prevailing perceptions and methodologies. My research adopts post-qualitative and performative approaches to an educational setting—kindergarten, which provides a dynamic relation of children, educators, and materials that mediate along socio-material spaces to offer a view informed by feminist and new materialist theories. For this reason, it suggests a rethinking of the very concept of waste: not just as passive rubbish to throw away but as an active agent that allows the emergence of affective learning processes and embeds sustainability principles from an early age. Thus, when waste material is included within educational settings, it potentially exposes an opportunity for strengthening ecological awareness and instilling environmental stewardship. It thus calls for urgent reevaluation of the waste materials or garbage plays in educational practice. On the other hand, this thesis calls for reimagining the possibilities embedded within children-garbage intra-actions. I therefore, look at pedagogical strategies that would be alive to the complex entanglements of matter with meaning and becoming.