Negotiating Adult-Child Relationships in Early Childhood Research

Negotiating Adult-Child Relationships in Early Childhood Research presents a substantive critique of technicist and neoliberal approaches to ethics through an exploration of the complicated and often ‘messy’ situations faced in negotiating relationships in research with children. Drawing upon data from their own research, the authors contend that relationships are part of a wider web of social relations and space-time configurations. They propose and develop a relational ethics of answerability and social justice, inspired by the work of Bakhtin, and in addition explore the way material bodies come to matter, the ambiguity of consent in educator-research, and the risks and possibilities of research relationships. Chapters include innovative formulations of reciprocity, ‘sensing practices’, and political-ethical responsibility.