This article was downloaded by: [110.32.167.83]On: 07 September 2015, At: 05:09Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG

Click for updates

Children's GeographiesPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cchg20

Theorizing a child–dog encounterin the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order todisrupt universalisms in current ‘childin nature’ debatesKaren Malonea

a Centre for Educational Research, University of Western Sydney,Sydney, NSW, AustraliaPublished online: 04 Sep 2015.

To cite this article: Karen Malone (2015): Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Pazusing post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child in nature’debates, Children's Geographies, DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2015.1077369

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2015.1077369

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever orhowsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arisingout of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &

Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

Theorizing a child–dog encounter in the slums of La Paz using post-humanistic approaches in order to disrupt universalisms in current ‘child innature’ debates

Karen Malone*

Centre for Educational Research, University of Western Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

(Received 10 July 2014; accepted 24 July 2015)

This paper theorizes children’s interspecies relation with dogs in La Paz Bolivia utilizing post-humanism and new materialism as its approach. This approach allows for the deconstructing ofhuman–nature binaries found in discourses central to the children in nature movement.Questioning the universalizing of children’s experience in nature the paper considers threepropositions. Firstly, what if children were viewed as nature rather than outside of it.Secondly, can the objects or ‘things’ of nature be viewed as animated. And finally, howsensitive is the contemporary imperative to reconnect children to a romanticized morenatured life, to children’s diverse worldly experiences. I explore these propositions drawingon a study where I have adopted a materialist ontology and theorized using the work of[Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and theEntanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press] and herconcept of intra-action as adopted by Rautio [2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in TheirPockets: On Autotelic Material Practices in Everyday Life.” Children’s Geographies 11 (4):394–408]. Based on my child–dog interspecies exploration, I will conclude by re-addressingthe three propositions.

Keywords: child–nature; child–animals studies; nature education; post-humanism newmaterialism; nature education; intra-action

Introduction

In recent times, the ‘children in nature’ movement, using social media, conferences and publi-cations has had resurgence in public visibility. The key message being promoted, relying on anadult sentimentality is urban children’s loss of connection to nature, the ills of growing up in con-temporary society and the implications for children’s lives. With this popularization of grandstatements about the importance of children’s relationship to ‘nature’, it is timely to considerwhat influence these views of ‘child’ and ‘nature’ might have on the field of children environ-ments research. Particularly, as these statements are often underpinned quite liberally by anumber of key anthropocentric views: ‘(1) human societies used to be closer to nature, (2) ourcurrent way of life is unnatural or distant from nature, and (3) proximity to nature is a questionof learning (and teaching)’ (Rautio 2013c, 449). These sentiments support the perceptionhumans are not nature and it is possible for some species, namely humans to be more or lessnature, connected or disconnected from nature, and superior to or dominant over nature.

© 2015 Taylor & Francis

*Email: k.malone@uws.edu.au

Children’s Geographies, 2015http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2015.1077369

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

Rather than continue to reinforce these views in this paper, I seek to contemplate what pos-sibilities exist to challenge enduring perceptions that position humans as exceptional. I askthrough my research what new theoretical approaches would support the deconstruction ofnature–culture, human–nature, object–subject binaries and allow for more inclusive means fordescribing the nature–human collective. Taylor (2013, 66) who has worked extensively inunpacking these new approaches for early childhood educators writes:

… such conversations have constellated around the challenge of thinking differently about nature, aswell as what it means to be human. Those involved have undertaken to reconceptualize what counts asnature outside the bounds of the nature/culture divide, to build connections rather than rehearseseparations.

Deconstructing child–nature–culture binaries using post-humanistic theories have in recent timesbecome the focus a number of childhood nature theorists (Lenz-Taguchi 2011; Taylor 2011, 2013;Rautio 2013a, 2013b). Their work has been important in the structuring of the theoretical framingadopted in this research study described in this paper. That is, rather then reiterate a previouslyrehearsed child–nature divide in the analysis of children in La Paz, I am looking to disrupt anthro-pocentric views and attend to thinking about child and nature research differently. Taking on thechallenge as proposed by Taylor (2011, 432):

… encouraging childhood scholars to engage with geography’s hybrid nature/culture analytic, I amnot seeking to provide an answer to the ‘nature’ of childhood but to open it up to a new form of pol-itical enquiry which attends to the interconnectedness of the human and more-than-human world.

The paper begins with a short discussion on the current ‘child in nature movement’ in particularthose views emanating from the USA. Views by commentators, I argue, that lack any conscious-ness of the way their culturally myopic claims about nature and childhood are being turned intocultural universalisms. Universalisms that reiterate human exceptionalism and limit the possibi-lities for looking outside of the human–nature divide. As a process for ‘doing’ research differ-ently, I have applied a set of theoretical tools to explore the intra-action of child–doginterspecies relations in the slum communities of La Paz, Bolivia. I conclude by returning tothree propositions I identify as limiting the current debates within the child in nature movement:firstly that children are viewed as outside of nature; that nature is viewed as an inanimate objectand finally the universalizing of childhood by a lack of cultural sensitivity to the diversity of chil-dren’s environmental experiences globally.

Romantic and anthropocentric views of the child in nature

In recent years, the child in nature movement has experienced a significant resurgence, particu-larly in Westernized countries. The resurgence has primarily been orchestrated around a collectivefear that due to ongoing rapid urbanization, children’s untamed access to technology, and thechanging regulation of ‘childhood’, previous generations of children had more freedom, moretime, and therefore more opportunities to connect to nature. Evidence published in an array ofcross-disciplinary research studies supporting the impact of the child–nature disconnect hasbeen substantial, (Louv 2005; Gill 2007, 2011). In previous published work, I have also supportedthese arguments by citing recent research studies I have conducted on the loss of children’sfreedom and independent mobility in majority and minority world nations (Malone and Tranter2003; Malone 2004; Malone 2007, 2008).

Championing the ‘child in nature’movement, in 2005 Richard Louv advanced on the scene asa significant force in the US-based child and nature network. Supported by the research evidence

2 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

and the work of a number of scholars including Kahn and Kellert (2002) and Wilson’s (1984)work on Biophilia,1 Louv argued children had an innate desire to be connected to ‘nature’ andmodern society (parents in particular) were denying children’s innate yearning for a naturefilled childhood. According to Louv (2005) untainted or pure nature is ultimately the best typeof nature for children. In his book Last Child in the Woods (Louv 2005) coined the pseudo-medical term nature deficit disorder to describe children’s disassociation with nature. Louv(2005, 9) in his book defines nature as the ‘the outdoors’ anything that is natural – not human-made in the physical environment’. Louv (2005, 9) writes ‘ …when I use the word “nature” ina general way I mean natural wilderness, biodiversity, abundance – related loose parts in a back-yard or a rugged mountains ridge. Most of all, nature, is reflected in our capacity for wonder’. Inthis definition, there is no reference to human or other nonhuman animals (domestic or wild) asnature, it is assumed that they exist only in relation to, and outside of nature but are not nature.Clarke and Mcphie (2014) share in these concerns and identified in the fields of outdoor andenvironmental education research many authors still do not realize: ‘… the impossibility of a“disconnection”’, quoting from the work of Morton (2007) they state we cannot mourn for theloss of a connection to nature ‘because we are so deeply attached to it – we are it’ (Clarke andMcphie 2014, 11). But it is not just this loss of nature Louv argues for, but a return to a pastmore natured life.

Dickinson (2013, 7) critical of simplistic view of child–nature relations within Louv writingsstates: ‘Fall-recovery narratives can be problematic in how they reify the human-nature split,obscure environmental justice, influence irresponsible behavior, and normalize contemporaryconditions and relationships.’ Fall-recovery narratives in this sense are a form of reminiscingwhere the past is always ‘good’ and ‘virtuousness’. A past, according to Louv (2011) as anutopian world where children were safer, had more freedom to be ‘children’, and were left toexplore nature (particularly wild nature) without adult interference. This emphasis on romanticiz-ing the past lives of children normalizes a ‘perfect’ Disneyfied childhood (Taylor 2013) where thewild meant children’s freedom and the dominant parenting style was ‘benign neglect’ (Gill 2007).Therefore, this argument for a child–nature reconnect relies on an assumption that all past gener-ations had a closer and more intimate relation with the planet, and ‘de-emphasizes a long historyof environmental degradation and disconnectedness’ (Dickinson 2013, 7) where the experience ofbeing in ‘nature’ may not have been a positive one. Although research illustrates, childhoodencounters with the ‘natural world’ are not always restorative, healthy, or as spiritually upliftingas nostalgic writings suggest. Within an utopian white middle-class America the experiences ofchildren in less developed nations (or in disadvantaged communities in first world countries) whogrow up next to high polluting industries, busy highways, and degraded landscapes are renderedinvisible. For many children and young people’s perception of the environment can be one of fearand uneasiness. For example, Hordyk, Dulde, and Shem (2014, 6) reporting on research withimmigrant and refugee children in Canada revealed: ‘Nature was not a utopian ideal waiting tobe experienced by children’ and ‘human and animal predators made walks in a forest dangerouspast-times’ for these children. The world ‘outdoors’ for these children has potentially been aharmful place. How children engage with these spaces differs enormously from childrengrowing up in middle-class suburbia, yet this universalizing of childhood experiences isseldom discussed in the child in nature movement. For Dickinson (2013, 7): ‘Fall-recovery,then, is a subjective cultural creation in how it positions the kind of nature and childhood towhich humans should return.’ This attention to the past, ‘ … a reunion of humans with the restof nature’ (Louv 2011, 3) limits the capacity of the child–nature movement to consider a new ima-gining of children’s encounters with the more-than-human world. A new imaging that could rep-resent a more realistic and culturally diverse view of contemporary childhood. According toDickinson (2013, 7) the child–nature reconnect as conceptualized through the current child in

Children’s Geographies 3

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

nature movement is a ‘ …white, middle class, male, heterosexual cultural past that obscures race,class and gender politics’.

In addition to rendering the diversity of past and present childhood experiences in nature asnon-existent, the current child–nature discourse supports a human–nature divide. By positioninghumans as ‘exceptional’ outside of nature, and nature is determined as merely a resource forhuman use, it invites a limited view of nature where it exists only under its humanistic colonizingdomination (Cronon 1995). Post-humanistic and post-anthropocentric theoretical approachesprovide the ideal realm to consider the ‘potential to contest the arrogance of anthropocentrismand the exceptionalism of the humans’ (Braidotti 2013, 66). In order to challenge the view ofhuman culture evident in the children & nature movement, that is humans are positioned as sep-arate and/all superior to a nonhuman domain called nature that paper seeks to de-center the humanand pay attention to the complex relations of a child–nature encounter.

Thinking methodologically and theoretically

The author in partnership with UNICEF Bolivia and La Paz municipal council engaged in thechild–dog in La Paz research study in 2012 and 2014. Fieldwork was conducted in three disad-vantaged communities in the greater La Paz metropolitan. The research with eighty children aged6–14 years, was guided by a place-based participatory research methodology, a methodology sup-portive of an authentic engagement with children in place (Malone 2013). This approach seeks toappreciate the ‘whole child–nature experience’ and acknowledges that children are constitutedthrough encounters with and through an array of ‘things’ that come to be their material surround-ings. Children were supported to document the everyday and in this study in the analysis therewas an emphasis on ‘the value of listening to children’s own views on their relationships withanimals’ (Tipper 2011, 149) and acknowledging that human–animal relations as invariablysocially and materially located. Children in the study were provided with disposable filmcameras and given no specific instructions on the photographic content. They carried thecameras for over a week as they went about their everyday lives. Once the film was developed,children could then engage in a photonarrative activity, in order to discuss the content of thephotographs. This two-phase process allowed the photographic data to exist independently asan ‘object’ of our study while also allowing the photograph to act as stimulus for a child’s narra-tive. When analyzing the photographs it was revealed had produced a powerful set of child–natureencounters and captured what Rautio (2013a, 4) names as the ‘space in between children and theirenvironments’. The child holding the camera seemed to be the perfect stance for depicting the‘objects’ of their gaze (dogs, mountains, trees, streets) while also highlighting nuances of allmatter of assemblages of space between. It was in this ‘in between space’ the layers of complexityof child–dog encounters in La Paz were revealed. By adopting a post-humanistic approach andconsidering the value of theoretical tools of new materialism, particularly the concept of intra-action, I began to deconstruct child–dog relations expressed as encounters and shaped througha co-habitation of the in between. Much of this discussion on new materialism (objects asvibrant matter) builds on the work of Latour and actor-network theory, using his notion ofactants as interveners between spaces.

‘Intra-action’ supports the capacity for intra-species encounters to co-merge with all things as‘agentic’ (Rautio 2013a, 2013b). Rautio (2013a, 5) who draws extensively on the work of Barad(2007) suggests, ‘agency is not something a body (human or nonhuman) or an entity has, but thatit is a relationship brought about by “intra-action”’. Rautio (2013b, 2) explains the distinctionbetween more common ways of thinking about interaction and her use of intra-action:

In interaction independent entities are viewed as taking turns in affecting each other, which impliesthat these entities are taken to each have an a priori independent existence. In intra-action, on the

4 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

contrary, interdependent entities are taken to co-emerge through simultaneous activity to come intobeing as certain kind because of their encounter.

Thiswork raises ontological questions about the privileging of the human subject and allowsmewith this study to considerwhatmight happen theoretically if agencywas not the exclusive propertyof the child, but dogs, as things, objects, subjects also exercised agency through the writing (Barad2007). According to Andersen (2014, 4) this focus on ‘challenging the idea that humans occupy aseparate and privileged place among other beings has been the central goal of a now familiar post-humanist agenda’, with critical post-humanists taking on the task of challenging well establishedhumanist discourses that ‘separates and elevates humans from the natural world’.

A focus on new materialist ontologies allows me to conceive a view of agency in my theoriz-ing as not tied exclusively to human action but that both child and dog are intra-acting, shapingeach other. It shifts the focus of the study to ‘how relational networks or assemblages of animateand inanimate affect and are affected’ (Fox and Alldred 2014, 1) and how they are interdependent.The nonhuman bodies (dogs) become simply more than objects being directed and responding tothe human (child) but are understood as subjects in their own right, exercising agency, andshaping of the exchange (Tipper 2011). In this way objects and subjects are mutually constitutedand are only relationally distinct, rather than an individualized subject where the focus is on ‘howrespondents are situated within assemblages’ (Fox and Alldred 2014, 11). This allows for a dis-ruption of the Cartesian divide between human and animals, an ontological shift that challengessimplistic dichotomies of animal–human, nature–culture (Tipper 2011). A materialist ontologyprovides a way of reimagining the child–nature debate by questioning what is ‘viewed asnature’, what is ‘valued about nature’ what happens when a child is ‘placed in nature’. Thethesis by Harker (2005, 57) around the body, embodiment, and play drawing on the work ofDeleuze and Guattari (1987) is also helpful here: ‘Deleuzian bodies are at once materials, semio-tic, social, and incorporeal, as indeed bodies are when encountered in our everyday (playful)lives.’ That is, by utilizing the child–dog–body encounters through the lens of the camera pro-vided new openings for considering the human as embedded in the ‘everydayness’ of a playfulchild–nature collective (Barad 2007).

When theorizing the child–animal encounter in La Paz, I also engaged in the ideas of ‘messymethodologies’ (Rautio 2013a, 403). Acknowledging the messiness of data that does not fit intoneat categories with certainty with closure; rather research where the ‘complexity and open-ended-ness of phenomena’ are not sacrificed (Rautio 2013a, 403). This approach is a departure from asociocultural–ecological approach I have used in previous theoretical work of place-based researchwith children. The most distinctive point of departure being a shift away from viewing the child asthe only active animated subject. The previous thematic categorizing of data had emphasized dataas segments and themes, with the human subject as central. What this style of analysis and theoriz-ing would have allowed me to do is ‘provide tangible and measurable conceptualizations’ (Rautio2013a, 403) to create certainty and closure around what is ‘going on’ for these children in this com-munity. By engaging in a messy methodology and focusing on de-centering the human, the dog isnot merely an ‘object’ within the stories of children’s cultures of play and exploration, but the dogshapes the child’s experiences as the child also shapes the dog experience. Through this newmate-rialist reading, I ‘celebrate data that does notfit into categories’, and I seek to ‘replace categories andthemes with tangents and rhizomes’ (2013a, 403).

Child–dog relations in La Paz

Nothing epitomizes the reality of the anthropocentric predicament of the planet then the view ofLa Paz as you fly from the high mountain plateaus of the Alti Plano toward the El Alto and across

Children’s Geographies 5

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

the valley of La Paz. The vastness of the slum communities, two million humans and half amillion dogs, perched on the high reaches of the valley, spilling down the steep escarpment. Ashared vulnerability, a fragility of human and nonhuman engaged in a dance of survival. Overhalf of the humans in these slum communities are children. In Bolivian life a culture of respectfor children’s rights does not yet exist, although parenting for a better word could be describedas lassez faire, with children spending most of their time equally in the company of other childrenand dogs. Dogs, like children, experience extensive freedom to roam in the communities. Thisfreedom could be understood as an ancient and respectful alliance. Humans may or may notown pets, they beat and kill them if they are sick or cause harm. Without ownership there isalso no responsibility to feed them. Dogs on the street can have rabies, being bitten is an everydayoccurrence, dogs as a ‘semi stray’means no accountability. Local community members told us thedogs are neither pets, strays, or wild although left to scavenge for themselves, they are looselyconnected to families, coming and going within bounded areas, sometimes wandering intoyards but mainly hanging around on the streets. Children describe their dog relations differently.While these dogs do not inhabit their houses in the conventional sense, they feed them, namethem, and distribute ownership.

Children in La Paz only go to school for three hours in the morning, after this they make theirway back into the neighborhoods, where dogs and child coexist in in the streets, in the steepgorges, amongst the dirt, dust, rubbish, looking for food – escaping the risk often associatedwith the streets. Children were asked to take the disposable cameras with them throughouttheir journeys in and around their homes and neighborhood, revealing closely the ‘everydayness’of living in the communities. When the photographs came back children had taken over 200photographs of dogs, amounting to around one quarter of the photographs taken. The child–dog intra-action is central; things appear with and between the space between the child anddog. At first viewing the children’s photographs represented an ‘intra-species’ relation that wasmore akin to a ‘friendship’ than ownership or the dog as merely a ‘pet’. Being a child withdogs in La Paz, illustrated the complexity of entanglements, yet unlike how Tipper (2011) andMorrow (1998) who describe children embedding animals in webs of kin–pet relationships as lit-erally ‘part of the family’ – the child–dog La Paz encounters revealed child -dog inhabiting inti-mate relations not afforded to human adults.

This is my photograph of my dog says Fernando, 11 years from Munaypata, as he hands metwo photographs of the same dog sitting in the sun: ‘My little dog, Regina is the only animal that Ihave, because she is my best friend and keeps me company when I am alone. We play in the foresttogether.’ By using a new materialist approach the theorizing of these child–dog encounters the LaPaz children become embedded in an ‘intricate web of interrelations that mark the contemporarysubjects’ relationship to their multiple ecologies, the natural, the social, the physic’ (Braidotti2013, 98; Figure 1). A feature of this new ontological perspective is that ‘it shifts from con-ceptions of objects and bodies as occupying distinct and delimited spaces, and instead seeshuman bodies and all other material, social and abstract entities as relational’ and that these ‘… assemblages of relations develop in unpredictable ways’ (Fox and Alldred 2014, 3).

‘My dogs name is Black,’ says Ricardo, aged 10 from Cotahuma, ‘he is beautiful and everytime I bath him he gets dirty again. He comes with me when I play with my friends’.

This photo is of my neighborhood and that is where my house is, it is big and I live with my dad mymum and my sister. My house has many rooms, my dog lives on the street and takes care of me a lot.(Nora, aged 9, Tac Gua, has taken the photograph from the roof of a house with her dog)

While these comments from Fernando and Nora might seem quite mundane and everyday –bathing a dog, sitting with a street dog on the house roof. I am reminded of Rautio when she

6 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

suggests ‘we as academics and adults consider seriously what takes place in practices that childrenusually find inherent rewarding and spend considerable time engaging in’ (2013a, 402). Withinthe stories there is an intimacy of shared relations, multiple subjectivities of child and dog.

Children and dogs share the unregulated spaces of the community. The relationship of child–dog in the slums of La Paz creates a unique story of child–dog in ‘place’, the interconnectednature of humans and nonhuman revealed as exposing a deep attachment to being with‘nature’. ‘Being with the world’ is how Rautio (2013b, 448) describes forming a differentview of ourselves as human in relation to nonhumans:

… it is about realizing that the relation is always already there, and as much influenced by behaviorand existence of other co-existing species as it is by our intentional or unintentional actions.

The discussion by Miriam Giugni on her study of the ethical dilemmas of child–chook cohabita-tion in an early childhood setting does similar work (Taylor, Blaise, and Guigni 2013). Her use ofHaraway’s concept of ‘becoming worldly with’ (Haraway 2003, 2008) could provide further pos-sibilities for reading these tricky contributions animals make as materials agents cohabiting withchildren. Throughout this materialist reading of child–dog encounters in La Paz, children commu-nicate through photographs the ‘fleshy detail’ (Tipper 2011), the physicality of the relationships,‘the tactile and embodied reality of knowing animals’ (Tipper 2011, 153)

The photographs from Rosario illustrate this fleshy detail of the child–dog thrown together inthe communities of La Paz (Figure 2). The dogs are present and central to both photographs. Indogs in streets there are a group of dogs in the middle of the road, the neighborhood is emptywhich can sometimes create an air of danger but the dogs are playful and the child is taking photo-graphs. It confirms the sentiment of the community space as occupied by child–dogs. On the way

Figure 1. Collage of dog photographs by children of La Paz.

Children’s Geographies 7

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

to school the tail of a dog sticks out from the rubbish dump – I am drawn to the children in thedistant is the child photographer with them or just following behind? The dog–child is connectedthrough the lens and the story the child is devising about the space confirms a focus on rubbishand garbage as central in child–dog lives. Rosario’s images shows she is situated with dogs,revealing what it ‘means to live as a child and live as dog’ in La Paz. By attending to the

Figure 2. Photographs taken by Rosario, aged 12, Munaypata. (a) Dogs in the streets. (b) On the way toschool.

8 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

detail and considering how these images are being portrayed through dog, in place with child:‘enhance(s) our understanding of children’s everyday experience’ (Tipper 2011, 160)

Juan describes his familial connections to his home and landscape. ‘This is my house, it is onan incline’ says Juan, aged 11, from Cotahuma.

It is peaceful where I live, there is not much noise, and we can see a street dog called Max, but wedon’t have any food for him. My dog which is what I like most is not in my home. There are lotsof street dogs. I don’t like the dogs breaking things everything gets dirty, there are many dogs. Mymum and Max are important to me.

Max the street dog illuminates the predicament of their shared poverty – his inability to providefood for the dog whom he likes the most (Figure 3).

Diego takes photographs of stray street dogs, the ones who often accompany him as he walksthe streets (Figure 4). He hands me one where I can see a dog high up on a roof alone, lookingdown, he explains:

This photograph is of a dog that I take care of because it doesn’t eat. The dogs are badly treated and thepeople beat them for no reason [pause] a bit like the children [he giggles as he looks at his photograph]sometimes we hide on the rooftops to be off the streets with the dogs.

The other photograph? ‘That is the dog that sometimes gets beaten, the streets are dangerous.’Many children feed street animals, they told me they felt distressed when animals were treatedbadly by others, normally the adults or strangers in the neighborhood. Dog–child encountersare described as being ‘co-present’ in the streets, the children and the dogs yielding a shared‘worldly collective’ of the street-home-being present, dwelling in this shared place. Street dogsare urban scavengers, not Western-style, house-dwelling, middle-class ‘family pets’. Child–dogassemblages are expressed through their intra-action in the streets.

The place is poor, the whole area is poor. My new house has cracks, my old house was ill constructedand fell down. I would like more police control because a thief broke into my house and because therewere no police he escaped. I would like there to be more sports fields, no dust, and that things weregreener so I could play safely with Black [his dog who lives on the street].

Ricardo dreams of changes to his Cotahuma neighborhood to make it safer for him and his dogBlack (Figure 5).

The land is steep and due to the regularity of landslides and floods, it is dangerous. Rubbish isoften dumped here and dogs scavenge while children climb trees, build huts.

Coco was my best friend. He was near me, always he was near me. He hear me, he was always withme. He understand the things I want. He always comes with me into the forest to play. He is my playmate. He was the same as a human friend, it was no difference between us as friends.

Juan’s photographs portray child–dog as they journey, and move through the in-between fromstreets to ‘wild degraded nature’ on the upper reaches of the valley. We sense the intimacy andcompanionship of child–dog as they explore and roam together from prying adult eyes. This isnot a human contrived nature forest play activity, a family dog on a lead being taken intonature with a child, such as we might find in one of Louv’s (2005) accounts of his or his children’schildhood in middle-class suburbia. Coco is his companion. Juan co-inhabits this environmentwith Coco. On the way up the valley Juan photographs a large dumping area for householdrubbish; Coco is rummaging around amongst the rubbish looking to find food. It is a harsh lifethey share, survival is dependent on the possibilities of what can found at this degraded sites. I

Children’s Geographies 9

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

Figure 3. Photographs taken by Juan, aged 11, Cotahuma. (a) Max the street dog. (b) Most important Mumand Max.

10 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

Figure 3. Continued

Children’s Geographies 11

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

the final photograph we come to where Juan-Coco (child–dog) play freely in wild nature(Figure 6). Together they have evaded the confines of the built environment and found refuge.Both photographs illustrate something other than an ‘idealized’ and ‘romantic’ play placewhere child–dog encounters of diverse majority world child–nature reconnections are possiblylocated.

The child–dog accounts of intra-species companionship and survival in urban spaces chal-lenge the sanitized boundaries and binaries maintained by Western middle-class sensibilities.The ‘unromantic’ child–dog relations experienced by impoverished urban dwelling child–dogs

Figure 4. Photographs by Diego, aged 12, Cotahuma. (a) Roof a safe place to hide. (b) Dangers of being onthe streets.

12 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

in La Paz contradicts white, middle-class, natured childhoods seeking wild nature reconnection.The tension is exposed, and idealized child–nature encounters so nostalgically recalled in thechild in nature literature, is questioned.

The intra-action between child–dog cohabitation provides a space for mutual reciprocity, care,and protection. Dog as companion to child, child as companion to dog, child–dog as protector.Karen describes her relationship with Bicho as one where together they assume the role as pro-tector and of being protected: ‘I have a dog, his name is Bicho and he takes care of me a lot, heprotects me from other dogs, sometimes I protect him.’ This comment by Karen eludes to one ofthe tensions in the neighborhood, how street occupying dogs and children negotiate risks. Raul,

Figure 5. Photographs taken by Ricardo, aged 10, Cotahuma. (a) My old house. (b) The whole area is poor.

Children’s Geographies 13

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

tells us he likes only little dogs, big dogs scare him. He likes his cousin’s dogs but like many of thedogs they like to fight.

I like little dogs. My cousin has three dogs, sometimes they out they fight, and one is really small andhe beats the other two dogs. They are unpredictable like my cousin sometimes I love him sometimes Iam scared of him!

Child–dog lives in La Paz are entangled – freedom, vulnerability, fear, expressed and experi-enced together through a shared intra-species confluence. By shifting away from the child in

Figure 6. Photographs taken by Juan, aged 13, Cotahuma. (a) Dumped rubbish. (b) Steep valley areas forplay.

14 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

nature as the only agential body and focusing on the materiality of child bodies and the bodies ofother nonhuman entities as relational assemblages, allowed me to consider new imaginings forchild–dog relations and to see how they are shaped by the spaces in between. This new imaginingis connected to a deepening sense of the possibilities for revealing existing intra-species to com-pliment constructs such as interdependence in nature and sustainability education.

Child–dogs co-shape shared worlds. In the process of reading these intra-actions betweenchild-dog in La Paz an awareness of the way humans and nonhumans slip out of the grasp ofclassic hierarchical structures ‘enables’ the child–dog relationship to reveal a new plane ofintra-subjectivity. Rather than thinking through the child’s relation to dogs (nature) by elevatingdogs to the status of the children, or de-elevating the child to the status of dog, in this post-huma-nist reading of child–dog in La Paz I have sought to unpack political, ethical, and ontologicalquestions without enforcing a traditional human–animal distinction. I sought to notice thespace between the subjects, to be a child or a dog is no longer to define difference but to seekcollective, shared resemblances. How do child–dogs in La Paz exist in everyday environments,shaping and being shaped by each other and by other things? Knowing the environment of LaPaz with and through human relations with dogs as depicted through photographs taken by thechildren allows for a deconstructing of the nature–culture binaries and the revealing of theirinconsistencies.

Conclusion: reconsidering child–nature relations

In this paper, I have utilized new ways of thinking and theorizing my research to consider howhuman and Western centric views of child–nature relations can be disrupted. By deploying meth-odological strategies of diffraction (Barad 2007), in order to reveal the complexity and richness ofrelations between objects and things, I have sought to celebrate the entangled nature of differences(Barad 2007) and thematerialization of all bodies, human and nonhuman. I am seeking to representthe complexity of spaces where children in La Paz and their dog companions come to encounterone another and challenge the sanitized boundaries and binaries so closely maintained by Westernmiddle-class sensibilities. I have explored these relational and materials aspects of child–animalrelations by de-centering the human and embracing strategies such as intra-action in new materi-alism to provide a different reading of child–dog–bodies. An understanding that moves beyond anidealized view of child–nature research where children innately encounter nature as an inanimateobject. By interrogating differently the child–animal encounters in La Paz, I deliberately sought tonotice and attend to questions of child–dog cohabitation, in order to contribute to a reconsiderationof intra-species relations and questions of the ‘human-centric’, ‘Western-centric’, and ‘class-centric’ universalisms of dominant voices in the child in nature movement. By bridging thenature–culture divide, by rejecting moral, cultural and classist universalism, the study is seekingto consider what an embodied ‘child–nature’ collective could be.

Theorizing through a lens that seeks to de-center the human and disrupt the idyllic view ofchild in nature, I have revealed nature–child relations are messy and complex, rather thansimply restorative and idealistic. In the process, I am not attempting to disregard the work ofthe child in nature movement or nature education but merely challenge the simplicity ofslogans that potentially support anthropocentrism and the exceptionalism of humans (natureexists solely as a restorative ‘resource’ for unnatured, disconnected children). I do not think itis enough to champion a child–nature ‘reconnect’without thinking deeply about what these mess-ages are saying, and how they are constituting a continued anthropocentric centering of the humansubject as dominate to ‘nature’ and nature as outside of ‘humanness’. Rather than understandingmy research as articulated from the modernists divides of human–culture, subject–object, child–nature I have sought to disrupt these familiar patterns and distance my analysis from the

Children’s Geographies 15

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

dominance of the human subject in order to notice new imaginings for a child–nature assemblageof intra-species relations. Children’s accounts of moving with dogs through dangerous publicspaces, and exercising mutual care, companionship, and protection in these spaces speak to theway in which ‘dog and child bodies are shared bodies’ together they are ‘learning how to be’in this challenging environment.

The task of this paper was to illustrate through an example of a post-humanist approach totheorizing a child in nature research study, the limitations of three key propositions that areframing the current debates in the child in nature movement. Firstly, by illuminating children’sencounters of dogs in La Paz as a ‘collective encounter’ it could be possible to further extendTaylor’s (2013) adaption of Latour’s ‘common worlds’ notion and advance an indivisiblehuman and nonhuman real-world collective. That is, rather than a child engaging with nature(out there), it could be helpful to adopt the view the ‘natureculture collective are largely integralto and constitutive of children’s lives’ (Taylor 2013, 119). Secondly, the objects or ‘things’ of thestudy are animated. Dogs, earth, houses, neighborhoods, trees have agency just like humans andthe child–dog–place engagement in La Paz is an example of a reciprocal animated exchange.Finally, the children’s accounts of intra-species companionship and survival in La Paz challengesthe Western middle-class sensibilities of an idealized child–nature encounter. These encountersare often nostalgically recalled in many social media accounts and writings on children ‘recon-necting’ to nature. They provide a very exclusive view of children and nature. The post-humanisttheorizing of child–dog relations in La Paz provides a counter narrative to the privileged, nostal-gic, romantic (and primarily white male US) notions of cherished child–nature relations.Approaches of post-humanism and tools of intra-action allow for a disruption of universalismsin current ‘child in nature’ debates by ‘recognizing the entanglement of human and more thanhuman relations’ (Taylor 2013, 118). This work with children and dogs in La Paz has allowedme to exemplify: ‘Existence is not an individual affair. Individuals do not preexist their inter-actions; rather, individuals emerge through and as part of their entangled intra-relating’ (Barad2007, preface).

AcknowledgementsI would like to acknowledge the children of La Paz for their ongoing commitment to my research and will-ingness to revisit these ideas of child–dog encounters over a two-year period. I would also like to thank anumber of supportive colleagues who provided opportunities to unpack and question my new theoreticalmeanderings and finally, the extensive support of the reviewers and editorial team from Children’s Geogra-phies, who provided invaluable feedback that challenged and extended my theoretical ideas.

Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by an internal travel fund in 2012 by UNICEF Bolivia and University ofWestern Sydney Academic Development Program funding and travel grant in 2014.

Note1. Biophilia is a term used to describe an instinctive bond said to exist between human beings and other

living systems. Edward O. Wilson introduced the term in his book, Biophilia (1984). He defined bio-philia as the urge to affiliate with other forms of life.

16 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

ReferencesAnderson, Kay. 2014. “Mind over Matter? On Decentering the Human in Human Geography.” Cultural

Geographies 21 (1): 3–18.Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and

Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Braidotti, Rosi. 2013. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press.Clarke, David, and Jamie Mcphie. 2014. “Becoming Animate in Education: Immanent Materiality and

Outdoor Learning for Sustainability.” Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning. doi:10.1080/14729679.2014.919866.

Cronon, William. 1995. “The Trouble with Wilderness or Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.”In Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, edited by William Cronon, 69–90. New York:W.W Norton.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Feli Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated byB. Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Dickinson, Elizabeth. 2013. “The Misdiagnosis: Rethinking “Nature-Deficit Disorder”.” EnvironmentalCommunication. doi:10.1080/17524032.2013.802704.

Fox, Nick, and Pam Alldred. 2014. “New Materialist Social Inquiry: Designs, Methods and ResearchAssemblage.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology. doi:10.1080/13645579.2014.921458.

Gill, Tim. 2007. No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk Averse Society. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.Gill, Tim. 2011. Children and Nature: A Quasi-systematic Review of the Empirical Evidence. London:

Greater London Authority.Haraway, Donna. 2003. The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People and Significant Otherness.

Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.Haraway, D. 2008. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Harker, Christopher. 2005. “Playing and Affective Time-Spaces.” Children‘s Geographies 3 (1): 47–62.Hordyk, Shawn, Marion Dulde, and Mary Shem. 2014. “When Nature Nurtures Children: Nature as a

Containing and Holding Space.” Children’s Geographies. doi:10.1080/14733285.2014.923814.Kahn, Peter, and Stephen Kellert, eds. 2002. Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and

Evolutionary Investigations. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Lenz-Taguchi, Hellevi. 2011. “Investigating Learning, Participation and Becoming in Early Childhood

Practices with a Relational Materialist Approach.” Global Studies of Childhood 1 (1): 36–50.Louv, Richard. 2005. Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder. Chapel

Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.Louv, Richard. 2011. The Nature Principle. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books.Malone, Karen. 2004. ““Holding Environments”: Creating Spaces to Support Children’s Environmental

Learning in the 21st Century.” Australian Journal of Environmental Education 20: 53–66.Malone, Karen. 2007. “The Bubble-Wrap Generation: Children Growing Up in Walled Gardens.”

Environmental Education Researcher 13 (4): 513–528.Malone, Karen. 2008. Every Experience Matters: An Evidence Based Research Report on the Role of

Learning Outside the Classroom for Children’s Whole Development from Birth to Eighteen Years.Report Commissioned by Farming and Countryside Education for UK Department Children, Schooland Families, Wollongong, Australia.

Malone, Karen. 2013. ““The Future Lies in Our Hands”: Children as Researchers and Environmental ChangeAgents in Designing a Child-Friendly Neighbourhood.” Local Environment: The International Journalof Justice and Sustainability 18 (3): 372–395.

Malone Karen, and Paul Tranter. 2003. “Schoolgrounds as Sites for Learning: Making the Most ofEnvironmental Opportunities.” Environmental Education Researcher 9 (4): 283–303.

Morrow, Virginia. 1998. “MyAnimals and Other Family: Children’s Perspectives on Their Relationship withCompanion Animals.” Anthrozoos 11 (4): 218–226.

Morton, Timothy. 2007. Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. London: HarvardUniversity Press.

Rautio, Pauliina. 2013a. “Children Who Carry Stones in Their Pockets: On Autotelic Material Practices inEveryday Life.” Children’s Geographies 11 (4): 394–408.

Rautio, Pauliina. 2013b. “Mingling and Imitating in Producing Spaces for Knowing and Being: Insightsfrom a Finnish Study of Child-Matter Intra-Action.” Childhood. doi:10.1177/0907568213496653.

Rautio, Pauliina. 2013c. “Being Nature: Interspecies Articulation as a Species-Specific Practice of Relatingto Eenvironment.” Environmental Education Researcher 19 (4): 445–457.

Children’s Geographies 17

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015

Taylor, Affrica. 2011. “Reconceptualising the Nature of Childhood.” Childhood 18 (4): 420–433.Taylor, Affrica. 2013. Reconfiguring the Natures of Childhood. London: Routledge.Taylor, Affrica, Mindy Blaise, and Miriam Guigni. 2013. “Haraway’s ‘Bag Lady Story-Telling’: Relocating

Childhood and Learning Within a ‘Post-Human Landscape’.” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politicsof Education 34 (1): 48–62.

Tipper, Becky. 2011. “‘A Dog Who I Know Quite Well’ Everyday Relationships Between Children andAnimals.” Children’s Geographies 9 (2): 145–165.

Wilson, Edward. 1984. Biophilia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

18 K. Malone

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

110.

32.1

67.8

3] a

t 05:

09 0

7 Se

ptem

ber

2015