Children’s animism: A matter of care

Jane Merewether

Developmental theory informed by Piaget (1929) holds that young children’s animism is commensurate with particular stages of development and evidence of children’s “primitive thought’. This research troubles this view, instead proposing that animism is a matter of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) which opens a door to an ethic of living more responsively, attentively and democratically with more-than-human others. The paper is informed by scholars who show how conventional Euro-Western understandings of animism are linked to colonialist intentions to denigrate Indigenous ways-of-knowing and being (Plumwood, 2002; Rose, 2013; Harvey, 2017). It draws on feminist new materialisms (Barad, 2007; Bennett, 2001; Haraway, 2016) which rethink binaries between nature and culture, recognising the agency of nonhuman animals and things like plants and rocks. Following a posthumanist paradigm, the research deployed multimodal and multiperspectival research strategies including conversation, drawing, playing, making, pretending, photographing, and experimenting in collaboration with children, researchers and the nonhuman environment. Information and consent forms were provided to all adult participants. Informed assent was negotiated with children throughout the research. All participants could withdraw from the study at any time. Children’s playful, enchanted and speculative animism allows children to see nonhumans as more than inert resources for the taking. It is a matter of care. In times of unprecedented planetary upheaval, caring with, for and in the world is urgently needed. Children’s animism, which eschews the nature-culture divide, should therefore be listened to and cultivated rather than dismissed or discouraged.

Children’s animism: A matter of care

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