title: A more-than-social movement: The post-human condition of quality in the early years

authors: Arndt, Sonja Kathrina

abstract: This article explores quality in early childhood education by de-elevating the importance of the human subject and experience, and heightening instead a focus on and tensions with the post- human. The argument traces the intricate web of ‘qualities’ woven throughout entanglements of subjects, objects and things that constitute what is referred to as ‘the early years sector’. The strike through the social in this post-human condition exposes critical concerns about the ‘problem’ of quality, and foregrounds the urgency of rupturing the status quo. Dislodged from the perceived comfort and safety of human control and determination, quality in the speculative state of the more-than-social movement can expect no conclusion. Instead, the (re)configuration of the early years sector as a more-than-social movement compels a rethinking of the dominance of human-centric philosophies. By repositioning Kristeva’s semiotic subject-in-process and Havel’s subject positionings within automatisms, this analysis inserts ‘non-human-being’ and ‘multiple beings-times’ into the ‘problem with quality’. In the early childhood sector, these ruptures create generative possibilities of quality entanglements with and beyond the human.

text: A more-than-social movement: The post-human condition of quality in the early years This article explores quality in early childhood education by de-elevating the importance of the human subject and experience, and heightening instead a focus on and tensions with the post- human. The argument traces the intricate web of ‘qualities’ woven throughout entanglements of subjects, objects and things that constitute what is referred to as ‘the early years sector’. The strike through the social in this post-human condition exposes critical concerns about the ‘problem’ of quality, and foregrounds the urgency of rupturing the status quo. Dislodged from the perceived comfort and safety of human control and determination, quality in the speculative state of the more-than-social movement can expect no conclusion. Instead, the (re)configuration of the early years sector as a more-than-social movement compels a rethinking of the dominance of human-centric philosophies. By repositioning Kristeva’s semiotic subject-in-process and Havel’s subject positionings within automatisms, this analysis inserts ‘non-human-being’ and ‘multiple beings-times’ into the ‘problem with quality’. In the early childhood sector, these ruptures create generative possibilities of quality entanglements with and beyond the human.

year: 2016

title: Fromm’s humanism and child poverty: Neoliberal construction of the ‘have-not’

authors: Tulloch, Lynley

subjects: critical theory

abstract: Children are particularly vulnerable to structured inequalities in society. Building on the work of Erich Fromm (1900–1980), this article contends that modern (post)industrial capitalism corrupts the human capacity to operate in the ‘being mode’—that is, in altruistic and compassionate ways. Rather, within the individualistic logic of the ‘having’ mode of existence there are morally empty spaces where children become objectified, separated from caring communities, dominated and measured. The second part of this article will discuss these insights in relation to the significant impact of neoliberal regimes on children’s social and physical wellbeing. In particular, it is argued that from the mid-1980s in New Zealand, the restructuring of the welfare state in line with neoliberal ideology has increased the vulnerability of young children to poverty and related issues. The narrow conception of poverty that is integral to the ‘having’ mode of existence merely serves to justify the ruling ideological neoliberal consensus. It is argued that any genuine attempt at human progress and the elimination of poverty needs to operate outside of this logic.

text: Fromm’s humanism and child poverty: Neoliberal construction of the ‘have-not’ Children are particularly vulnerable to structured inequalities in society. Building on the work of Erich Fromm (1900–1980), this article contends that modern (post)industrial capitalism corrupts the human capacity to operate in the ‘being mode’—that is, in altruistic and compassionate ways. Rather, within the individualistic logic of the ‘having’ mode of existence there are morally empty spaces where children become objectified, separated from caring communities, dominated and measured. The second part of this article will discuss these insights in relation to the significant impact of neoliberal regimes on children’s social and physical wellbeing. In particular, it is argued that from the mid-1980s in New Zealand, the restructuring of the welfare state in line with neoliberal ideology has increased the vulnerability of young children to poverty and related issues. The narrow conception of poverty that is integral to the ‘having’ mode of existence merely serves to justify the ruling ideological neoliberal consensus. It is argued that any genuine attempt at human progress and the elimination of poverty needs to operate outside of this logic.

year: 2015

title: The relevance of discourse analysis to the teaching and learning of te reo Māori: A text-centred example

authors: Greensill, Hine-iti-moana

subjects: Māori language

abstract: In this paper, I analyse a single text written in te reo Māori in terms of two different approaches derived from discourse analysis (discourse macro-patterning and discourse relations and their signalling) in order to demonstrate the importance of deriving a discourse-centred methodology for teaching learners of Māori what is involved in interpreting and creating coherent discourses.

text: The relevance of discourse analysis to the teaching and learning of te reo Māori: A text-centred example In this paper, I analyse a single text written in te reo Māori in terms of two different approaches derived from discourse analysis (discourse macro-patterning and discourse relations and their signalling) in order to demonstrate the importance of deriving a discourse-centred methodology for teaching learners of Māori what is involved in interpreting and creating coherent discourses.

year: 2007