Digital cameras: agents in research with children |
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Authors: | Eva Änggård |
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Institution: | Department of Child and Youth Studies, Stockholm University, Stockholm SE-106 91, Sweden |
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Abstract: | In a study on children's relations to outdoor places, 41 six- to eight-year-old children took photos with digital cameras during walks in schoolyards and nature environments. In the present article, the cameras and their role in the research process are in focus. A materialist approach has guided the analysis Barad, K. 2003. “Post Humanist Performativity: Towards an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 (3): 801–831 and Barad, K. M. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press]. The research process is seen as a materialist-discursive phenomenon in which several human and non-human agents intra-act. The results indicate that the cameras give rise to explorative activities and function as a third party in social situations. These activities occasionally counteract the purpose of the study. |
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Keywords: | children's photographs digital cameras natural environments schoolyards agential materialism |
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