Technology-nonhuman-child assemblages: reconceptualising rural childhood roaming |
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Authors: | Thomas Aneurin Smith Ria Dunkley |
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Affiliation: | 1. School of Geography and Planning, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK;2. School of Education, College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, UKhttp://orcid.org/0000-0003-0238-7344 |
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Abstract: | This paper argues for reconceptualising how children use technology ‘outdoors’ as a technology-nonhuman-child assemblage, or roaming pathway. Founded in contemporary fears about children’s reduced opportunities to access nature and roam in rural environments, in part due to the ubiquitous presence of technology in their lives, we instead illustrate how the agencies of technologies and plants are folded into children’s outdoor roaming. Combining visual methods, video analysis and qualitative geovisualisation, and in collaboration with the Brecon Beacons National Park Authority, this paper exposes how assemblages are contingently brought into being through the actions of what technologies, plants and children do together. We demonstrate how the agentic capacities of non-humans and technologies are assembled through children’s imaginative interaction with them, and how these imaginative interactions make such agencies visible. |
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Keywords: | Children nature technology rural assemblage nonhuman |
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