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Being, Becoming and Potential Thinking coproduction and coexistence in early childhood education Suzan Ann Mentha ORCID: 0000-0001-9475-7677 Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2016 Melbourne Graduate School of Education The University of Melbourne Abstract This thesis explores how disparate ideas of being, becoming and agency can be re- framed to decolonise early childhood education and care contexts. It asks questions of multiple childhood perspectives to denaturalise accepted and dominating early childhood discourses. It does so by pursuing a variegated understanding nested within three questions. First, what ideas of childhood and development compel and inspire the framing of educational objectives in current policy contexts of Australian early childhood reform? Second, what can contemporary challenges to the nature of subjectivity offer for rethinking assumptions of being, agency and development in early childhood? The third asks, what non-dominating perspec- tives reframe ideas of becoming and potential within the context of early childhood education and care? In addressing these questions, the thesis draws on humanist, post-humanist and postcolonial theory, Indigenous and early childhood policy to examine intersections of childhood and being as colonised subject. Theoretically this thesis grounds itself in critical ontology, emerging through a range of theories on concepts of governmentality, power relations, self and sub- jectivity. Foundations of critical ontology are challenged by ideas of colonised- coloniser relationships, processes of subjectification and their relationship to the child. This positions the study's contribution to emerging postcolonial reframing of early childhood education. Methodologically, the thesis utilises an approach drawing from interpretive, deconstructive and critical methodologies of education. It draws on critical discourse analysis of philosophy, reform policy, and narratives of experience, overarched by a relatedness ethic, in which a space is held open to contradictions and disparity in theory and thinkers. The study comprises five streams of knowledge about the child. The first ex- plores the idea of childhood as a European foundation of early education dis- course. The second explores contemporary critical challenges to the nature of being and the subject. The third stream explores the shaping of docile bodies as refracted through Australian early childhood policy frameworks, and the fourth takes this further to present a genealogy of discourses intersecting child, poten- tial, and education. The fifth stream explores Indigenous Australian perspectives and postcolonial challenges that highlight the ongoing processes constructing the colonial subject. i The thesis contributes to understanding how early childhood education might enable difference as multiple manifestations of being. It suggests the ongoing colonial processes of control over childhood calls for the paradigm shift needed. It produces three main theoretical contributions. First, it produces a conceptual possibility of early education and care as a platform for coexistence. Second, it offers concrete and symbolic beginnings for decolonial coproduction. Third, in order to break with childhood as colonised subject, and children as deficit beings, the thesis develops an understanding of emergent being-becomings and becoming-relations, highlighting potentiality as existing in confluence with being. Overall, these can offer directions for unearthing colonial foundations of childhood in reviewing policy and rethinking directions for early childhood education and care. ii Declaration This is to certify that i. the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, ii. due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, iii. the thesis is fewer than 100 000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Suzan Ann Mentha iii Acknowledgements The germination and the writing of this thesis has sprung from the lands of Wu- rundjeri people of Kurnai nations in the southern parts of the country, and Yir- rkandji Bama and Wulgurukaba people from saltwater countries in the far north. Time and again I sought solace and spiritual strength from their countries. With- out it the words would not have been written. This is both acknowledgement and dedication, which I cannot express enough. My thanks to my supervisors, Jane Page and Johanna Wyn, for their patient and continued support while I struggled to articulate the vision and ideas behind it. In truth, there are few who heard it as I meant it, but your patience and understand- ing was enough. I would also like to thank the Melbourne School of Graduate Research at the University of Melbourne for the three-year APA scholarship that placed me in what I acknowledge as a privileged position of completing this thesis full time. Most patient of all, my families. The support of Harry and Janette Mentha who gracefully abstained from questioning about `what it all means' and allowing me space to do what was needed. Brothers and sisters for being the storytellers they are: The stories told around the table, the laughter that comes so easily. I thank Lyle Johnson, and Alec, for their support during my back and forth visits to the northern shores- we are survivors. I also acknowledge the support from friends and colleagues who listened- and waited- no matter how inarticulate I was: Carol, the delight you take in children gives me constant insight. Millie, you understood! I miss you; and Nico, for giving a damn about the workings of power- you got me through the last of it. And always, to my children: Marundjana, Dingwudji and grandchildren. Words can never speak what spirit- wawu- feels. The threads that bind last forever, timelessly, endlessly. iv Dedication For Marundjana, rain woman, giver of water, and for Dingwudji, rock fig, finding life in hard places. Your strong and gentle spirits continue to leave me speechless. Walk softly through life: giving and finding, finding and giving. May you always need each other. Don't you dare believe other people's stories of you. v Contents Abstracti Declaration iii Acknowledgements iv Dedicationv Contents vi Abbreviations ix 1 Introduction1 1.1 Source..................................1 1.1.1 Convergence...........................6 1.2 Assemblage...............................7 1.3 Thesis overview............................. 13 1.3.1 Streams of knowledge...................... 16 2 Methodology and research design 18 2.1 Introduction............................... 18 2.2 Methodology.............................. 19 2.2.1 Research questions....................... 20 2.2.2 Relatedness........................... 21 2.2.3 Accountability.......................... 23 2.2.4 Decolonising knowledge..................... 24 2.2.5 Researcher reflexivity...................... 27 2.3 Design: Five streams, two hemispheres................ 31 2.4 Selection and methods......................... 32 2.4.1 Purpose and rationale..................... 32 2.4.2 Critical Discourse Analysis................... 34 2.4.3 Narrative............................ 40 2.4.4 Postcolonial critique...................... 42 2.5 Conclusion................................ 44 3 Childhood in northern discourse 45 3.1 Introduction............................... 45 3.2 Imagining childhood.......................... 47 vi 3.2.1 Nature's child.......................... 49 3.2.2 Child, in Kantian time..................... 58 3.3 Measuring childhood.......................... 66 3.3.1 Infant, savage, primitive: child, differentiated......... 67 3.3.2 The child, as fact........................ 73 3.4 Childhood's value............................ 78 3.5 Conclusion................................ 80 4 Freedom and subjectivity in contemporary critical ontology 82 4.1 Introduction............................... 82 4.2 Freedom and constraint......................... 84 4.3 Freedom and subjectivity........................ 86 4.3.1 Self-relations: Changing the subject.............. 89 4.3.2 Freedom and self........................ 92 4.3.3 Acting discursively....................... 99 4.4 Summary................................ 106 4.5 Conclusion................................ 110 5 Governance and reform: Docile bodies 112 5.1 Introduction............................... 112 5.2 Context................................. 116 5.2.1 Policy.............................. 116 5.2.2 Governance........................... 117 5.2.3 Governmentality........................ 118 5.2.4 Socio-historical context..................... 119 5.2.5 Political contexts........................ 121 5.3 Theoretical framework......................... 122 5.4 Docile bodies: themes for analysis................... 125 5.4.1 Vast networks.......................... 127 5.4.2 Under surface images...................... 133 5.4.3 Invests in bodies in depth................... 136 5.4.4 Meticulous, concrete training of useful forces......... 139 5.5 Summary and conclusion........................ 142 6 Human capital, child and potential 146 6.1 Introduction............................... 146 6.2 Self-evident truths........................... 149 6.2.1 Families as failures....................... 149 6.3 Establishing what counts........................ 154 6.4 Modes of objectification........................ 157 6.4.1 Mode of objectification I: discourses of Science and Inquiry as preferred knowledge..................... 158 6.5 Mode of objectification II: Practices

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