Becoming Lost Within Relational, Democratic Geographical Fieldwork Spaces

Becoming lost within relational, democratic geographical fieldwork spaces Submitted by Sharon Witt to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Education in Education, November 2018 This thesis is available for library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that any material that has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University has been acknowledged. 1 Appreciation Notes This thesis is deeply personal as well as professional and I hope it shares my enthusiasms and interests for teaching and learning geography, particularly geographical fieldwork. This thesis is not only about geographical fieldwork, but also about my life as a learner, reader, writer, geographer, historian, student, teacher, teacher educator, collaborator, daughter, sister and friend. As Doreen Massey (2005) acknowledges nothing ever happens in isolation. Our work always involves connections with others. This thesis has emerged from relationships with animals, people, experiences, theories, books, ideas, things and places. It would be impossible to thank everyone and all the places that have influenced my thinking and my ideas in meandering conversations and wanderings over the years. I would like to share my appreciation of a few below. The ‘where of encounter’ matters (Instone, 2012:282) and so I would like to begin by thanking the New Forest, a magical place, full of wonder, beauty and mystery amongst the heath, mires and wooded landscapes. This place has accompanied me throughout the study and has been a source of inspiration. I would also like to thank, with gratitude, the students, geography educators and teachers who travelled with me and generously shared their weekend, wisdom and energies to engage in posthumanist/new materialist ideas. It has been a pleasure and a privilege to work with you and hope our paths will cross in future research collaborations. I am indebted to Jane Pownall, Chris Townsend, Michael Curtis and the magical Minstead Environmental Centre for being a source of inspiration to my practice and thinking over the years. I have travelled with you across New Forest landscapes: with Songlines and dreamtime stories, experiencing barefoot bog walking, night-time adventures around the campfire and tales of Morfran and Ceridwen as we watched the flames disappearing into the ceiling of the roundhouse. I would also like to thank the Graduate School of Education at the University of Exeter for giving me this opportunity to study. I have been fortunate to work with an incredible team of supervisors, who have guided my work over the last 6 years. Through their support and advice, I have come to see, be and act in the world differently. My thanks go to Deborah Osberg, who has provoked me to contemplate the complexities of education. She has introduced me to readings and thinking through post-structural and post-qualitative perspectives, which have simultaneously 2 challenged and excited me. I am also extremely grateful to Kerry Chappell, for her insightful comments, her knowledge of embodied learning and creative approaches to the curriculum and for sharing her commitment to ‘knowing this’ or ‘felt knowledge’ (Reid, 1981). I have enjoyed sharing my posthumanist/new materialist learning journeys with both of you and am grateful for the appreciative, constructive and thought-provoking discussions that have helped me to grow as a researcher, teacher and writer. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Nadine Shaeffer, who was part of my supervisory team at the beginning of my doctoral journey; she supported the development of my writing in the early stages of my studies. I am grateful to the University of Winchester for their Teaching and Learning grant which enabled the residential. I would like to thank colleagues for their support and for helpful conversations that have moved my thinking along. My particular thanks go to members of the Resource Base staff for their practical help - Catherine Wharton and Lesley Gardner. I am thankful to colleagues within my professional networks – the Geographical Association, especially colleagues on the Early Years and Primary Phase Committee and members of primary geography champions; the Geography Teacher Educators group (GTE); the Royal Geographical Society, in particular members of the Geographies of Children, Youth and Families Research Group, the Nature Connection Network, the Teacher Education for Equity and Sustainability Network (TEESNet) and the Hampshire Environmental Education group. I wish to acknowledge the many colleagues who have attended the Charney Manor Primary Conferences, Oxfordshire, who have contributed significantly to my knowledge of primary geography and developing thinking about relational geographies. These friends have encouraged me to persevere, have been nurturing and encouraging in their support and always shown a keen interest. It is a community I very much value being a part of. Thank you for being a source of inspiration and friendship. I have always been enchanted by the stories of Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (2013a, [kindle]). These stories tell of a girl looking to belong within the world, set on Prince Edward Island, in the Eastern Canadian Maritimes, which I have been lucky to visit. One of my favourite quotes is: ‘Kindred spirits are not so scarce as I used to think. Its splendid to find out there are so many of them in the world’ 3 Within life I am fortunate to have found people with whom I have shared a natural synergy and wit; they have been formative to my study. My travelling buddy – Hazel – I am hoping there are more holidays to come; we may even get to Tintagel! Also, my dear friend Claire in Edinburgh, who is one of the most inspirational teachers I have had the pleasure to work alongside and who encouraged and nurtured creative approaches to the curriculum. My thanks also go: -To Steve for his constant support and encouragement and for his patience as I accompany him slowly up mountains; I appreciate you reading my drafts on fieldwork. -To Paula for your thoughtful wisdom, friendship and for sharing ways of seeing the world. -To Michael for his support for research projects and for keeping me fed and watered. -To Tess for your calmness, encouragement and thoughtfulness. -To Colin for your encouragement and friendship through the thesis process, for making me smile and for careful proofreading. Thank you to my friends and family – for all your cheerleading efforts and for helping me achieve a work/life balance. I am grateful: -To the ‘Netball girls’ - Jo, Amanda, Maria and Lou – for fun, food, music and dancing. -To Rob and Sue Brown for being wonderfully loyal and true friends throughout the process. Sue- thank you for your keen eye and wealth of knowledge in proofreading. To the Mcfarlanes – Hannah (thanks for transcribing the data), Matt, Liam and Thea and the Whites - Chloe, Paul, Poppy and Lottie. You all bring me such joy and make me smile. -To my research buddy Helen Clarke for sharing my interests and for supporting me through the thesis. I am so grateful for your difficult questions and for your encouragement. What a pleasure and privilege to work with you. I have thoroughly enjoyed our research adventures - walking, talking and imagining new possibilities over the last eight years and look forward to developing these ideas further. As the undergraduate teacher education programme leader, I have appreciated the freedom and autonomy you have given tutors to be creative. This has helped me to develop a more nuanced, broad and balanced approach to a 4 ‘more than’ the teaching standards curriculum, rooted in values. The quality of our students and our outstanding Ofsted are testimony to your programme leadership. Finally, I wish to show my appreciation to my family – Zillah and Elizabeth Witt. Thank you for always being there when I need you – for sharing the challenges and the celebrations. I cannot express how grateful I am to my Mum for her ongoing and constant support throughout this process and beyond. You have kept me grounded and reminded me of the important things in life. I dedicate this thesis to my dear dad – Alan Peter Witt - always loved and remembered. Thank you to both my parents and sister for happy childhood memories of natural places. 5 Abstract Becoming lost within relational, democratic geographical fieldwork spaces In the spirit of exploration and enquiry that is embodied within the discipline of geography, this thesis sets out on an adventure into ‘terra incognita’ to experiment with coming to know geographical fieldwork practices within a primary education context. This is a thesis about how children could be brought into relation with the world through a different kind of geography fieldwork .The current National Curriculum for geography in England (Department for Education (DfE), 2013) foregrounds a knowledge-rich curriculum that makes distinctions between the physical and human, seeking to introduce children and young people to the world as an 'object of thought' rather than as a 'place of experience' (Lambert, Rawling, Hopkin and Kinder, 2012:7). This thesis seeks to unsettle dominant discourses and works with the tensions and discomfort this causes to propose an expanded notion of geographical fieldwork that places relational thinking and understanding at the heart of the subject. Experimenting with posthumanist/new materialist possibilities for relational, democratic fieldwork I embrace an ethico-onto-epistemological stance that seeks to position geographers as ‘becoming’ within more-than-human assemblages. The thesis shares my commitment to thinking and doing geographical education research differently in these times of environmental crisis. It partially reveals the complexities and intricacies of encounters during a weekend residential geographical fieldwork event within the New Forest National Park around Minstead in Hampshire, United Kingdom in July 2017.

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