Edge Hill University
Going knowingly into the unknown: the hopeful alternative of adventure
In the context of impatient ECEC fixated on measuring its effectiveness (Biesta, 2013), I explore the hope offered through the power of adventure. Far from a synonym for risk, I define adventure as ‘going knowingly into the unknown’, a hedonistic experience, nourished by curiosity and combining challenge and adversity.
I use new materialist thinking on enchantment (Bennett, 2001) and common worlding (Malone and Crinall, 2023), process philosophy (Whitehead, 1933; Scarfe, 2009) and pioneers’ thinking (while troubling it) (Osgood et al, 2024) to position adventure as a hopeful alternative to normative neoliberalist discourses.
Through a map of ‘desire lines’ (Archer, 2024) into Alice’s Wonderland, I narrate moments of adventure from my practice in a nursery (~150 families on roll) in the north-west of England. Autoethnography in ECEC can exist in a grey area of ‘who owns the story?’ (Sparkes, 2024) so I sought to use data co-created with children as co-adventurers and co-researchers. Resisting the pull to reduce the children to data mines (Spyrou, 2023), instead I sensitively apply critical theory to the narratives in order to explore the attributes of adventure. In doing so, I hope to give space for educators’ voices to contribute to epistemological understanding of ECEC (Henderson, 2018) and to resist the pull towards political agendas (Albin-Clark and Archer, 2023).