Edge Hill University<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 \u2018going knowingly into the unknown\u2019, a hedonistic experience, nourished by curiosity and combining challenge and adversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I use new materialist thinking on enchantment (Bennett, 2001) and common worlding (Malone and Crinall, 2023), process philosophy (Whitehead, 1933; Scarfe, 2009) and pioneers\u2019 thinking (while troubling it) (Osgood et al, 2024) to position adventure as a hopeful alternative to normative neoliberalist discourses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Through a map of \u2018desire lines\u2019 (Archer, 2024) into Alice\u2019s 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 \u2018who owns the story?\u2019 (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\u2019 voices to contribute to epistemological understanding of ECEC (Henderson, 2018) and to resist the pull towards political agendas (Albin-Clark and Archer, 2023).<\/p>\n\n\n\n