Revisiting Reggio Emilia through a more-than-human lullaby: diffractive montages as documenting childhood (and) literacy otherwise

Abstract

The authors draw on posthumanism to expand Reggio Emilia’s pedagogical documentation techniques through a diffractive montage. Analysis of a phenomenon involving 4- and 5-year-old children singing a lullaby in a school in Seville (Spain), considers how this diffractive montage leads to a reconfiguration of the pioneering work of Reggio Emilia. The authors also contemplate the narrative of relationships, intra-actions and literacies materialised in this posthumanist diffraction of Reggio Emilia. The diffractive montage sheds light on the new material relations in the phenomenon to enable an expansion of the relational perspective of Reggio Emilia. Throughout this process, learning/play, observer/observed and human/non-human binaries dissolve which troubles the ontological premise of humanistic research. In the diffractive montage epistemic injustice relating to childhood literacies emerges, and so does the imperative to map their multiple familiarities from a de/colonising perspective.