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Embodying the least‐adult role
Author(s) -
Garratt Lindsey
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1002/berj.3721
Subject(s) - embodied cognition , phenomenology (philosophy) , ethnography , sociology , privilege (computing) , context (archaeology) , epistemology , field (mathematics) , action research , knowledge production , pedagogy , anthropology , political science , law , paleontology , philosophy , knowledge management , mathematics , computer science , pure mathematics , biology
The aim of this article is to emphasise physicality and embodiment in child‐centred research, fieldwork and intellectual activity. It will argue that research is not a separate form of action, placing the researcher in a position of epistemological privilege, but an embodied capacity developed through practical activity. This will be explored through an examination of the ‘least‐adult’ positionality. Drawing from a large ethnographic study of primary schools in Dublin, Ireland, this article contends that the body must be put at the centre of the research process. I introduce the conceptualisation of the ‘passive’ and ‘active’ body, as key components for the relational context of fieldwork. Moreover, through an engagement with phenomenology, it is argued here that knowledge production is an embodied capacity developed through a sensuous relationship with the field.