Possibilities for Geontological Learning in Common Worlds

In this article I examine the productive relations between Elizabeth Povinelli’s notion of learning-­‐how and the pedagogical provocations proposed by the Common World Childhoods Research Collective. First, I encourage a move from thinking about the child as subject-­‐object-­‐other of early childhood education to thinking about relational becomings in common worlds. Second, I draw on Povinelli’s work to propose a form of geontological learning that shifts from learning-­‐about to learning-­‐with a range of existents. Geontological learning attends to the thick enmeshment of nonhuman geographies, more-­‐than-­‐human existents, and human lives in the quirky, messy, complex common worlds we co-­‐inhabit.