Troubling scales: a femininst posthumanist inquiry of child-music relations in everyday life

Project summary

In this feminist posthumanist inquiry, I study child-music realtions in everyday life by investigating everyday musical life both in- and outside schools and reading feminist posthumanist theories, most prominently the work of Karen Barad and Karin Murris. Through observation of a 4th grade's ordinary school days, and intra-views with three of the observed children in their homes, I have empirically studied the relations of children and music. Researching through Karen Barad's agential realism and diffractive methods positions this research project as a performance study, i.e. building on a relational ethico-ontoepistemology. The study has so far produced the concepts of "pupilmusical relations" (Kvile & Christophersen, 2023) and "childmusicking" (Kvile, 2024). The overall question guiding this research project is: 

How does listening to and being with child(ren) and music in everyday life trouble scales central in music education research and practice?

My supervisors are:

Kari Holdhus (HVL), Catharina Christophersen (HVL) and Karin Murris (Oulu University). 

In addition, through this research project I have connected with other music educators working with post-theories and post-methodologies, which has resulted in the article "Stretching and cracking: becoming feminist posthumanist scholars in music education" (Fjeldstad et al., 2024) and the founding of a national network called "Postforsking i musikkpedagogikk" (Postresearch in music education) which is open to anyone. Please contact me for more information if you are interested. 

Method

Observation, interviews, diffractive reading, thinking-with-theory, posthumanism, new materialism