Andrew Clarke’s research while affiliated with The University of Queensland and other places

Qualitative researchers can discard data that are unsaturated or unrelated to research questions, but what do we do when these data affect us, or ‘haunt’ us, ‘long after collecting “it”’ (Taylor 2013, 691)? In this paper, we draw upon Sara Ahmed to guide our engagement with ‘discarded data’: young children’s gendered accounts of violence that unexpectedly arose during interviews about rest-time and relaxation in childcare. We show what it feels like to be affected by children’s accounts throughout the non-linear and zig-zagged ‘data analysis’ processes. Applying Ahmed’s conceptualisation of power as ‘directionality’, we critique the power of qualitative research conventions to define our focus as researchers and pay attention to what children raise: how they are directed towards gendered futures. We find that, in children’s accounts of violence, boys have more agency than girls as they participate in – and respond to – violence.

In early childhood education and care policy, there are two dominant discourses: ‘investment and outcomes’ and ‘children’s rights’. There is little research on how these discourses play out in educators’ accounts. In this article, the authors examine the case of discourse pertaining to children’s relaxation in early childhood education and care. They demonstrate that Australian relaxation policy for children in early childhood education and care constructs children as passive and incompetent subjects. Some educators reproduce early childhood education and care policy tensions by vacillating between investment-outcomes and children’s rights discourse in their accounts, while other educators deviate from the policy constructions and adopt children’s rights discourse.

Relaxation is constructed as a health issue, often as a counter to stress. Such constructions serve to medicalise relaxation as a physiological or psychological treatment for stressful experiences. Yet, children’s experiences and understandings of relaxation are not well documented and may differ from these prevailing adult conceptualisations. Situated within the sociology of childhood paradigm, this study investigated: How do young children attending childcare experience relaxation? Informed by a child-centric methodology, in 2018, we conducted drawing-prompted group interviews with 46 child participants aged three to five years old recruited from six childcare services in Brisbane, Australia. Children were asked about what it means to relax and what they did to relax. We found that children clearly articulated their relaxation experiences and conceptualised relaxation as sensory-rich experiences that centred on feelings of cosiness, comfortableness, and air temperature. Places and play were key to shaping children’s relaxation experiences: common places for relaxation were in nature or at home, and various types of play were central. Recommendations for improving care practices include engaging children in conversations about their relaxation preferences, and affording children agency to choose experiences that are relaxing when in childcare settings.

Existing research demonstrates how the governance of urban nuisances is often linked to the punitive treatment of marginalised subjects and the neoliberal imperatives that drive this. Yet, whilst the discourse of nuisance disproportionately effects marginalised populations, it is also applied to other urban subjects and problems. Drawing on a qualitative study of nuisance governance in Brisbane, Australia, this paper extends upon the existing literature by investigating how nuisances are governed in the wider community, paying particular attention to the role of punitive practices and neoliberal rationalities in this process. It shows how a broader array of neoliberal rationalities inform nuisance governance than acknowledged in previous research, which has predominantly focused on the political-economic rationality of ‘urban entrepreneurialism’. It shows, furthermore, that these rationalities do not merely promote punitive responses to nuisance problems, but rather combine punishment with more traditionally ‘liberal’ governance practices that seek to facilitate self-governance. I argue that taking account of this broader array of nuisance governance practices enables us to better understand what is specific about the treatment of marginalised urban populations, as well as deepening our understanding of the relationship between neoliberal rationalities and punitive governance practices.