Pluralist proximity: Speculation for an antiracist pedagogy in Swedish and Norwegian early childhood education

Gry Olsen Ulrichsen; Zahra Bayati; Helen Eriksen

doi:10.37291/2717638X.202563643

Authors

Gry Olsen Ulrichsen Queen Maud University College https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1712-4950
Zahra Bayati University of Gothenburg https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8336-9181
Helen Eriksen OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8175-571X

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37291/2717638X.202563643

Keywords:

Pluralist proximity, Antiracist pedagogy, Racial visual literacy, Cultural archive, Racism, Positionality

Abstract

This article builds on findings that racism significantly affects the well-being of minoritised students in early childhood education in Sweden and Norway. We understand the lack of a specific antiracist early childhood education in a colourblind society as impacting the development of young children and the future of the Earth when racial disparity amplifies the instabilities caused by predatory capitalism and the climate crisis. We challenge the assumption that education in the arts is inherently beneficial and speculate on a future where critical awareness of differences and colonial understanding are integral in early childhood education. Our aim with this article is to enhance the abilities of early childhood education students and teachers, as well as early childhood teachers, to develop visual racial literacy. We unpack the Solmaz collective's emerging concept of pluralist proximity: a state of collective professional development that can scaffold a practice of emancipatory antiracism needed in early childhood education contexts. It is a speculative, emerging pathway for students and teachers to develop antiracist pedagogy for early childhood education in Sweden and Norway. The notion of pluralist proximity investigates how zones of racial discomfort can be acknowledged and harnessed to develop antiracist teaching practices. The authors of the article use performative research, which is entangled with postcolonial thought. By identifying how stereotypes are subtly perpetuated through colonised lenses, the image thus becomes a theoretical and methodological tool for critically thinking about our entanglements in racialisation processes. It aligns with the concept of visual racial literacy.

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