Abstract
This chapter uses Bourdieu’s conceptual lenses of habitus, field and forms of capital to illuminate the complexities of researching visually with young children. Using data from a small sample in one kindergarten in Africa, the chapter discusses how visual researchers can be critical of themselves, their research tools and fieldwork, including the families and children with whom they research. It concludes that visual research should not conform to formalistic methodologies intent upon gridding some preprocessed empirical data; instead visual research approaches must be a revolutionary way of seeing and a form of knowing that employs concepts of habitus, capital and field with reflexive reasoning to understand children’s development in its contradictions.
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Agbenyega, J.S. (2014). Beyond Alienation: Unpacking the Methodological Issues in Visual Research with Children. In: Fleer, M., Ridgway, A. (eds) Visual Methodologies and Digital Tools for Researching with Young Children. International perspectives on early childhood education and development, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01469-2_9
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