Re-turning childhoodnature : a diffractive account of the past tracings of childhoodnature as a series of theoretical turns

Weaving my personal narrative with a cartography of the theoretical field of childhoodnature, this chapter is the account of being a scholar working in the field of environmental education and more recently childhoodnature for close to two decades. To do this disruptive work, I am exploring the use of Barad's (Parallax 20(3): 168-187, 2014), this notion of a "re-turn" in her diffractive theorizing. Spanning a series of theoretical turns from critical theory, ecophilosophy, human geography, social cultural theory, feminist theory, and more recently posthumanist and new materialist theory, this account is embedded in the interdisciplinary fields of childhood studies, children's geographies, children's environments, and environmental/nature education. Littered with the intersection of stories of children growing up in a variety of "places" across the globe, the account seeks to acknowledge and trouble the view that childhoodnature does not exist without a philosophical past by tracing its theoretical ghosts.