Thinking critically with children of the Anthropocene : (un)learning the subject in qualitative and postqualitative inquiry

In her Deleuzean analysis of advanced capitalism, Braidotti notes that all previous emancipatory positions have been co-opted by the marketplace and that even our earth others – animals, seeds, plants, and the Earth as a whole – have been subsumed by advanced capitalism. This article addresses the need for a reconceptualised critical qualitative inquiry within the context of advanced capitalism and increasing recognition of human-induced changes in the planet’s biosphere. Justice is understood in relation to the more-than-human world and its entangled children born into the 21st century. Stenger’s recommendation of thinking with the more-than-human is adapted to thinking methodologically with children in an experiment designed to explore intra-action. The article concludes that following children in their playful encounters opens a space where matter and meaning, time and space, and the being of the adult researcher is reshaped into an entangled material world.