Encounters with a life(less) baby doll: rethinking relations of agency through a collectively lived moment

MacRae, Christina (2012) Encounters with a life(less) baby doll: rethinking relations of agency through a collectively lived moment. Contemporary issues in early childhood, 13 (2). pp. 120-131. ISSN 1463-9491

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Abstract

This article reflects on the significance of a series of encounters with a baby doll in an early years' classroom during an artist residency. The article takes an event when a small group of children encounter a baby doll as its starting point. By connecting this shared lived moment with Deleuze and Guattari's idea of machinic production and collective enunciation three significant shifts in the author's thinking occur. First, accepted notions of agency are called into question. Second, the boundary between adult artistic production and children's productions become entangled so that both 'child' and 'adult' are decentred at key moments. Third, distinctions between object and human are dissolved so that boundary marking between things and people also becomes complicated.