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Being, exploring, and playing outdoors: Young children philosophize through Sámi pedagogical imagination and storytelling
Sámi allaskuvla/Sámi University of Applyed Sciences, Norway.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1023-8269
Södertörn University, Teacher Education, Education. Nord University, Norway.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-0298-3832
2024 (English)In: Global Studies of Childhood, E-ISSN 2043-6106, Vol. 15, no 3, p. 301-316Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

This article discusses the pedagogical role of the imagination and forms of life in Sámi early childhood education. Following Nergård’s development of Wittgenstein’s notion “form of life” as an imaginative, pedagogical, and anthropological concept, the article will explore how Sámi children both use and transform forms of life in Sámi early childhood centers. The article explores scenes from a day spent outdoors with early childhood educators and children. The aim is to show how young Sámi children philosophize and articulate their world, and how listening to the children can be a decolonizing practice that challenges colonial assumptions in pedagogy, philosophy and society. The empirical data was collected through a pilot project and the subsequent project Sámi Children as Thought Herders. The data material contains photos, short films, sound records, and notes collected through ethnographic fieldwork conceived as Critical Utopian Action Research, which takes into account the social learning of all participants, here specifically the children, the educators and the researchers. Thus, these are spaces for a joint critique that resists colonially structured practices. The main findings are that, during outdoor activities, educators and children imaginatively perform, play and encounter outdoor spaces and aspects of Sámi forms of life. This is explored on the basis of scenes where young children imaginatively engaged with the forest environment. The educators’ storytelling and the storytelling tradition continued into the children’s own storytelling. The children created stories about a Stállo who lives in a rusty oil barrel they found in the forest, making traditional stories and forms of life come alive and transforming them. In reflecting upon these scenes, we argue for the pedagogical, performative, and philosophical importance of engaging with the ways that children’s imaginative play interacts with place.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Sage Publications, 2024. Vol. 15, no 3, p. 301-316
Keywords [en]
Indigenous land-based education, outdoor play and learning, Sámi early childhood education and care, storytelling
National Category
Pedagogy Social Anthropology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-57966DOI: 10.1177/20436106241260440ISI: 001553193100006Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85200557651OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-57966DiVA, id: diva2:1992434
Part of project
Sámi mánná jurddavázzin – Sámi Children as Thought Herders: Storytelling and Critical Philosophical Inquiries in Indigenous Early Years Education, Swedish Research Council
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 03794Available from: 2025-08-27 Created: 2025-08-27 Last updated: 2025-10-07Bibliographically approved

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Johansson, Viktor

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