Relational Black knowledges are filled with possibilities for affirmative inquiry in early childhood education. Across two sessions, this presentation series explores the potential for pedagogical engagements with relational Black knowledges that are anti-colonial, affirm Black childhoods, are place-based, and unsettle neoliberal multiculturalism.

In this first session, Dr. Nxumalo presented her research and insights in conversation with ECPN co-directors, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw and Kathleen Kummen.

Dr. Fikile Nxumalo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching & Learning at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, where she directs the Childhood Place Pedagogy Lab and is also affiliated faculty in the School of the Environment and the School of Cities. Her work is centred on reconceptualizing early childhood education such that it is situated within and responsive to children’s inheritances of settler colonialism, anti-Blackness and environmental precarity.

www.fikilenxumalo.com

IG: @childplacepedagogylab