Small Matters: an Intra-generational Community Project on Multispecies Death and Dying
Small Matters
Funders
Project information
Project duration
-
Funded by
Research Council of Finland - Academy Project
Project coordinator
University of Oulu
Contact information
Project leader
- Professor of Early Childhood Education
Other persons
- Doctoral researcher
- Postdoctoral Researcher
Researchers
Project description
Small Matters: an Intra-generational Community Project on Multispecies Death and Dying
Academy project, funded by the Research Council of Finland (2023-2027)
The Small Matters project explores death and dying at different scales (e.g., micro) together with young children and their extended human and more-than-human families. The project’s scientific relevance is that ‘smallness’ as a concept reconfigures who and what the human is and what it means to die. It brings together in educational encounters, small matters that are usually invisible and excluded from conversations about death and dying (young children, SARS-CoV-2, small animals, objects, the digital, microbes). Responding to their stories matters because it will change how humans relate to themselves and ‘others’. Posthumanist and (post)qualitative research methods include the community of philosophical enquiry, arts-based approaches (e.g., material intra-views) and cinematic analysis. Participants undertake enquiries, take field trips and engage with pop-up educational events in selected public community spaces. The research design is inspired by the arts, social sciences, education and philosophy.
Project members: Karin Murris, Renske Visser, Inka Laisi, Anna Vladimirova, Riku Välitalo, Soern Finn Menning, Tuure Tammi, Jennifer Ann Skriver, Katja Castillo, Joanne Peers, Pauliina Rautio, Joanna Haynes, Chris Pascal, Tony Bertram, John Wall.