Kristina Vitek

I am an early childhood and educational science doctoral researcher with interest in posthumanist and new materialist theories and postqualitative methodologies, research creation and other arts-based research methodologies, children’s geography, multispecies and material childhoods, educational philosophy and indigenous pedagogies. A theme threading through all of my research is my interest in the "darker sides of childhood" both metaphorically and literally.

In my PhD thesis entitled "Hidden Worlds: A Geography of Childhood Multispecies Secret Places", I am working to decolonize and expand narratives on childhood secret places to acknowledge non-developmental, collaborative, joyful and difficult expressions of this phenomenon. This research is embedded within the Research Council of Finland funded project "HOMINGS - More than just human homes: Creating new storylines of co-habitation to drive everyday life sustainability transitions" (2024-2028) led by Principal Investigator Pauliina Rautio. More information on HOMINGS can be found here and here.

I am a member of AniMate - a transdisciplinary research group in the Faculty of Education and Psychology of the University of Oulu, hosting education, ecology, anthropology and the arts, and exploring the processes of becoming and being human with other animals. I am also a member of the University of Oulu’s research programme Biodiverse Anthropocenes.