Youth work, early education, and psychology

YOUTH WORK, EARLY

EDUCATION, AND

PSYCHOLOGY

Liminal Encounters

Edited by Hans Skott-Myhre, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw

& Kathleen S. G. Skott-Myhre

CRITICAL CULTURAL STUDIES OF CHILDHOOD

Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood

Series Editors:

Marianne N. Bloch and Beth Blue Swadener

This series focuses on reframings of theory, research, policy, and pedagogies in child￾hood. A critical cultural study of childhood is one that offers a “prism” of possibilities

for writing about power and its relationship to the cultural constructions of child￾hood, family, and education in broad societal, local, and global contexts. Books in

the series open up new spaces for dialogue and reconceptualization based on critical

theoretical and methodological framings, including critical pedagogy; advocacy and

social justice perspectives; cultural, historical, and comparative studies of childhood;

and post-structural, postcolonial, and/or feminist studies of childhood, family, and

education. The intent of the series is to examine the relations between power, lan￾guage, and what is taken as normal/abnormal, good, and natural, to understand the

construction of the “other,” difference and inclusions/exclusions that are embedded

in current notions of childhood, family, educational reforms, policies, and the prac￾tices of schooling. Critical Cultural Studies of Childhood will open up dialogue about

new possibilities for action and research.

Single-authored as well as edited volumes focusing on critical studies of childhood

from a variety of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives are included in the series.

A particular focus is in a reimagining and critical reflection on policy and practice in

early childhood, primary, and elementary education. The series intends to open up

new spaces for reconceptualizing theories and traditions of research, policies, cul￾tural reasonings, and practices at all of these levels, in the United States, as well as

comparatively.

The Child in the World/The World in the Child: Education and the Configuration of

a Universal, Modern, and Globalized Childhood

Edited by Marianne N. Bloch, Devorah Kennedy, Theodora Lightfoot, and Dar

Weyenberg; Foreword by Thomas S. Popkewitz

Beyond Pedagogies of Exclusion in Diverse Childhood Contexts: Transnational

Challenges

Edited by Soula Mitakidou, Evangelia Tressou, Beth Blue Swadener, and Carl A.

Grant

“Race” and Early Childhood Education: An International Approach to Identity,

Politics, and Pedagogy

Edited by Glenda Mac Naughton and Karina Davis

Governing Childhood into the 21st Century: Biopolitical Technologies of Childhood

Management and Education

By Majia Holmer Nadesan

Developmentalism in Early Childhood and Middle Grades Education: Critical

Conversations on Readiness and Responsiveness

Edited by Kyunghwa Lee and Mark D. Vagle

New Approaches to Early Child Development: Rules, Rituals, and Realities

Edited by Hillel Goelman, Jayne Pivik, and Martin Guhn

Comparative Early Childhood Education Services: International Perspectives

Edited by Judith Duncan and Sarah Te One

Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand: History, Pedagogy, and

Liberation

By Jenny Ritchie and Mere Skerrett

Early Childhood in Postcolonial Australia: Children’s Contested Identities

By Prasanna Srinivasan

Rethinking Readiness in Early Childhood Education: Implications for Policy and

Practice

Edited by Jeanne Marie Iorio and William A. Parnell

Global Perspectives on Human Capital in Early Childhood Education:

Reconceptualizing Theory, Policy, and Practice

Edited by Theodora Lightfoot-Rueda and Ruth Lynn Peach

Youth Work, Early Education, and Psychology: Liminal Encounters

Edited by Hans Skott-Myhre, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Kathleen S. G.

Skott-Myhre

Youth Work, Early Education, and

Psychology

Liminal E ncounters

Edited by

Hans Skott-Myhre , Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw ,

and Kathleen S . G . Skott-Myhre

YOUTH WORK, EARLY EDUCATION, AND PSYCHOLOGY

Selection and editorial content © Hans Skott-Myhre, Veronica

Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Kathleen S. G. Skott-Myhre 2016

Individual chapters © their respective contributors 2016

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication

may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In

accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act

1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by

the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London

EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication

may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

First published 2016 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited,

registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke,

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company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Skott-Myhre, Hans Arthur, editor of compilation. | Pacini-Ketchabaw,

Veronica, editor of compilation. | Skott-Myhre, Kathleen, editor.

Title: Youth work, early education, and psychology : liminal encounters /

edited by Hans Skott-Myhre, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Kathleen

S. G. Skott-Myhre.

Description: New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. | Series: Critical

cultural studies of childhood | Includes index. | Includes bibliographical

references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015019238

Subjects: LCSH: Educational psychology. | School social work. | Social work

with youth. | Early childhood education—Social aspects. | Community and

school. | BISAC: EDUCATION / Educational Psychology. | EDUCATION /

Students & Student Life. | PSYCHOLOGY / Education & Training. | SOCIAL

SCIENCE / Children’s Studies.

Classification: LCC LB1051 .Y597 2015 | DDC 370.15—dc23 LC record

available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015019238

A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-48003-3

ISBN: 978-1-349-58142-9

ISBN: 978-1-137-48004-0 PDF

DOI: 10.1057/9781137480040

Contents

List of Figures vii

Notes on Contributors ix

Introduction: Immanent Approaches and Liminal Encounters

in Youth Work, Early Education, and Psychology1

Hans Skott-Myhre, Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, and Kathleen

S. G. Skott-Myhre

Part I Rebelling, Refusing, Becoming, Fleeing,

Creating, Deconstructing, Imagining, and Thinking

Youth Work/Child and Youth Care

1 Schizoanalyzing the Encounters of Young People

and Adults: The Question of Desire 17

Hans Skott-Myhre

2 Street Analysis: How We Come Together and

Apart in Localized Youth Work Peer Supervision 35

Scott Kouri and Jeff Smith

3 Riddling (with) Riddled Embodiments 51

Nicole Land

4 Boundaries, Thresholds, and the Liminal in

Youth Suicide Prevention Practice 69

Ian Marsh and Jennifer White

Part II Intensities, Experimentations, Diffractions,

Embodiments, and Affects in Early Education

5 Charcoal Intensities and Risky Experimentations 93

Sylvia Kind and Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw

6Hope and Possibilities with/in Car(e) Pedagogies 113

B. Denise Hodgins

vi CONTENTS

7 Touching Place in Childhood Studies: Situated Encounters

with a Community Garden 131

Fikile Nxumalo

8 An Ontological Curriculum: Liminal Encounters of

Subjectivity and Affect 159

Luke Kalfleish

Part III Immanent and Critical Encounters

with Psychology

9Youth: A Radical Space of Pilgrimage 179

Kathleen S. G. Skott-Myhre

10Some Liminal Spaces in Lacanian Psychoanalysis 195

Kareen Ror Malone

11 Lines of Flight: Minoritarian Literature as a Means to

Deterritorialize Early-Onset Schizophrenia 217

Bethany Morris

12 Problematizing Mindfulness with the Creative

Production of Self 235

Emaline Friedman

Index 253

Figures

5.1 The exhibit 95

7.1 Follow the Pied Piper 136

7.2 Plant a victory garden 138

7.3 “The Voyage of Life: Childhood” 139

7.4 Encountering community garden lines 143

7.5 Vegetables growing on the forest floor 144

7.6 Garden assemblage 147

7.7 Touching garden worms 149

Contributors

Emaline Friedman is a doctoral candidate, approaching graduation

in the Consciousness and Society program located in the University of

West Georgia’s Psychology department. Friedman’s trans- disciplinary

work conveys a wide range of concerns, focusing heavily on craft￾ing theoretical tools for a do-it-yourself psychology that maps the

production of subjectivities, and in this way takes immanence seri￾ously. Her early university teaching attempts to open up resistance to

the traditionally vertical structure of the lecture hall and focuses on

group process. In between fits and starts of academic work, she also

enjoys writing poetry and singing in chamber groups.

B. Denise Hodgins holds a PhD and an MEd in early childhood

education. She has worked in the human services sector since 1989,

including in school age childcare, preschool education, and nonprofit

program and service delivery. Denise is currently a sessional instruc￾tor in the School of Child and Youth Care at UVic and a pedagogi￾cal facilitator and researcher at UVic Child Care Services. Her work

reflects a commitment to making visible and engaging with issues of

equity in, through, and for pedagogy and research practices. She is

particularly interested in the application of postfoundational theories

and methodologies to explorations of gender and care as entangled,

sociomaterial becomings.

Luke Kalfleish trained as an English teacher at Brock University

Teacher’s College. He is currently completing his MA in Child and

Youth Studies at Brock University. A student of Hans Skott-Myhre,

Luke is interested in exploring pedagogical practices based within

ontological frameworks, specifically immanent theories of affect and

subjectivity. Luke is the founder and organizer of the Alternative

Education Speaker Series, a series of talks based on pedagogical

opportunities in the field of youth work. The series is aimed at bring￾ing students, educators, and community members together, to dis￾cuss and build possible alternatives for educational practice.

x CONTRIBUTORS

Sylvia Kind is a practicing artist with a strong foundation as an artist

researcher-educator. She has worked closely with others to develop

an innovative arts-based educational research methodology. Her

focus is to implement and advance studio art research practices and

understandings in early childhood contexts. She currently teaches

early childhood education at Capilano University, Canada. Part of

her work at the university includes working as an atelierista, or artist￾consultant/artist in residence.

Scott Kouri is a PhD student in the School of Child and Youth Care

(CYC) at the University of Victoria, Lekwungen territory. He prac￾tices as a clinical counsellor, sessional undergraduate instructor, and

youth worker. His master’s thesis critically engaged conceptualiza￾tions of subjectivity in CYC curriculum. He has written on theories of

the self and identity, has published an article with Dr. Jennifer White

titled “Thinking the Other Side of Youth Suicide: Engagements

with Life,” and coauthored “What’s under the Dirt? Wondering as a

Transformation of Self” with Jeff Smith.

Nicole Land is a doctoral student in the School of Child and Youth

Care at the University of Victoria, Lekwungen territory. Combining

her academic background in Kinesiology with her current research

practice in early childhood education, Nicole is interested in thinking

with children’s entangled, complex, and contested material relations

with fat, obesity, motion, and corporeality. She experiments with a

multiplicity of possibilities for inhabiting-with adiposity, anatomy,

and embodiments as they move, connect, and matter amid messy

colonized, commodified, and science-dominated spaces.

Kareen Ror Malone is professor of psychology at University of

West Georgia. She is the former director of its Doctoral Program in

Psychology of Consciousness and Society. She is a Fellow of the American

Psychological Association. Associate editor of Theory and Psychology, she

has coedited three books on Lacan and many essays in Lacanian psy￾choanalysis; she is coauthor of Science as Psychology, co-winner of the

William James Award from the American Psychological Association.

She is in analytic formation at Apr è s Coup Psychoanalytic Association

in New York and also teaches at the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute.

Ian Marsh is a lecturer and researcher at Canterbury Christ Church

University in England. His main research interest is suicide preven￾tion, particularly the history of thought and practices of this field. His

book Suicide: Foucault, History and Truth was published in 2010.

CONTRIBUTORS xi

Bethany Morris is from Prince Edward Island, Canada. She has a

Bachelor’s degree in psychology and English, a Master’s degree in

Child and Youth Studies, and is currently working on her PhD in

psychology at the University of West Georgia. Her research interests

focus on critical feminist psychology, deconstructing psychopathol￾ogy, and discourse analysis.

Fikile Nxumalo is an assistant professor in the Department of

Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Texas at Austin,

where she teaches in the Early Childhood Education program

area. She most recently spent several years in collaborative inquiry

with educators and children in her role as a pedagogista at a uni￾versity-based child care setting in British Columbia, Canada. Her

research and pedagogical interests are informed by anticolonial,

Indigenous relational, and more-than-human perspectives, and are

centered on responding to children’s settler colonial anthropogenic

inheritances.

Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw is a professor at the School of Child and

Youth Care at the University of Victoria in Canada. She is coeditor

of the Journal Canadian Children, the only peer-reviewed journal in

Canada that expressly serves the early childhood community. In her

edited collection Flows, Rhythms and Intensities of Early Childhood

Education Curriculum (2010) and coedited book Re-situating

Canadian Early Childhood Education (2013), Veronica worked with

Canadian scholars to challenge normalizing perspectives in Canadian

early childhood education.

Hans Skott-Myhre is an associate professor in the Social Work and

Human Services Department at Kennesaw State University. He is

adjunct faculty in the Child and Youth Care program at the University

of Victoria and the Child and Youth Studies Department at Brock

University. He is the author of Youth Subcultures as Creative Force:

Creating New Spaces for Radical Youth Work and coauthor with Chris

Richardson of Habitus of the Hood as well as coauthor with Kiaras

Gharabaghi and Mark Krueger of With Children .

Kathleen S. G. Skott-Myhre is an assistant professor at the University

of West Georgia in the College of Social Sciences Psychology depart￾ment. She has numerous publications within the field of Child and

Youth Care, Family Therapy, and Feminist Psychology. She is a coau￾thor of the book Writing the Family: Women, Autoethnography and

Family Work .

xii CONTRIBUTORS

Jeff Smith is a counsellor and music therapist working with chil￾dren, youth, and families. He has 14 years of experience in multiple

environments (forensic psychiatric hospital, HIV/AIDS day-center,

long-term care, forest/oceanside, conservatory of music, schools,

emergency shelters, recording studios, street outreach, youth clinic).

His research interests include language analyses of conversations

in therapeutic contexts, creative youth work, the abstinence/harm

reduction continuum, and psychotherapy/music therapy praxis.

Jennifer White is an associate professor and director in the School

of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria. Over the past

two decades Jennifer has been involved in advancing the theory and

practice of youth suicide prevention. She is particularly interested in

designing research and practice frameworks that are youth-led, con￾textually specific, culturally responsive, and locally owned.

INTRODUCTION

Immanent Approaches and Liminal

Encounters in Youth Work, Early

Education, and Psychology

Hans Skott-Myhre , Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw ,

and Kathleen S . G . Skott-Myhre

This edited collection is an effort to rethink the set of relations

generally referred to as working with young people. The necessity

to think again about how various modes of praxis are deployed is

premised in an acknowledgment that the sociopolitical landscape, in

which this work is embedded, has shifted considerably as we enter the

twenty-first century. The advent of global capitalism with its neolib￾eral imperatives for education, psychology, and child and youth care

(CYC)/youth work (YW) has had far-reaching effects, both for the

definitional categories that comprise children, youth, and adults, as

well as for the sets of relations between the subjects. Indeed we might

say that we are in a period in which the terms of civil society generally

are being upended, disrupted, and very possibly eviscerated (Hardt,

1995). We would argue that the traditional modes of civil society that

were designed to integrate and shape young people as functioning

members of society, such as education, the family, modes of psycho￾therapy, as well as orphanages and other forms of residential care, are

in various stages of crisis and reconfiguration.

In some instances, this opens calcified institutions to new and wel￾come radical practices, while in other circumstances it makes such

institutions available for the full predatory incursions of the worst

forms of economic and social exploitation. It is this double-edged

2 H. SKOTT-MYHRE, V. PACINI-KETCHABAW, AND K. S. G. SKOTT-MYHRE

movement that opens this volume to the question of the liminal and

the force of immanent praxis. To this end we propose this book as a

series of propositions that highlight politicized strategies to working

with young people under current conditions of late liberal capitalism.

Its intention is to interrogate ongoing approaches, and provide alter￾native perspectives drawing on the pedagogical affordances of liminal

approaches founded in immanence.

The chapters that follow build upon the prior critical interven￾tions of prominent childhood and youth studies scholars (Burman,

2008; Cannella, 1997; Skott-Myhre, 2009) and showcase the work of

practitioners, activists, and researchers. To do so, this collection sets

out to offer strategies and alternative revisionings of what it means

to work with young people at a time of species extinction, climate

change, colonial conundrums, technological mediated worlds, and

global prescriptions. The authors in the collection draw from a wide

range of theories that sidestep developmental and humanist perspec￾tives, highlighting relationality, entanglements, coshapings, and

mutual responsibilities.

The writings in this collection are premised in two integrally

related philosophical concepts: liminality and immanence. We use

these terms as theoretical frameworks because they hold the capacity

to simultaneously describe the movements of domination and cap￾ture under global capitalism as well as the concomitant movements of

refusal, alternative, and revolt (Negri, 1999). The concept of imma￾nence has been used in both these senses by key theorists that map

the terrain of contemporary capitalism such as Antonio Negri (1999),

Hardt and Negri (2005), Deleuze (1992), Deleuze and Guattari

(1977), Deleuze and Guattari (1988), Braidotti (2013), and Gatens

(1996) among others. In these works, immanence holds a commonal￾ity of essence entwined with a radical distinction in form.

The definition of the essence of immanence derives from the

work of the philosopher Spinoza (2000). In Spinoza (2000) imma￾nence is a system that produces itself with no outside. It is an auto￾poetic substance whose primary, if not sole, impetus is its own

expression of an infinite set of capacities. For Spinoza, this is the

nature of God or what he calls substance, or in another term, it is

the set of conditions under which all things and thoughts are pro￾duced. Immanence, as an explanatory framework for the produc￾tion of everything, stands in opposition to two other significant

theoretical frameworks that underlie how human beings in Europe

and North America undertook to understand society, the natural

world, and history per se.