I am looking forward to the 9th Explorations in Ethnography, Language and Communication Conference. My upcoming talk is entitled ‘Organizing peer relations in peripheral places in Early Childhood Care and Education’.

Title: Organizing peer relations in peripheral places in Early Childhood Care and Education

Abstract : Linguistic and social practices unfold in interrelation with the space(s) and places(s) in which they emerge, and children are sensitive to the social meanings and affordances of different places (Schieffelin, 2018). In Early Childhood Care and Education (ECEC) centres, educators are often less present in peripheral places like corridors or side rooms, offering children the opportunity to extensively engage in peer relations with less intervention from adults than in central places like the classroom. In such peer interactions, children constantly (re-)construct their social organization, including moral and social order (Goodwin & Kyratzis, 2007). This study draws on video data collected as part of a linguistic ethnography of two ECEC facilities located in Germany and the Netherlands to investigate how children (re-)organize the social order, and thereby (re-)shape (in-)equalities, in interrelation with spatial dynamics. Through a multi-modal interaction analysis, I aim to answer the following research question: How do children draw on space as well as linguistic and other semiotic resources to organize peer relations in peripheral places in ECEC centres? It results that children claim peripheral places and construct them as spaces to (un)make alliances and ‘do friendship’ (Engdahl, 2012) which includes multiple forms of positioning and (dis-)aligning, inclusion and exclusion practices and practices of spatial delineation.‘