Abstract

BURGOS, diegofernando pérez  and  SUAREZ VACA, maría teresa. Childhood words and times as forms of political experience. child.philo [online]. 2023, vol.19, e77974.  Epub Sep 09, 2023. ISSN 1984-5987.  https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2023.77974.

This article originated from the research project Democracy, equality and disagreement: theoretical-methodological concepts from Jacques Rancière to envision education in the contemporary world. The project's main aim is to explore terms such as democracy, equality, and disagreement in the context of contemporary educational and political discourses. Emerging as an addendum to the research project, the paper sets out to examine some of the premises of Jacques Rancière that allow us to identify the political potentialities of childhood that emerge from the recognition of children’s words and temporalities as forms of community experience. Our methodological perspective engendered a writing style that eliminates distance between the typical discourses of philosophers and the voices of children, with the intention of reaffirming the latent potential of the latter when thinking about philosophical issues. This exercise in non-hierarchical writing/reading demonstrates that children’s words are not the reflection, nor the expression, nor the symbol of a higher theoretical reality, but that they allow thought to continue non-stop. As such, our objective is not to write about childhood, but with childhood; not to find the truth about childhood, but to take advantage of the power of children’s voices to question common sense. In this way, the relationship between political conflict, equality, and the power of the child’s word is established, demonstrating the capacity of the childish voice to renovate the sense and sensibility upon which society’s concepts are based. Finally, it is argued that childhood is a form of subjectivity that experiments with temporality through the affirmation of intensities that are marked by curiosity and creativity. For this reason, the condition of childhood suggests a form of political experience that is capable of inventing multiple temporalities that subvert the order of domination.

Keywords : childhood; word; time; politics; liberation.

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