‘Until we see them,we won’t know . . .’: The mundane politics of the minor gestures of literacy in childhood

Abstract

Approaching literacy from a more-than-human perspective can be a way of honouring the mundane politics that are part of children’s everyday lives globally. However, these politics require a different kind of attunement from adults, who are accustomed to not caring about events that seem to have no purpose and that, at first glance, appear to be unrelated to literacy. With that in mind, this study engages with the concept of the minor gesture to embrace those politics that are difficult to understand but that make us think about yet-unthought relations in the field of literacy. Through a series of sensorial vignettes, the researcher chronicles a dinosaur hunt initiated by children as part of a broader research project in Seville. Through dialogue with Manning’s work on the politics of minor gestures, this seemingly mundane event animates how the dinosaur hunt involved more-than-human literacies driven by unanswerable inquiries with the world, rather than by adult purposes. Furthermore, the author posits that non-normative political ways of understanding language emerge from the intense relationships between children and materials, where words lose priority if what is in-the-making is valued. Ultimately, this work contributes to a more profound comprehension of literacy that extends beyond prevailing parameters and embraces indispensable aspects to cultivating more equitable childhoods and literacies around the world attuned to specific body-minds, other-than-humans, and matters that transcend the linguistic realm.