How does the threat of snake encounters affect our relations with place and common worlding?
Shared by ALICIA FLYNN
How does the threat of snake encounters affect our relations with place? In urban Naarm Melbourne, the threat of snake encounters is real. Thinking with Kathleen Stewart’s understanding of “affect’s lines of promise and threat” (2007) I wonder—how does place learning in the long-grass of this creek-side riparian zone prevail amid the threat of snake encounters?
When our group of students, teachers, researchers submerge our bodies in this place, some of us sit aware of our proximity to the long grass (a possible snake hideout) and the creek (the snake’s water source and conduit to the other side – yes, snakes swim). Others sit comfortably unthreatened. Teachers consider the contingency of snake bites and the repercussions.
How are snake-encounters a threat to relations with place and to common worlds pedagogies, as much as to children’s bodies? The snaky promises of place learning on the edges, in the long-grass of this riparian zone are becoming-with (Haraway, 2008) the threat of snake encounters.
References
Haraway, D.J. (2008). When Species Meet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Stewart, K. (2007). Ordinary affects. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
