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Country conscious: everyday attention to the changing climate of childhood with children and country
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Country conscious: everyday attention to the changing climate of childhood with children and country

Sarah Crinall, Simone Blom, Cassie Williams, Tao Wijeyekoon, Xanthia Blom, Edith Rowbottom and Vivi Rowbottom
Children's geographies, Vol.First online, pp.1-19
08/01/2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2024.2428661
Appears in  Recent Faculty of Education Publications

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Abstract

country informal environmental learning relationality intersectional sustainability childhoods
Decision-makers not listening to First Nations are taking risks failing to prepare young people for accelerating climate changes. In 2022, three families – one Yamatji Nation, and two settler families across Widjabul /Wia-bal Country and Boonwurrung Country – tuned into the concepts of Country, Climate and Childhood while communicating onto a bodyplaceblog. Ngan’gikurunggurr peoples call to listen to other perspectives as, ‘Dadirri’ (deep listening), and Boonwurrung peoples’ define a listening as fleeting – ‘Yama-bul ngarnga-dha’ – so you better listen up! Listening first to First Nations lands and voices, an allied posthuman performative play produced streams of words and images as families composed contributions that applied agency to the concepts of Country, Climate and Childhood during rising and falling floodwaters. Some attentive conversations surfaced care for children’s ways of knowing, being and doing, glimpsing the climate of a childhood on Country in the climate era. During rising and falling floodwaters, the bodyplaceblog produced rafts of words and images that highlighted childhood’s inclination to ebb, flow, go deep, become still, and sometimes surface attention to more ethical futures among other things. while accompanying children through Country’s climatehood era, children’s companions can commit to notice ‘Country’ everyday, beginning by asking: How am I Country-conscious?

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