Journal article
Weaving the pluriverse: childhood encounters with the undergound worlds of Birrarung Marr
Children's geographies, Vol.24, pp.104-120
2026
Appears in Recent Faculty of Education Publications
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Abstract
This article weaves together a series of encounters between young children, trees, and mycelium within the multispecies worlds of Birrarung Marr, an ancient Aboriginal meeting place in the city of Naarm/Melbourne, Australia. Using creative ethnographic methods, it focuses on children's involvement in an immersive theatre-making project exploring the intricate subterranean networks of communication and care between She-Oak trees and rhizo-mycelial networks in the local area. Weaving ethnographic description and careful engagements with Indigenous philosophies, the concept of pluriversality is evoked to consider how multispecies worlds are variously assembled, stolen, sustained, exhausted, regenerated, and interwoven along Birrarung Marr. Disrupting Western developmental models of childhood, the article argues that children's animistic understandings of multispecies relations can inform responses to climate change which are sensitive to the intricate dependency relations that sustain life.
Details
- Title
- Weaving the pluriverse: childhood encounters with the undergound worlds of Birrarung Marr
- Creators
- David Rousell - RMIT University
- Publication Details
- Children's geographies, Vol.24, pp.104-120
- Publisher
- Routledge
- Identifiers
- 991013101602402368
- Copyright
- © 2023 The Author(s).
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Education
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article