Author Identifier

Karen Nociti

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6846-611X

Date of Award

2024

Document Type

Thesis

Publisher

Edith Cowan University

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

School

School of Education

First Supervisor

Lennie Barblett

Second Supervisor

Mindy Blaise

Third Supervisor

Gill Kirk

Abstract

This research explored the Place literacies emerging in Place—children common worlds and the pedagogies generated to support the development of Place literacies. The study was situated on the Gabbiljee wetlands on Noongar Country in Boorloo (Perth), Western Australia and involved the researcher walking-with Place, twenty six- and seven-year-old children and three educators from a local primary school. The aim was to understand how children’s encounters with outdoor environments might be (re)imagined, as opportunities for Place and children to think together to generate new and alternative more-than-human literacies of Place (Place literacies). Whilst this remained a key purpose throughout the study, the initial walks-with Place highlighted the limitations of the researcher and participants’ Western worldview for noticing and responding to Place literacies. Consequently, the researcher set about developing practices for noticing and disrupting the logics that characterise Western ways of thinking and doing. Drawing insights from feminist theories, posthuman literacies and decolonial and anticolonial scholarship, the thesis by publication charts the researcher’s experimentations and development of a suite of twelve practices. These practices created openings for the researcher and educators to notice, respond to and develop Place literacies emerging from situated Place-children encounters. Both methodological and pedagogical, they unsettle Western education’s predilection to separate children from Place and Place from uncomfortable colonial histories. The practices are important for white, settler early childhood educators attending to calls for environmental education to reorientate pedagogies in ways that acknowledge social and ecological justice as always interconnected.

DOI

10.25958/1a3v-6m23

Access Note

Access to this thesis is embargoed until 28th November 2026

Available for download on Saturday, November 28, 2026

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