A Place Regained: Re-imaging education with immanence

“We will say of pure immanence that it is A LIFE and nothing else” writes Gilles Deleuze, to remind us that a life is all we have, and that this life comes to us as the mysterious yet wonderful question of what to make of it. This study starts from the observation that there is a specific kind of social practice where the question of life becomes an object of shared attention for the participants. Such practices are conceptualised in the study as co-existential practices. The study focuses on one such practice: shared play between an educator and a child.

The study is situated at the intersection between the fields of educational theory and childhood studies. Co-existential practices are taken as occupying a theoretically interesting position from the point of view of these fields. On the one hand, co- existential practices are often present in educational contexts, embodying some of the key arguments developed in childhood studies concerning children’s agency and the richness of their everyday lives. On the other hand, existing theories of education leave something hidden of what is educational about these practices.

More broadly, the study argues that there is a widely shared and rarely questioned assumption in educational theories that what is educational about education is its capacity to change the child’s life for the better. This assumption is labelled the Change-image of education. The limitations of the Change-image are argued to imply that to fully grasp what is educational about co-existential practices, an alternative understanding of education needs to be created. Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence and Jacques Derrida’s concept of hospitality are read together to create this alternative, which is called the Hospitality-image of education.

The Hospitality-image of education amounts to the argument that what is educational about co-existential practices is their ability to welcome the child’s life as the mysterious and wonderful question it is. The purpose of education as hospitality is argued to be to cultivate a rapport with the child instead of changing the child. Co- existential practices are then taken as a kind of work of welcoming, which allows the educator to cultivate such a rapport. Finally, understanding education as hospitality requires a new understanding of the educator’s intentions. Whether the educator has been successful in their efforts to extend hospitality depends on creating and sustaining a shared symbolic place rather than on producing outcomes for the child.

In conclusion, it is suggested that the Hospitality-image of education amounts to a useful complement to previous theorisations of education that take children lives and their agency seriously.