Relational Ontologies

Abstract

Ontology refers to the nature of being and existence or the nature of reality. Relational ontologies refer to a particular understanding of ontology which gives primacy to the relations between entities as a constitutive element of their existence. Put another way, entities are what they are because of their relations with other entities. Unlike substantive ontologies which give primacy to the independent, preexisting ontological status of an entity, relational ontologies challenge claims to essence and substance emphasizing interdependence, fluidity, and emergence in the context of an ever-changing relational world. Relational understandings of ontology emphasize to different degrees the role of relations in constituting entities and being with certain approaches proposing that the agency of entities is the outcome of intra-action or the coming together of forces, which presumes the inseparability of one entity from another. These strong versions of relational ontology contrast with softer ones which recognize that entities are separate from one another despite the fact that they are constituted through their relational encounters and interactions. Discussions of ontology in childhood studies have been limited, though they have clearly increased in recent years. The dominant ontology of the independent, autonomous, agentic, and socially constructed child of the new social studies of childhood has been challenged with increasing frequency since the early twenty-first century. As a result of various turns, including the “relational turn,” the “ontological turn,” and the “material turn” in the social sciences, childhood studies has begun to rethink the status of the child through relational ontologies. A variety of theoretical approaches influenced primarily by new materialist and post-humanist thinking which adhere to relational understandings of ontology (e.g., actor-network theory, assemblage theory, agential realism, etc.) have impacted both theoretical discussions and empirical research in childhood studies. Though explicit reference to “relational ontologies” in childhood studies is still somewhat limited more general issues of relationality are by now more commonly discussed. Key areas of concern and discussion in childhood studies which implicate relational understandings of ontology and a more explicit concern with the more-than-human relationalities of childhood include the decentering of the child, the hybridity of childhood, relational understandings of the child’s body and of agency in childhood, and the vibrancy of matter in childhood. The methodological implications of this renewed interest in relational ontologies are also being considered by childhood studies scholars including the ethics and politics of knowledge production from within a relational ontological framework.