Theorizing feminist ethics of care in early childhood practice: Possibilities and danger. By RachelLangford (Ed.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. ISBN 978‐1‐3500‐6747‐9; 232 pages; price £85.50 (hardback), £26.09 (paperback)

Abstract

This is an important and timely book that contributes to debates on the importance of care in Early Childhood. It is the third book in the series curated by Professor Jayne Osgood and Professor Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw entitled Feminist Thought in Childhood Research. The chapters include international perspectives with scholars drawn from interdisciplinary fields including, education studies, sociology, critical disability studies, social care, philosophy, social pedagogy and arts-based backgrounds. There have been long-standing debates about the dichotomies of education and care. This has included the type of workforce that might meet the needs of children, and policy focussing on a ‘school ready child’ (Fairchild & Mikuska, 2021). The contested nature of care in Early Childhood is the core focus of this book where educators need to balance the demands of professionalism, pedagogy and practice, along with deficit perceptions of the work from policy-makers and the wider population (Langford, 2019). The pressing need for this book mirrors the call for a more egalitarian vision of caring practices (The Care Collective, 2020). This also chimes with Matters of Care where Puig de la Bellacasa (2017: 7) notes that care and ethics are intertwined as ‘a political commitment’, needing a critical eye and focussing on feminist traditions which avoid any normative essentialized and gendered framings of care. In the book's introduction there is a problematization of care and the links to gendered, maternal, exploitative perceptions of care and professionalism. Throughout the book, the turn to feminist theory builds on the germinal work by feminist scholars that challenges masculinist modes of knowledge production. Langford (2019) argues that employing feminist theory, scholarship and practices provides an alternative to the neoliberal perspectives of contemporary care to highlight political, contextual, and emotional nuances in caring experiences. The book is divided into three sections: major developments in ethics of care scholarship which brings careful conversations to the foreground; the ways educators in training can be prepared to develop feminist ethical caring practices; and the materialization of care practices in Early Childhood post training. The first section highlights the history of care scholarship as a site of contestation and transformation. This includes how posthuman and poststructural theory articulates an ethics of encounter encompassing human and non-human bodies. The notion of care as an ethical encounter and orientation is a thread in this section. This is used to unpick and understand how caring subjectivities have been produced and constructed, sometimes reifying a particular version of care. The authors offer alternative perspectives on how understanding historical and contemporary care scholarship can shape different ways to think about caring practices. Preparing educators is the focus of the second section, as the authors consider international reflections of caring practices taught in Higher Education. The acceleration in Higher Education's measurement of knowledge accumulation has bought a call for a more slow scholarship. Here slow scholarship ‘is about deceleration as a means to create focused and nurturing ways of working against damaging conditions’ (Taylor, 2020: 266). These types of slow practices challenge mind: body dualisms are often associated with care and caring practices when working with young children (Fairchild & Mikuska, 2021). The chapters call for an intersectional and interdisciplinary approach with clear links to practice that can provide ways for care to be reconceptualized as an act of social justice. The final section illuminates what occurs in Early Childhood settings. These chapters draw on a range of theoretical positions to consider how care is materialized and operationalized in practice. The authors articulated how the ethical and political nature of care is an intrinsic part of Early Childhood educators work, alongside supporting children to develop their own caring and autonomous selves. Overall this book is an essential addition to the discussions and debates surrounding education and care in Early Childhood. This is important as considering care in contemporary society is an imperative where neoliberalism, nationalism and the challenges faced by the Covid-19 pandemic envelope societies. Foregrounding the importance of care and careful practices ‘is a social capacity and activity necessary for the welfare and flourishing of life’ (The Care Collective, 2020: 5) and this volume joins wider conversations and debates on care and caring.