Children Have Big Stories: An Ethnographic Multi-Sited Study of Contemporary Ngaanyatjarra and Pintupi Early Years Practices.

Abstract

This thesis explores children's practices in three remote Australian First Nations communities in the desert region of Western Australia. Based on ethnographic research with 30 Ngaanyatjarra and Pintupi children aged 0-6 years old and their caregivers, contemporary childhood is examined across a variety of contexts. The overall purpose of this study is to contribute to the understanding of children's practices in this environment.

Contemporary child-related policy discourses in this context overemphasise deficit and mainstreaming. Anthropological accounts rarely focus on children's lives prior to school or child-and-family practices. Mediascapes perpetuate stereotypes with representations of 'traditional' practices that exotify and fail to engage with the complexity of contemporary young children's lives. There is a current paucity of serious engagement with the early years of Ngaanyatjarra and Pintupi children's lives prior to schooling. To address these concerns, the following questions are investigated: what are the key practices in Ngaanyatjarra or Pintupi children's daily lives; what does it mean to be a Ngaanyatjarra or Pintupi child today; and what are the implications for early childhood education in First Nations communities?

Methodologically, the fieldwork was approached using Constructivist Grounded Theory and, to conceptualise the data, complemented with Practice Theory. These two frames allowed the study to explore how 'mainstream' child-related practices have been inserted into or discarded in everyday life. Data were drawn from participant observations, interviews, and visual materials.

The findings highlight that desert children are navigating a world with multiple intersecting layers of complexity. Yet, despite myriad external forces, societal sociocultural values remain central to their practices. What is revealed in this investigation is a nuanced understanding of contemporary childhoods in remote regions, to guide the transition from home to school. The thesis provides potential insights to inform early childhood educators and caregivers of the need to be more aware of the context of children's everyday lives and the relevance of current service models for children living in remote First Nations communities by signalling the priorities and worldviews of Ngaanyatjarra and Pintupi communities. Show more