ABSTRACT
In earlier chapters we have argued for the socially constructed character of knowledge and the situated and embodied nature of the construction of the child, the pedagogue and early childhood pedagogy. This we did by identifying some of the techniques and practices by which we have constructed the child and the pedagogue and the dangers of these actions. From this perspective, it follows that all pedagogical activity can be seen as a social construction by human agents, in which the child, the pedagogue and the whole milieu of the early childhood institution are understood as socially constituted through language. However, this perspective also implies that this activity is open to change; if we choose to construct pedagogical activity in one way, we can also choose to reconstruct it in another. In this chapter we will further develop this theme of how we can transgress traditions, and constitute an alternative practice within our early childhood institutions. This alternative practice seeks to understand how pedagogues have constructed and represented themselves and the children with whom they work. It offers the possibility to construct new meanings and, by so doing, to transgress boundaries-both in representations and practices. A necessary condition for this practice is forming an active way of opposing and resisting the exercise of the knowledge-power nexus, those regimes of truth which attempt to determine for us what is true or false, right or wrong, what we may or may not think and do.
