ABSTRACT
This chapter reflects on the role of temporality, place, and movement for learning about/with the natural world. Integrating across Indigenous scholarship, sociocultural theory, and interaction analysis, I present methods for exploring questions about parent–child learning-in-place and on-the-move. Then, drawing upon a case study of a Native American (Odawa) family’s experience on multiple walks in an urban forest preserve, walking, reading, and storying land is discussed as a methodology for making sense of and building relations with the biological and physical worlds. The ways this family wove together multiple forms of questions, directives, and shifts in movement to coordinate attention and observation for the purposes of building knowledge about the natural world are introduced, including: (a) making entities, phenomena, beliefs, and thought processes visible; (b) establishing oneself as a leader or knower, capable of making meaningful contributions; (c) marking and remembering places of importance; and (d) engaging in imaginative perspective taking to hypothesize about the lives of more-than-humans and relations with more-than-humans. Through an analysis of transcript data, I demonstrate how the practices outlined above are supported by whole body movement and support productive disagreements as well as epistemic navigation and openness.
