ABSTRACT
Photo-stories are a device to invent childhood publics with children: that is, for exploring the relationship between childhood and public life and a way of organizing children’s encounters, experiences and engagement with politics broadly defined. Photo-stories comprise of collages of photographs taken by the children and the children’s ‘little stories’ about the photograph brought together on A3 card and variously decorated with stickers, colours, glitter, and other crafting materials. Children’s photo-stories can also be coupled with exhibitions and others forms for making public (exhibition catalogues, websites, training) children’s encounters, experiences, and engagement with public life. This device can help any research team to bring children’s everyday lives into the public sphere, and to bring members of the public into children’s experiences. Photo-stories, then, can be treated as both (i) the assembly of little actions, interactions, communications, conversations, stories, and ultimately relationships built between the research team and the children; and (ii) material objects that can attract and entangle strangers into childhood publics.
