Research

Get acquainted with the research themes of the Affective Geographies and Politics of Education group.

The AGPE research group examines the spatiality of learning and the affectual landscapes within which it takes place. We aim to re-think learning as fundamentally geographical, thereby extending the politics of education to include not only issues of policy, student wellbeing and social justice, but also fold everyday spaces and affective experiences into the equation. Our research thus challenges notions of a static learning subject by emphasizing the rhizomatic processes involved in transformative learning. Through participatory research with young people, this work highlights the complex relational landscape with which today’s youth learn and become other.

We aim to hear from those we educate, probing the multifaceted geographies of young people, including:

  • the spatial politics of hanging-out: how young people participate and meaningfully take action in adult-dominated landscapes
  • daily routines and place-making practices of young people
  • methods for researching that which escapes representation and/or quantification, and can make visible the myriad of forces at play in the diverse encounters that give rise to learning and everyday affective politics

Our research opens a new field of research in geography education (kasvatusmaantiede). It involves:

  • reconceptualizing learning as an ongoing, nonlinear and rhizomatic process that is always more than mere acquisition of information, skills or knowledge sets
  • using non-representational theorization and a more-than-human frame to study how humans know and learn with the world
  • studying the always relational and transformative becoming (human) that takes place with(in) and is informed by diverse geographical and ideological landscapes, imaginaries and encounters

Our goal is to emphasize the importance of geography of education and its political possibilities by examining: 

  • the politics of education as subject production
  • geography education as a means of making visible our co-dwelling with others; addressing the call of the Anthropocene
  • pedagogical spaces that allow for moments of hesitation, wonder, and questioning the ‘already-known’
  • curriculum development (collaboration with Science Lab Geopiste, schools, policy makers and other societal actors)

Part of the reserach of AGPE is conducted within the Research Council of Finland project (2023–2027) 'Enchantment in young people’s technoscientific urban landscape: Encounters of difference and the opening of politics in the post-social city'.