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Biography

Narda Nelson is a pedagogist with UVic Child Care and Principal Investigator with their Pedagogical Explorations project (2011-ongoing). Drawing on her background in gender �Թ��� and upbringing in Cree, Beaver (Dane-zaa), Dene, and Métis territory (Treaty 8 country in northern Alberta), she takes an interdisciplinary approach to Early Childhood Education and Care with a particular focus on reimagining ethical futures with plant, animal, & waste flow relations in early childhood. Narda is a member of the Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory, Common Worlds Research Collective, and Animals & Society Research Initiative (ASRI). She is excited to be joining the School of Child & Youth Care (CYC) as Assistant Professor in July 2026.

Selected publications

Chapters in Books

Nelson, N., & Nxumalo, F. (in progress). In N. Kemp (Eds.) Outdoor Spaces in Earliest Childhood. Routledge.

Nelson, N., & Hodgins, B.D. (2020). Unruly voices: Growing climate action pedagogies with trees
and children. In S. Elliott, E. Äarlemalm-Hagsér, & J. Davis (Eds.) Researching Early
Childhood Education for Sustainability: Challenging Assumptions and Orthodoxies (2nd
ed., pp. 150-165). Routledge.

Nelson, N. (2019). Tracking: Cultivating the ‘arts of awareness’ in early childhood. In B.D.
Hodgins (Ed.) Feminist Research for 21st-Century Childhoods: Common Worlds Methods
(pp. 101-110). Bloomsbury.

Handbook Chapters

Nelson, N. (2018). Rats, death, and Anthropocene relations in urban Canadian childhoods. In A.
Cutter-Mackenzie, K. Malone, & E. Barratt Hacking, (Eds.) International Research
Handbook on Childhood Nature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature (pp. 1-23).
Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-51949-4_45-1

Peer-reviewed Journal Articles

Nelson, N., & Drew, J. (2023). Multispecies collaboratories: Reconfiguring children’s more-than-
human entanglement with colonization, urban development, and climate change.
Children’s Geographies, 1-17. DOI: 10.1080/14733285.2023.2253184

Land, N., Vintimilla, C.D., & Nelson, N. (2023). Orienting toward the otherwise in the
Twitterverse: Activating pedagogical commitments with pedagogists and Twitter. Journal
of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 1-23. DOI: 10.1080/15505170.2023.2185324

Nelson, N., Hodgins, B.D., Danis, I. (2020). New obligations and shared vulnerabilities:
Reimagining sustainability for live-able worlds. Nordic Studies in Science Education,
15(4), 418-432.  

Hodgins, B.D., Nelson, N., Yazbeck, S-L, Xiaofeng, K., & Turcotte, R. (2020). Living speculative
pedagogies as boundary-crossing dialogues. Journal of Childhood Studies, 45(4), 5-19.
DOI:  

Nelson, N., Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Nxumalo, F. (2018). Rethinking nature-based approaches in
early childhood education: Common worlding practices. Journal of Childhood Studies, 43(1), 4-14.
DOI:  

Nxumalo, F., Delgado, C., & Nelson, N. (2018). Pedagogical gatherings in early childhood
education: Mapping inferences in emergent curriculum. Curriculum Inquiry, 48(4), 433-
453. DOI:  

Haro Woods, Nelson, N., Yazbeck, SL, Danis, I., Elliott, D., Wilson, J., Payjack, J., Pickup, A.
(2018). With(in) the forest: (re)conceptualizing pedagogies of care. Journal of Childhood
Studies, 43(1), 44-59. DOI:  

Nelson, N., Coon, E., Chadwick, A. (2015). Engaging with the messiness of place in early
childhood education and art therapy: Exploring animal relations, traditional hide, and
Drum. Journal of Childhood Studies, 40(2), 1-14. DOI:  

Public Scholarship

(2021,
April 20). The Conversation.

Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory (2020).
(Occasional Paper Responding to the Throne Speech).