Narda Nelson

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 studies 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. https://journals.uio.no/nordina/article/view/6407 

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: https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs00019126 

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: https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v43i1.18261 

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: https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.2018.1522930 

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: https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v43i1.18264 

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: https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v40i2.15178 

Public Scholarship

Federal Budget 2012: 7 actions to ensure Canada’s ‘child-care plan’ is about education (2021,
April 20). The Conversation.

Early Childhood Pedagogies Collaboratory (2020). Conditions for moving beyond
‘quality’ in early childhood education (Occasional Paper Responding to the Throne Speech).