Affective bodying of mathematics, children and difference: choreographing ‘sad affects’ as affirmative politics in early mathematics teacher education

Abstract

This paper responds to the frequently occurring phenomena of ‘sad affects’ experienced by student teachers as they confront the logic of ‘proper mathematics’ with young children of differently abled bodies. The notion of ‘proper’ entails a normalizing fixity of ‘what counts’ as mathematics for certain children and fails to recognize mathematics as a sensual encounter amongst bodies. The study draws upon Spinoza’s notion of affect to consider the body’s capacity to act, and makes the case for choreographing with body-movement, rather than disclosing, the politics involved in becoming teachers. It discusses how affective bodying with mathematics, children and difference in the classroom practice can be not only deconstructed but also reconstructed in affirmative terms, choreographically, as feeling and thinking-in-movement in ways that trouble and perturb the prevailing sharing of the ‘sensible’ in early childhood mathematics and in teacher education. © 2019, The Author(s).