Professor of Early Childhood Education, University of Oulu (Finland)

ORCID identifier:  0000-0001-9613-7738
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Karin_Murris
https://uct.academia.edu/KarinMurris

Research interests: early childhood education; childhood studies; philosophy with children; picturebooks; posthumanism; postqualitative research; school ethics; Reggio Emilia; decolonising pedagogies

Biography

Karin Murris is a childhood researcher and teacher educator. Grounded in academic philosophy, her particular expertise is to research Early Childhood Education pedagogies enacted in teacher education. Karin is principal investigator of a Learning through Digital Play project in South Africa in tandem with the University of Sheffield (funded by the LEGO Foundation)(2019-2020) (http://etilab.uct.ac.za/lego). Karin has led various other externally funded international research projects in the Global North and South, including the South African Decolonising Early Childhood project (2016-2018). She is Chief Editor of a new Routledge series on Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research. 
Her Posthuman Child Manifesto can be found on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikN-LGhBaw

On-going North/South Research networks

• Critical posthumanism Reading group: we meet weekly on-line. Initiative by the Project Decolonising Early Childhood Discourses: Critical Posthumanism in Higher Education (DECD). Funded by the NRF (2016-2018). 
  • Communication and information via Whatsapp.
  • Website: https://www.decolonizingchildhood.org/
  • Facebook: Decolonising Early Childhood Discourse: Critical Posthumanism in Higher Ed

Research reports

• Marsh, J., Murris, K., Ng’ambi, D., Parry, R., Scott, F., Bishop, J., Bannister, C., Da Silva, H., Dixon, K., Doyle, G.,  Driscoll, A., Giorza, T., Hall, L., Hetherington, A., Krönke, M., Margary, T., Morris, A., Nutbrown, B., Peers, J., Rashid, S., Santos, J., Scholey, E., Souza, L., Thomsen, B.S., Titus, S., and Woodgate, A. (2020) Children, Technology and Play. Billund, Denmark: The LEGO Foundation.
• Murris, Karin; Ng'ambi, Dick (2020): Children, Technology and Play – Qualitative Data. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.12017010.v1
• Ng'ambi, Dick; Murris, Karin (2020): Children, Technology and Play (CTAP) Survey. figshare. Dataset. https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.11950107.v1

PhD supervision completions

• Robyn Thompson (2020). Teaching intra-active comprehension with picturebooks in a grade three South African classroom. University of Cape Town. 
• Theresa Giorza (2018). Making kin and taking care: Intra-active learning with space, time and matter in a Johannesburg preschool. University of Cape Town.  
• Rouxnette Meiring. (2018) Posthumanism and its implications for environmental education in the Foundation Phase in South Africa. University of Cape Town. 
• Carmen Blyth. (2015) Chronicle of a dysappearance: an autoethnography of a teacher in conflict. University of Cape Town. 
• Nikolidaki, Sofia (2011) Stimuli and philosophy with children: a philosophical justification. University of Wales. 

Books

• Murris, K. (2016) The Posthuman Child: Educational Transformation through Philosophy with Picturebooks. Contesting Early Childhood Series (eds G. Dahlberg and P. Moss). London: Routledge
• Haynes, J & Murris, K. (2012) Picturebooks, Pedagogy and Philosophy. New York: Routledge Research in Education.
• Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (2018) (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Rollins Gregory, M., Haynes, J. & Murris, K. (2017) (Eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children. London: Routledge.

Special Issues - accredited journals

• Murris, K. & Menning, S.F. (2019) (Eds) Videography and Decolonizing Education. Special Issue: Video Journal of Education and Pedagogy. Issue 4(1). On-line, open access journal. Accessible on: https://brill.com/view/journals/vjep/4/1/vjep.4.issue-1.xml
• Murris, K. & Kell, C. (2016) (Eds) Imagination and Literacy. Special Issue: Reading & Writing. (7(2). On-line journal. Accessible on: http://www.rw.org.za/index.php/rw
• Haynes, J & K. Murris (2013) (Eds.) Child as Educator. Special Issue: Studies in Philosophy of Education. Vol 32 (3) May 2013

Creative academic productions

• As part of Vice-Chancellor Inaugural Professorial lecture (5 September 2018), the animated cartoon Posthuman Child: A Manifesto, created with Brandan Reynolds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikN-LGhBawQ

Articles in international peer-reviewed journals

• Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (2020) Troubling authority and material bodies: creating sympoietic pedagogies for working with children and practitioners. Global Education Review.
• Jokinen, P., & Murris, K. (2020) Inhuman Hands and Missing Child: Touching a literacy event in a Finnish primary school. The Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. 20(1): 44-68. doi.org/10.1177/1468798420904115
• Murris, K. & Bozalek, V. (2019) Diffraction and Response-able Reading of Texts: The Relational Ontologies of Barad and Deleuze. International Journal for Qualitative Studies in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2019.1609122 
• Murris, K. (2019) Children’s Development, Capability Approaches and Postdevelopmental Child: The Birth to Four Curriculum in South Africa. Global Studies of Childhood. 9 (1), March 2019: 1-16. doi.org/10.1177/2043610619832894
• Murris, K. & Bozalek, V. (2019) Diffracting diffractive readings of texts as methodology: some propositions. Educational Philosophy and Theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2019.1570843
• Murris, K. (2018) ‘Keeping the question ‘what comes after postmodernism?’ open’. In M. Peters, L. Jackson and M.Tesar (Eds.) Special Issue Educational Philosophy and Theory. 10.1080/00131857.2018.1461413
• Murris, K., Reynolds, R. & Peers, J. (2018) Reggio Emilia inspired philosophical teacher education in the Anthropocene: Posthuman child and the family (tree). In Journal of Childhood Studies: Interdisciplinary Dialogues in Early Childhood Environmental Education Special Issue, 43 (1): 15-29.
• Cassidy, C., Conrad, S-J., Daniel, M-F, Figueroia-Rego, M., Kohan, W., Murris, K., Xiaoling, W. & Zhelyazkova, T. (2017) Being Children: Children’s Voices on Childhood. International Journal of Children’s rights. 25: 698-715.
• Murris, K. (2017) Learning as ‘Worlding’: decentring Gert Biesta’s ‘non-egological’ education. Childhood & Philosophy. 13(28): pp. 453-469. doi: 10.12957/
• Murris, K. (2017) Reconfiguring educational relationality in education: the educator as pregnant stingray. Journal of Education. Issue 69: pp. 117-138.
• Murris, K. (2017) Reading two rhizomatic pedagogies diffractively through one another: a Reggio inspired philosophy with children for the postdevelopmental child. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. 25(4): 531-550. DOI: 10.1080/14681366.2017.1286681
• Haynes, J, & Murris, K. (2017) Intra-Generational Education: imagining a post-age pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 49 (10): pp. 971-983. 
• Murris, K. (2016) Philosophy with Picturebooks. Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory.  M. Peters (Ed). Published on-line first: doi:10.1007/978-981-287-532-7_164-1
• Murris, K. (2016) Philosophy with Children: Part of the Solution to the Early Literacy Crisis in South Africa. European Early Education Research Journal. (Published on-line 6/11/2014). 24 (5), 652-667. doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.970856
• Murris, K. (2015) Listening-as-usual: a response to Michael Hand. Studies in Philosophy and Education.34 (3):331–335. doi: 10.1007/s11217-015-9467-2
• [response to: Hand, M. (2015). What do kids know? A response to Karin Murris. Studies in Philosophy and Education. doi:10.1007/s11217-015-9464-5.]
• Murris, K. (2015) Posthumanism, philosophy with children and Anthony Browne’s Little Beauty. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature 53(2):59-65.
• Murris, K (2015) The Philosophy for Children Curriculum: Resisting ‘Teacher Proof’ Texts and the Formation of the Ideal Philosopher Child. Studies in Philosophy and Education 35(1):63–78.
• Murris, K. (2014) Reading Philosophically in a Community of Enquiry: Challenging Developmentality with Oram and Kitamura’s Angry Arthur. Children’s Literature in Education 45(2): 145-165. 10.1007/s10583-013-9205-8
• Haynes, J. & K. Murris (2013) Child as Educator: Introduction to the Special Issue. Special Issue: Studies in Philosophy and Education, 32(3):217-227
• Haynes, J. & K. Murris (2013) The realm of meaning: imagination, narrative and playfulness in philosophical exploration with young children. In Costello, P (Ed.) Special Issue: Developing Children’s Thinking in Early Childhood Education. Early Child Development and Care,183(8):1084-1100
• Murris, K. (2013). The epistemic challenge of hearing child’s voice [Special issue]. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 32(3):245–259
• Murris, K. (2012) Student Teachers Investigating the Morality of Corporal Punishment in South Africa. Ethics and Education, 7(1), pp 45-59
• Haynes, J. and Murris, K. (2011) The Provocation of an Epistemological Shift in Teacher Education through Philosophy with Children. In: Vansieleghem, N. and Kennedy, D. Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects. Special Issue: Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45(2), 285-303
• Murris, K (2008). ‘Philosophy with Children, The Stingray and the Educative Value of Disequilibrium’. In: R. Cigman and A . Davis (eds). Special Issue Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 42, No. 3-4, pp 667-685. Also, published as a chapter in New Philosophies of Learning (2009).
• Murris, K. (2000) ‘Can Children Do Philosophy?’.Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol 34, Issue 2, pp 261-279.

Chapters in international peer-reviewed books

• Murris, K. (2021; forthcoming). ‘Philosophical whimsy in children’s literature: age transgressive philosophical education’. In Gregory, M. & Laverty, M. Gareth B. Matthews, the Child’s Philosopher. New York: Routledge.
• Somerville, M., and Murris, K. (2021; forthcoming) ‘Planetary Literacies in the Anthropocene’. In Pandya, J.Z., Mora, R.A., Alford, J., Golden, N.A., De Roock, R.S. Routledge Handbook of Critical Literacies. New York/London: Routledge.
• Murris, K. (2020; forthcoming) ‘Anti-colonial movements and the Role of Children’. In Daniel Cook (Ed). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-children-and-childhood-studies/book245903
• Murris, K. (2020; forthcoming) ‘Childhood Embodiment’. In Daniel Cook (Ed). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies. https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/the-sage-encyclopedia-of-children-and-childhood-studies/book245903
• Murris, K. (2020). ‘Posthuman Child: De(con)structing Western Notions of Child Agency’. In Kohan, W & Weber, W. (Eds). On Childhood, Thinking and Time: Educating Responsibly. Lanham (Mayland): Lexington Books: Rowman & Littlefield.
• Murris, K. (2020). ‘Posthuman de/colonising teacher education in South Africa: Animals, Anthropomorphism and Picturebook Art’. In Burnard, P. & Colucci-Gray, L. 
• Why Science and Art Creativities Matter: STEAM (re-)Configurings for Future-making Education. pp. 52-78. Leiden: Brill Publishers. https://brill.com/view/title/54614
• Murris, K., Smalley, K., and Allen, B. (2020). ‘Postdevelopmental Conceptions of Child and Childhood in Education’. In Hytten, K. (ed) Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Education. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Murris, K., Semenec, P., and Diaz-Diaz, C. (2020). Interview with Karin Murris, In Diaz-Diaz and Semenec (Eds.), Research after the Child: Engaging with Posthumanist and New Materialist Methodologies. pp 87-99. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Murris, K. and Borcherds, C. (2019). ‘Body as transformer: ‘Teaching without Teaching’ in a Teacher Education Course’. In Taylor, C & Bayley, A (Eds). Posthumanism and Higher Education: Reimagining Pedagogy, Practice and Research. pp. 255-277. London: Palgrave MacMillan. DOI 978-3-030-14672-6_15
• Murris, K. and Borcherds, C. (2019). ‘Childing: A different sense of time’. In D. Hodgins (ed.) Feminist Post-Qualitative Research for 21st Childhoods. pp. 197-209. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
• Murris, K. (2019) ‘Posthuman Child and the Diffractive Teacher: Decolonizing the Nature/Culture Binary’. In A. Cutter-Mackenzie, K. Malone, E. Barratt Hacking(eds.) Research Handbook on ChildhoodNature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature Research. pp.1-25. Dordrecht: Springer International Handbooks of Education
• Murris, K. (2019) ‘Choosing a picturebook as provocation in teacher education: the ‘posthuman family’’. In C. R. Kuby, K. Spector & J. J. Thiel (eds.). Posthumanism and Literacy Education: Knowing/Becoming/Doing Literacies. pp. 156-170. New York: Routledge.
• Murris, K. (2018) ‘Posthumanism, de/colonizing education and child(hoods) in South Africa’. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 25-50. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. with Haynes, J. (2018) ‘Philosophical playthinking in a South African literacy ‘classroom’’. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 3-25. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (2018) ‘Philosophy for Children: a postdevelopmental relationality. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 50-64. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (2018) ‘The ‘classroom’ and posthuman research methodologies’. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 64-85. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. & Crowther, J. (2018) ‘Digging and diving for treasure: erasures, silences and secrets’. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 149-173. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. & Babamia, S. (2018) ‘Bodies with legs: ‘fidgeting’ and how recording practices matter’. In Murris, K. & Haynes, J. (Eds.) Literacies, Literature and Learning: Reading Classrooms Differently, 110-121. London and New York: Routledge Research Monographs Series.
• Murris, K. (2018) ‘Choosing a picturebook as provocation in teacher education: the ‘posthuman family’’. In C. R. Kuby, K. Spector & J. J. Thiel (eds.). Posthumanism and Literacy Education: Knowing/Becoming/Doing Literacies. New York: Routledge.
• Murris, K. (2018) ‘Posthuman Child and the Diffractive Teacher: Decolonizing the Nature/Culture Binary’. In A. Cutter-Mackenzie, K. Malone, E. Barratt Hacking (eds.) Research Handbook on ChildhoodNature: Assemblages of Childhood and Nature Research. pp.1-25. Dordrecht: Springer International Handbooks of Education.
• Murris, K. & Muller, K. (2018) ‘Finding Child Beyond ‘Child’: A Posthuman Orientation to Foundation Phase Teacher Education in South Africa’. In Bozalek,V., Braidotti, R., Zembylas, M. and Shefer,T. (Eds) Socially Just Pedagogies: Posthumanist, Feminist and Materialist Perspectives in Higher Education. 151-171. London: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Murris, K. (2018) ‘The Ugly and Violent Removal of the Cecil Rhodes Statue at a South African University: A Critical Posthumanist Reading’. In S.Travis, A.M. Kraehe, E.J. Hood & T.E. Lewis (Eds.) S.Travis, A.M. Kraehe, E.J. Hood & T.E. Lewis Pedagogies in the Flesh: Teaching, Learning, and the Embodiment of Sociocultural Differences in Education.. 183-188. London: Palgrave Macmillan
• Murris, K. (2017) ‘P4C with Picturebooks’ (Interview). In S. Naji & R. Hashim (eds) History, Theory and Practices of Philosophy for Children: International Perspectives. 81-86. New York and London: Routledge.
• Murris, K. (2017) ‘The posthuman child: iii’. Philosophy of Childhood: Exploring the Boundaries. Eds D. Kennedy & B. Bahler. 185-197. Lexington Books
• Haynes, J. & Murris, K. (2017) Readers and Readings of Texts in Philosophy for Children. In Rollins Gregory, M., Haynes, J. & Murris, K. (Eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children. 171-179. London: Routledge.
• Murris, K. (2016). School ethics with student teachers in South Africa: an innovative educational Intervention. The Palgrave International Handbook of Alternative Education (Lees, H. E. & Noddings., N, Eds.). 195-211. London: Palgrave Macmillan
• Murris, K. (2015) Case study contribution to: Larson, J. & J. Marsh (2005) Making Literacy Real, Theories and Practices for Learning and Teaching. London, Sage Publications. pp 144-162
• Murris, K. (2014) (in Greek) Philosophy with Picturebooks: Children as Semiotic Engagers. In: Theodoropoulou K. Elena (coord., pref., transl.) Philosophy, philosophy, are you there?. Doing philosophy with children. Athens. Diadrasi editions/ Philosophy and Child Series (editors: Theodoropoulou K.E. & Gregory M.) pp 275-291
• Murris, K. (2011) Is Arthur’s Anger Reasonable. In: Costello, P (ed). Philosophy and Children’s Literature. New York, Rowan & Littlefield. pp 135-153
• A contribution to a chapter in Haynes, J. (2009) ‘Living PhD: Metaphors of Research, Writing and Supervision’. The Doctorate: Stories of knowledge, power and becoming” (ed. Tony Brown). Bristol, ESCalate Higher Education Academy. Downloadable from: www.escalate.ac.uk/6550. pp 26-32
• Murris, K (2009). ‘Philosophy with Children, The Stingray and the Educative Value of Disequilibrium’. R. Cigman and A .Davis (eds) New Philosophies of learning. Oxford, Wiley/Blackwell
• Murris, K (2009). ‘Autonomous and Authentic Thinking through Philosophy with Picturebooks’. M. Hand & C. Winstanley (eds) Philosophy in Schools. London: Continuum. pp 105-118
• Murris, K (2006) ‘Cultiveren Van De Moed Om Het Juiste Te Doen’; In: J. Delnoij, J. Laurier & F Geraedts (eds) Morele Oordeelsvorming en de Integere Organisatie, Damon. pp 152-177
• Murris, K (2003) ‘Socratic Dialogue in Mainstream Education in British Schools’; In: P. Shipley and H. Mason (Eds) Ethics and Socratic Dialogue in Civil Society. Munster, LIT Verlag. pp 132-140

Articles in domestic peer-reviewed journals

• Murris, K. (2016) ‘#Rhodes Must Fall: A Posthumanist Orientation to Decolonising Higher Education Institutions’. Special Issue on Critical posthumanism, new materialisms, and the affective turn for socially just pedagogies in higher education. Eds V. Bozalek & M. Zembylas. South African Journal of Higher Education. 30(3): 274-294.
• Murris, K. & Kell, C. (2016) Imagination and literacy: Introduction to the special issue. Reading & Writing. 7(2), 5 pages. doi: 10.4102/rw.v7i2.13
• Murris, K. & Thompson, R. (2016) Drawings as imaginative expressions of philosophical ideas in a Grade 2 South African literacy classroom, Reading & Writing 7(2), 11 pages. doi: 10.4102/rw.v7i2.127
• Murris, K. & Ranchod, V. (2015) Opening up a philosophical space in early literacy with Little Beauty by Anthony Browne and the movie King Kong, Reading & Writing 6(1), Art. #69, 10 pages. http://dx.doi. org/10.4102/rw.v6i1.69
• Murris, K. & Verbeek, C. (2014) A foundation for foundation phase teacher education: making wise educational judgements. South African Journal of Childhood Education 4(2):1-17
• Murris, K. (2014) Corporal punishment and the pain provoked by the community of enquiry pedagogy in the university classroom, Africa Education Review, 11:2, 219-235,DOI: 10.1080/18146627.2014.927158
• Murris, K. (2013) Reading the World, Reading the Word: Why Not Now Bernard is Not A Case Of Suicide, but Self-killing. Perspectives in Education, 31(4):85-100
• Linington, V., Excell, L. & Murris, K. (2011) Education for participatory democracy: a Grade R perspective. In: S. Pendlebury (Ed.) Special Issue: Theorising Children’s Public Participation: Cross-disciplinary perspectives and their implications for education. Perspectives in Education Vol 29(1) p 36-46

Book Reviews

• Murris, K. (2017) ‘Review essay: Propositions for posthuman teaching and research: a diffractive re-view of three books’. Critical Studies in Teaching and Learning (CrISTal): Special issue: ‘Ethics, care and quality in educational development'. 5(1): 103-109. doi.org/10.14426/cristal.v5i1.115.
• Murris, K. (2012) ‘Review: Talking about Feelings and Values with Children by Michael Schleiffer (with Cynthia Martiny)’; In: Thinking 20 (1&2):86-88.