Where Atmospheres and Material Worlds Meet: The Relational Making of (unequal) Childhoods in Swiss Kindergartens

The contribution explores how atmospheres, spatial–material arrangements, and practices in kindergartens contribute to emerging constellations of social inequalities in early childhood. Conceptually, the article brings the study of atmospheres into conversation with concerns about belonging and social inequality following Bourdieu, while using a more-than-human sensibility to attend to the role of architecture, artefacts, materials, light, sound and bodily practices in the making of kindergarten atmospheres. We understand atmosphere as the central analytical hinge between socio-material arrangements and processes of social positioning. Rather than presenting fully developed comparative findings, the article explores how ethnographic fieldwork materials can make visible the production of ‘fit or misfit’ via atmospheres in Swiss kindergartens. We see the atmospheric also as political, as co-constructing children's spatial experiences and social positionings, potentially enabling or constraining their sense of belonging. By foregrounding the relational and contingent nature of these dynamics, we argue for a nuanced understanding of space/place, atmosphere and matter as important agents in the configuration of situated childhood experiences and social positionings.