Babies, Music and Gender: Music Playschools in Finland as Multimodal Participatory Spaces

Abstract

Studies of education and childhood studies in general tend to focus on the experiences and cultures of toddlers and school-age children. The experiences and cultures of babies and infants are often excluded from the scope of the studies of children. In Gilles Deleuze's (and Félix Guattari's) thinking, a child, and especially a baby or an infant, is essential in the processes of becoming. This article explores the concept of musicking to grasp the lines of flight and ruptures at music playschool lessons for babies, aiming to rethink and reconceptualise the meanings of music in this setting. Theoretically and methodologically, the article is situated within Deleuzian feminisms. Enjoyment is possible for babies and adults at music playschool lessons, when the lines of flight release the participants from conventional ways of experiencing and making music. These lessons allow babies and adults to take pleasure in the form of musicking. At these lessons, the concept of music is deterritorialised, because musicking creates a space that includes multiple senses.