Editorial: Speculative Worldings of Children, Childhoods, and Pedagogies

The cover image for this special issue is a painting titled “Crossing Reality Portal” by Alejandro Darío Pizarro Chellet, a Mexican multidisciplinary artist and permaculture practitioner who works at the intersection of environmentalism, social practice, and public art.1 The painting was part of a United Nations international exhibition, “The Future We Want,” which aimed to “foster a conversation about the kind of future we want for our world and how we can empower youth to work towards it” (United Nations Geneva & Perception Change, 2020, p. 4).2 In his painting, Chellet offers a speculative play on the “Refugees Welcome” logo that widely appears at activist rallies and in international human rights campaigns (See Figure 1).3 While the popular image evokes the fear and urgency of flight, there are no obstacles in view—the tagline “bring your families” conveys an ease that is not emblematic of the refugee experience for most displaced persons.