

Dr Nikki Fairchild
Summary
I am and Associate Professor in Creative Methodologies and Education in the School of Education, Languages and Lingusitics.
I am also the institutional lead for the Education Unit of Assessment REF2029 entry.
Research interests
I am an Associate Professor in Creative Methodologies and Education in the School of Education, Languages and Linguistics, University of Portsmouth.
My research is theoretically informed by critical feminist materialist and posthumanist theory-praxis and I regularly practise writing as a method of inquiry.
My research has two bifurcations:
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the first employs research-creation and creative methodologies to challenging normative views of method/ology and knowledge production in conference/workshop spaces.
- the second focuses on creative ways to activate-entangle relationality with gender, place-spaces, time, temporality, childhoods and education to explore impacts on bodies.
Both these bifurcations utilise working with feminist materialist, posthumanist, research-creation, undisciplined post- philosophies and qualitative modes of knowledge production.
My research interests have been driven by my background in ECEC and teaching. I have shifted towards a posthuman, feminist materialist theoretical position as it enables me to have a new purchase on events and their connections to place-space. My scholarship seeks to broaden current views and aims to produce a more generative, relational, connected, ethical and political way to enact research. My research is theoretical, but has been empirically applied in the development of my concepts place-space and feminist materialist relational time. It includes projects which has given me the opportunity to explore posthuman subjectivity and places-spaces in ECEC classrooms and gardens. These will be included in my forthcoming book Place-Space Methodologies.
I am a founder member of an International research collaboration, the CG Collective, exploring research-creation, post-qualitative method/ology and knowledge production at/in conference spaces. We have engaged in numerous workshops and have produced academic articles and our book Knowledge Production in Material Spaces: Disturbing Conferences and Composing Events.
I review for a range of education and gender focussed journals and various national and international grant funding bodies. I am an Associate Editor for the Journal of Posthumanism and am on the Editorial Boards of Gender and Education, and Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. I am also a Steering Group Member of the European Network of Qualitative Inquiry.
I have worked closely with ECEC organisations such as the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Special Interest Group in ECEC and the Early Childhood Studies Degrees Network where I was part of the development of the Graduate Practitioner Competencies and as Co-Vice Chair of Research and Knowledge Exchange.
My previous roles include a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chichester, a Deputy Manager of a Montessori ECEC setting in the UK and I have had various leadership roles in the private sector.
Teaching responsibilities
Teaching
I teach on our Professional Doctorate in Education and lead two modules - Publication, dissemination and impact and Reserch proposal.
Research outputs
2025
Pedagogies of place-spaces: walking-with the post-professional
Fairchild, N.
19 Jul 2025, In: Practice: Contemporary Issues in Practitioner Education. 5, Sup 1, p. 4-20, 17p.
Research output: Article
Understanding the literature in the United Kingdom on racially minoritised young children, families, and practitioners in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
Fairchild, N., Lander, V., Sultana, A.
4 Jul 2025, In: Journal of Childhood, Education and Society
Research output: Article
Academic writing otherwise: possibilities and praxis
Taylor, C. A., Benozzo, A., Fairchild, N., Pihkala, S., Cranham, J.
30 May 2025, In: Qualitative Inquiry
Research output: Article
Quality Early Childhood Education and Care practices: the importance of skills, knowledge, and the Early Childhood Graduate Practitioner competencies
Mikuska, E., Fairchild, N., Sabine, A. J. W., Barton, S.
3 Apr 2025, In: International Journal of Early Years Education. 33, 2, p. 411-425, 15p.
Research output: Article
Intermezzo-Image-Text-Riffs: Walking-encounter-ings for thinking-doing qualitative research otherwise
Taylor, C. A., Fairchild, N.
30 Mar 2025, In: Qualitative Inquiry
Research output: Article
2024
Social innovation in early childhood education and care in England: the case of Portsmouth
Fairchild, N., Mikuska, E.
25 Nov 2024,
Research output: Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Post-experimental inquiry (1990 to 2000)
Fairchild, N.
28 Sep 2024,
Research output: Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Hauntology, online journaling, ghosts, and temporal ruptures in early childhood education and care
Fairchild, N., Albin-Clark, J.
4 Sep 2024,
Research output: Chapter (peer-reviewed)
Multiverse, feminist materialist relational time and multiple future(s): (re)configuring possibilities for qualitative inquiry
Fairchild, N.
17 Jun 2024, In: Qualitative Inquiry. 30, 6, p. 493-501, 9p.
Research output: Article
Tags, tagging, tagged, # - undisciplining organ-ization of [academic] bodies
Fairchild, N., Taylor, C. A., Carey, N., Koro, M., Benozzo, A., Hannes, K., Albin-Clark, J., Maynard, E., Zarabadi, S., Caterina-Knorr, T., Taylor, A. J.
1 Jun 2024, In: Culture and Organization. 30, 3, p. 263-289
Research output: Article