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Preschool documentation aims to enchance children's participation in everyday practice. However, research shows that documentation tends to be controlled in a way that fulfils teachers' intentions rather than compels teachers to listen to the children. Drawing on theories of normalizing power and agency of subjects, this study analyses stories about documentation from 19 preschool children, aged 4-6 years. Children were asked to speak freely as the study aimed to catch children's perspectives. Resulsts show two co-existing discourses of negotiating relations among peers. A "community peer discourse", oriented towards preschool practice and community interests, and an "individual centered peer discourse", focused on the self and material objects to negotiate relations. Children negotiated relations by constructing belongings and differences, often by using stereotypical gendered expressions and mannerisms. The study shows that childrens' interest in themselves and their peers, in combination with teachers' active challenge of stereotypical gendered expressions, can contribute to preschool's active work with relations among peers. Pedagogisk dokumentation i förskolan syftar bland annat till att främja barns delaktighet. Forskning visar dock att dokumentationen tenderar att snarare bidra till att uppfylla förskollärarnas intentioner än att lyssna till barns tankar och idéer. Artikeln bygger på teorier om dokumentationen som en normaliserande makt i interaktion med enskilda subjekts egna agens. Genom att lyssna till hur 19 förskolebarn mellan 4–6 år interagerar med pedagogisk fotodokumentation eftersträvas i studien att fånga barnens egna perspektiv. Barnen fick prata fritt utifrån fotografierna i grupper om 2–3 barn. Resultaten visar på två samexisterande kamratdiskurser som barnen använde för att förhandla relationer; en kollektiv kamratdiskurs där berättelserna befann sig i den gemensamma förskoleverksamheten och en individcentrerad kamratdiskurs där berättelserna fokuserade på jaget och materiella ting. Barnen förhandlade relationer genom att skapa tillhörighet och åtskillnad, ofta genom att använda könsstereotypa uttryck och beteenden. Studien visar att barns stora intresse för sig själva och sina kamrater gör att fotodokumentationen, i kombination med förskollärarnas aktiva utmanande av stereotypa uttryck och beteenden, kan utgöra en viktig bas för barns delaktighet i förskolans relationsarbete.

This chapter introduces the volume by outlining some crucial scholarly histories: the feminist study of motherhood and mothering, and the literary study of mothers in fiction and life writing, across many differences. Since mothers, motherhood, and mothering not only are defined by physical and material experiences but also take shape in narratives—in stories and recorded accounts—these also need to be continuously studied and theorized if we are to understand the culturally specific meanings of motherhood. The chapter then introduces each of the separate studies in the volume. These variously demonstrate that literary representations of mothers and mothering foreground the ways that parenthood and parenting for women are imbricated with dimensions like class, race, age, and nationality, as well as how motherhood is connected to living a heterosexual, lesbian, queer, or trans everyday life. In original analyses of a range of representations, from absent/missing mothers to highly present ones, the studies that comprise this book engage in a dialogue with the previous research, raising questions about how motherhood and mothering are marked by absence and/or presence and by profound ambivalences, about how maternal perspectives and voices gain space or mix with filial voices in the narratives, and about how mothers are constructed in relation to ideals and norms of motherhood.