The cradle of subjectivities: for an anthropology of babies at the creche

Based on the account of an ethnographic observation in a French creche, this article aims to make the case for an anthropology of the child focused on an analysis of the emergence and construction of social subjects. I then describe three different situations. In the first, I engage in an epistemological reflection on the role of subjectivity in the ethnographic investigation of young infants. In the second, I consider the hypothesis that the relationships they build with adults place them in a “parental situation”. The third reveals that creches enable us to closely examine the subjectivation process of children.