Mapping Posthuman Methodological Innovation in the Study of Learning
Date: May 31st, 2022, 8-10 am (CET) Central European Time
Location: ZOOM, ISLS 2022
Location: ZOOM, ISLS 2022
Workshop Facilitators
Anna Keune, Technical University of Munich
Paulina Ruiz-Cabello, University of Bristol
Kylie Peppler, University of California, Irvine
Kerry Chappell, University of Exeter
Jennifer Rowsell, University of Bristol
Anna Keune, Technical University of Munich
Paulina Ruiz-Cabello, University of Bristol
Kylie Peppler, University of California, Irvine
Kerry Chappell, University of Exeter
Jennifer Rowsell, University of Bristol
Workshop description
The workshop aims to contribute to a mapping of posthumanist methodological innovations for the study of learning and to advance understanding of how these approaches can contribute to studying learning across contexts. Such approaches may include new technological advances for capturing movement of sound, heat cameras, and other machine-readable data points that can be translated across senses, as well as embodied practices which directly engage humans and other-than-humans with senses and materiality. A particular goal of the workshop is to collaboratively create a visual map of existing approaches and how they interlink and advance understanding of learning. Additionally, the proposed workshop will be a continuation and extension of our prior events, a connector between ISLS and BERA researchers working in this area, and a dissemination activity of the Digital Culture and Education Journal special issue.
Workshop registration
In order to participate in the workshop, please follow two steps:
The workshop aims to contribute to a mapping of posthumanist methodological innovations for the study of learning and to advance understanding of how these approaches can contribute to studying learning across contexts. Such approaches may include new technological advances for capturing movement of sound, heat cameras, and other machine-readable data points that can be translated across senses, as well as embodied practices which directly engage humans and other-than-humans with senses and materiality. A particular goal of the workshop is to collaboratively create a visual map of existing approaches and how they interlink and advance understanding of learning. Additionally, the proposed workshop will be a continuation and extension of our prior events, a connector between ISLS and BERA researchers working in this area, and a dissemination activity of the Digital Culture and Education Journal special issue.
Workshop registration
In order to participate in the workshop, please follow two steps:
- Please respond to our online survey (https://forms.gle/ccS8gbM13saR5zsg6) with your contact details.
- Please register to the ISLS 2022 conference (https://www.isls.org/registration/isls-annual-meeting-2022/)
Intended audience
The intended audience of the workshop are learning sciences and CSCL researchers interested in relational, socio-material, and/or posthumanist perspectives. We seek to involve researchers who have developed methodological innovations for the study of learning based on posthumanist perspectives and those interested in contributing to a shared map of such innovations. We invite international participants across academic levels and sectors, inclusive of graduate students, university faculty, and educational practitioners. We expect a maximum of 30 and a minimum of five (5) participants.
The intended audience of the workshop are learning sciences and CSCL researchers interested in relational, socio-material, and/or posthumanist perspectives. We seek to involve researchers who have developed methodological innovations for the study of learning based on posthumanist perspectives and those interested in contributing to a shared map of such innovations. We invite international participants across academic levels and sectors, inclusive of graduate students, university faculty, and educational practitioners. We expect a maximum of 30 and a minimum of five (5) participants.
Theoretical background and relevance to the field
Posthumanism proposes an onto-epistemo-ethical approach of social life and, therefore, of learning and knowledge production that decenters the human. The human is seen as a constitutive part of inextricable relational entanglements of human and other-than-human entities, such as objects, bodies and affects, mutually shaping and responding to each other (e.g., Ivinson & Renold, 2013; Thiel, 2015; Wargo, 2017). Thus, posthumanist approaches can present an additional approach to define, capture, and analyze the complexities across matter and people during learning events and processes.
Various streams of posthumanist approaches contribute to the learning sciences, including physics (Barad, 2003), material culture studies (e.g., Ingold, 2012), cultural studies (e.g., Behar, 2016), the arts (e.g., Braidotti, 2013), and literacy studies (e.g., Snaza, 2019). This change in the “research scene” (Sheridan et al., 2020, p.3) of what and who becomes part of the study of learning, has radical implications for theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of learning. Some exploration on how researchers are using and defining posthumanist methods (Ulmer, 2017), identified aspects across posthuman research: situated and partial; material, embodied, and transcorporeal; interconnected, relational, and transversal; processual; and affirmative. Within this prolific evolving research paradigm, methodological innovation becomes about redefining the object of study as human/more-than-human entanglements, the positionality and body of the researcher as performative and entangled as well in data collection, and the emergent nature of data and participants’ agency (St. Pierre, 2011; Mazzei, 2013; Koro-Ljunberg, 2015; deFreitas, 2017).
One example of this is Ehret et al.’s (2016) analysis of teenagers’ making of a digital book trailer in school. Drawing on a posthuman framework (Barad, 2007; Leander & Boldt, 2013; Ingold, 2015), the authors defined the key moments of the trailer production as meshworks of body-world-text-activity. The employed intra-action analysis becomes a methodological innovation as the authors looked for “felt focal moments” (p. 355) across the data (videos, audios, field notes, artifacts, interviews, digital copies of the trailer), which involve tracing visible affections, body movements, sounds, use of artifacts, to name some, and how they relate to each other to produce ideas and decisions about the book trailer.
The proposed workshop is looking to begin to visually map methodological innovations, such as meshworks as described above, and to begin to consider their role for the study of learning with relevance to the learning sciences and CSCL scholarship. While there has been some exploration on how researchers are using and defining posthuman methods (e.g., Ulmer, 2017), we claim the time is right to move towards a deeper examination of particular empirical methodological decisions and researchers’ trajectories of innovation. This work promises to advance understanding of the various posthuman approaches at play, the combination of methods that tends to be a common trait in this paradigm, and how methodology is understood and developed among researchers. The collaborative mapping process facilitated by the workshop will allow the discussion and identification of limitations across posthuman research, which needs further exploration (Ulmer, 2017; Gerrard et al., 2017).
Posthumanism proposes an onto-epistemo-ethical approach of social life and, therefore, of learning and knowledge production that decenters the human. The human is seen as a constitutive part of inextricable relational entanglements of human and other-than-human entities, such as objects, bodies and affects, mutually shaping and responding to each other (e.g., Ivinson & Renold, 2013; Thiel, 2015; Wargo, 2017). Thus, posthumanist approaches can present an additional approach to define, capture, and analyze the complexities across matter and people during learning events and processes.
Various streams of posthumanist approaches contribute to the learning sciences, including physics (Barad, 2003), material culture studies (e.g., Ingold, 2012), cultural studies (e.g., Behar, 2016), the arts (e.g., Braidotti, 2013), and literacy studies (e.g., Snaza, 2019). This change in the “research scene” (Sheridan et al., 2020, p.3) of what and who becomes part of the study of learning, has radical implications for theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of learning. Some exploration on how researchers are using and defining posthumanist methods (Ulmer, 2017), identified aspects across posthuman research: situated and partial; material, embodied, and transcorporeal; interconnected, relational, and transversal; processual; and affirmative. Within this prolific evolving research paradigm, methodological innovation becomes about redefining the object of study as human/more-than-human entanglements, the positionality and body of the researcher as performative and entangled as well in data collection, and the emergent nature of data and participants’ agency (St. Pierre, 2011; Mazzei, 2013; Koro-Ljunberg, 2015; deFreitas, 2017).
One example of this is Ehret et al.’s (2016) analysis of teenagers’ making of a digital book trailer in school. Drawing on a posthuman framework (Barad, 2007; Leander & Boldt, 2013; Ingold, 2015), the authors defined the key moments of the trailer production as meshworks of body-world-text-activity. The employed intra-action analysis becomes a methodological innovation as the authors looked for “felt focal moments” (p. 355) across the data (videos, audios, field notes, artifacts, interviews, digital copies of the trailer), which involve tracing visible affections, body movements, sounds, use of artifacts, to name some, and how they relate to each other to produce ideas and decisions about the book trailer.
The proposed workshop is looking to begin to visually map methodological innovations, such as meshworks as described above, and to begin to consider their role for the study of learning with relevance to the learning sciences and CSCL scholarship. While there has been some exploration on how researchers are using and defining posthuman methods (e.g., Ulmer, 2017), we claim the time is right to move towards a deeper examination of particular empirical methodological decisions and researchers’ trajectories of innovation. This work promises to advance understanding of the various posthuman approaches at play, the combination of methods that tends to be a common trait in this paradigm, and how methodology is understood and developed among researchers. The collaborative mapping process facilitated by the workshop will allow the discussion and identification of limitations across posthuman research, which needs further exploration (Ulmer, 2017; Gerrard et al., 2017).
