Mattering pedagogy in precarious times of (un)learning

Abstract

This paper considers how feminist new materialist thinking may offer a resource for re-orienting pedagogy and didactics in light of pressing global issues. In this respect, the paper applies feminist new materialist thinking in a somewhat normative agenda. However, pedagogy and didactics are always already normative, or are engaged in practices that play a role in as well doing ‘business as usual’ or in assisting in opening up to various, yet more un-usual ways of relating and being of the world. Pedagogy is a worlding practice, specifically, as it facilitates ways of relating, thinking, sensing, acting, and is involved in the shaping of a ’collective intelligence’. I argue that one fruitful approach may be to focus on entanglements and affects and on finding ways of facilitating a sensing living/being of such entanglements. The paper concludes by introducing affective geology to suggest possible steps towards a transformation of our ways of knowing, sensing, and relating.

The Ontology of Becoming: To Research and Become with the World

“…In order to explore this concept, we start by taking inspiration from the social psychologist Malou Juleskjaer. From here, we borrow the concept of sensorium, which comes from the Latin term "sensus", and describes the place in the brain that perceives changing sensory impressions, which include sensation, perception, and interpretation of experiences, both in the body and of other phenomena [31]. Sensory impressions arise when the subject spreads and expands, and it is no longer the self that is at the centre of what is experienced.…”

“…The discovery of listening to "deep time" can lead to a greater responsible becoming with nature. By exploring the sounds of sand, rocks, shells, water, ice, fish, and plants, new insights can emerge about how matter and bodies connect [31], which shows how thin the walls are between the beach phenomenon and how everything has common conditions in the world's self-repetition.…”

Thinking with the world – to explore the becoming of phenomena

“…The context for contempoary explorations about how we can think with the world is shaped by global challenges, especially in respect of climatic changes and environmental degradation (Staunaes & Krejsler, 2013;Sjögren 2016, Bergstedt, 2017aJuelskjaer, 2020). One of the reasons for this is that Vitruvian man of the Anthropocene (Braidotti, 2013) is central to all knowledge creation based upon dualist divisions between subject and object and between people and matter (Barad 2007, Braidotti 2013, Grusin 2015.…”

“…To this, we linked the concept of haptic, which makes the concept of haptic sensorium. The term sensorium comes from Latin's "census" and describes the place in the brain that perceives changing sensory impressions, which include sensation, perception, and the interpretation of experiences, both in the body and with other phenomena (Juelskjaer, 2020). Haptic means that the body is focused on being touched by something unexpected.…”

Learning Design for Sustainable Development

“…It is in this context that complex problem solving emerges as an overarching competence: an outcome that should arguably be an entitlement for all learners as a core 'literacy' developed throughout an Published by SCHOLINK INC. educational career and then pursued in professional learning in the workplace in all domains. Complex problem-solving re-sequences the learner's encounter with existing funds of relevant knowledge: it is grounded in a context-based, purposeful and agent-driven approach, in which the capability to postpone resolution, to embrace 'ontological (quantum) in-determinacy' and to respond appropriately to emergence is key (Juelskjaer, 2020). It requires what O'Donnell (2013) describes as the need for creating educational 'atmospheres' which support the capacity to receive the unpredictable and invite surprise.…”