Indeterminacy

• In Event: 28.037 - *CANCELLED* Timespacemattering: An Invitation to Create a Manifesto for Justice in Higher Education

Abstract

Indeterminacy Following the quantum theorist, Bohr’s indeterminacy principle, Barad defines it in this way: “indeterminacy explicitly entails a rejection of the classical metaphysical assumption that there are determinate objects with determinate properties and corresponding determinate concepts with determinate meanings independent of the necessary conditions needed to resolve the inherent indeterminacies” (2007, p.127). Indeterminacy in relation to spacetime means that there are no predetermined characteristics but it is only determined (known) through our intra-action with it, thus rendering it knowable in a particular way. Things or beings do not pre-exist interactions but instead emerge from these intra-actions. Thus, in higher education, as we intra-act, we become-with classroom spaces, lecturers/academics, knowledges and students rather than pre-existing as entities or individuals prior to entanglements. Barad (2010: 264) suggests the necessity “to risk oneself (which is never one or self), to open oneself up to indeterminacy in moving towards what is to-come.” Different intra-actions lead to different ethico-onto-epistemological becomings (Barad, 2007).

Author

• Abdullah Bayat, University of the Western Cape