Educational Research at the Intersection of Contemporary Black Studies and Posthumanism: Risks, Possibilities, and Purpose

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session considers two recent theoretical movements that are currently inspiring considerable methodological innovation in educational research:1) Anti-Blackness, Afro-pessimist, and Black futurity scholarship; and 2) Posthumanist, new materialist, and agential realist philosophy of science. Both of these literatures challenge oversimplifications of the relation between knowledge, reality, and consequential action. They locate research responsibility not just in the accuracy of representations or the thoroughness of critiques, but also in the quality of the relations a particular manner of knowing generates. Both recommend a more speculative approach to social inquiry. Each presenter will discuss how these literatures complement one another, how the literatures are in tension, and how they navigate working at their intersection.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Cosponsors

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Inquiry, Transformation, and Communities

• Division G - Social Context of Education

Chair

• Maya Revell, University of Oregon

Papers

• Disrupting Antiblackness and Humanism in Early Childhood Studies - Fikile Nxumalo, University of Toronto

• Black Studies and Posthuman Schooling: A Deep Listening Session With Black Youth Narratives - Boni Wozolek, Pennsylvania State University - Abington

• Skin, Flesh, and Affect: Toward the Conceptualization of and Inquiry With/in Racializing Affect - Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman, Teachers College, Columbia University

• An Agential Realist Approach to Research on Racism and Antiblackness in Schools - Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon; Alexander B. Pratt, Pennsylvania State University - Altoona

Discussant

• Reagan P. Mitchell, University of North Carolina School of the Arts