Unforgetting Difficult Knowledge and Constructing Possibilities through Narrative Research

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

The purpose of this multiple paper session is to speak and explore the extraordinary as well as everyday conditions of devastation that constitute difficult knowledge as theorized by Britzman (1998); Cabiles (2025); Pitt & Britzman (2003). Drawing theoretically from a variety of critical approaches, papers in this session situate themselves along a continuum of contemporary narrative research to explore the “affective and epistemological challenges in teaching and learning from” difficult knowledge (Zembylas, 2014, p. 391). In addressing the political power of personal narrative—particularly narratives education wants to put elsewhere—this session leans directly into narrative research’s always-already commitment to dealing with the atrocities of this curricular moment as lived and to drafting and crafting better educational futures.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Narrative Research

Chair

• Laura M. Jewett, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

Papers

• Navigating the Null Lived Curriculum of Grief: Difficult Knowledge, Narrative Research and Speaking the Unspeakable - Sara Simpson, University of texas rio grande valley

• Missing Chromosomes, Found Identity: Difficult Knowledge, Narrative Research and the Intersectional Lived Curriculum of Turner Syndrome - Ivana Maldanado, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

• When School Hurts: An Autoethnographic Narrative Navigating the Dark Knowledge of Abusive Neglect within the Special Education System as a Mother, Educator, and Advocate - Elizabeth Sherley, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Discussant

• Laura M. Jewett, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley