The diffracted wave in Comparative and International Education: Toward pluriversal thinking, inclusion, and new conversations

• In Event: Attending to the Colonial and Racial Natures of Comparative and International Education and Development

Proposal

The arguably inherent and imposed ideas of Enlightenment, scientific progress, and standardization in the field of Comparative and International Education (CIE) were distinctly promoted in Noah and Eckstein’s 1969 classic book Toward a Science of Comparative Education excluding and marginalizing voices, knowledges, and methodologies. By emphasizing positivist rigorousness and analyzing educational structures based on fixed units of comparison such as nation-states, regional/national policies, and curricula, CIE has contributed to the reproduction of unequal power mechanisms, the dominance of the Global North, and the obfuscation of colonial structures within its myriad societies, journals, and conferences. Simultaneously, while “excessively preoccupied with identifying global scripts and disseminating the latest ‘best practices’ worldwide” (Silova, 2019, p. 464), CIE has neglected and impeded new epistemologies, ontologies, and axiologies embedded in rich diverse cultural contexts.

This proposed presentation–through engaging conversations among its co-presenters about this crucial topic–reconsiders, with an aesthetic twist, the binaries, boundaries, and power hierarchies. Yet, instead of critiquing these concepts head-on and discussing what kind of changes are indispensable in order to decenter the field, we seek to contribute by employing the imagery of the diffracted wave as the foundation of our chapter. Put differently, diffraction can be understood as a phenomenon occurring when there is a “sudden change of boundaries” (Burcharth et al., 2007, n.p.). Applying this concept to the field of CIE, we also draw on Barad, who describes diffraction as “the way waves combine when they overlap and the apparent bending and spreading out of waves when they encounter an obstruction” (Barad, p. 28, 2007). Barad (2014) further experiments with re-turning–turning something over and over again– “as a mode of intra-acting with diffraction” (p. 168). Taking the cue from Barad, we attempt to return to the same imagery throughout the chapter, thinking about binaries, boundaries, and hierarchies and how to deconstruct–or diffract, as it were, those in the field of CIE to promote alternative axiological articulations, non-conventional epistemologies, and pluriverse thinking. The purpose of the presentation is not to provide a critique or a clear guide on how to move away from problematic practices–often disguised through colonial power mechanisms and false promises of late modernity–but to initiate a new imagery with which CIE researchers can rethink their research practice through an ethico-onto-epistemological lens.

Authors

• Cathryn Magno, University of Fribourg

• Anna Becker, Polish Academy of Sciences