Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds II

Session Submission Type: Open Panel

Abstract

A multitude of political, technoscientific and ecological disruptions are challenging the ‘myth’ of human exceptionalism, forcing researchers to find new ways of understanding, and intervening in, a range of human/nonhuman encounters. From reconfigured definitions of ‘agency’ and the ‘social’ to renewed explorations of ‘co-presence’ and ‘mutual becoming,’ more-than-human approaches can exemplify Donna Haraway’s invitation to ‘stay with the trouble’ of human/nonhuman entanglements. But actually doing this research is hard. There is still a tendency, as David Abram puts it, to speak “about such entities only behind their backs,” instead of actively calling out and listening to them. And when we do succeed with that task, we still face the challenge of how to (re)tell these stories, or even trickier, how to ‘take action.’ This 3-part session provides a space for a collective, transdisciplinary effort to consider these methodological possibilities and limitations, and to share even our messiest experiments in creating and communicating knowledge necessary for thriving in more-than-human worlds.

Sub Unit

• Papers for Open Panels / Messing with Methods in More-than-Human Worlds

Chair

• Jaz Hee-jeong Choi

Individual Presentations

• More-than-human encounters with clothing: Experiments in sociological sewing - kat Jungnickel, Goldsmiths

• Food for thought: materialising the more-than-human in design pedagogy. - Danielle Wilde, University of Southern Denmark

• Rethinking using assemblages in more-than-human methods: Towards a decolonised toolkit? - Kim McLeod, University of Tasmania

• "Dammed Waters": On Multiple Ontologies, Materiality Of Infrastructure And Future Dams In South Africa - Thando Mcunu, University of Cape Town

Session Organizers

• Larissa Hjorth, RMIT

• Jaz Hee-jeong Choi

• kat Jungnickel, Goldsmiths

• Anne Galloway, Victoria University of Wellington