More-Than Critical Friendship: Exploring Relational Capacity Through Posthuman Self-Study

• In Event: Self-Study and the Exploration of Teacher Educator Identities, Practices, and Dispositions

Abstract

As a long-time self-study collective, we set out to examine the ways our practices and selves
were changing as our careers shifted, through a mash-up of posthuman theory, self-study and
cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) analytic methods. As we analyzed our data, we noticed
that at certain points, something was happening that exceeded critical friendship as it is defined
in the teacher education literature. We named these as instances of “more-than” critical
friendship. In this proposed paper, we aim to articulate a set of these moments to develop an
understanding of this relational phenomena, and how it affects our understandings and practices.

Authors

• Kathryn J. Strom, California State University - East Bay

• Charity M. Dacey, Felician University

• Linda Whalen Abrams, Knowles Teacher Initiative