(Re)Thinking and (Re)Imagining Social(ing) With a More-Than-Human Ontology Given the Limits of (Re)(Con)Straining Language

Abstract

The aim of this manuscript is to (re)think and (re)imagine social as we work with(in) a more-than-human ontology so something(s) different can be thought/done. Language is limiting, (re)(con)straining, and yet we are still bound to it especially in academic publishing. However, I hope to at least open the conversation about social in a move toward overturning the normalized ways we have conceptualized and used the term. I propose socialing, which animates the lively relations of human, nonhuman, and more-than-humans producing socials. The article ends by discussing how and why it matters that researchers (re)conceptualize the notion of social.

Keywords

posthuman social ethico-onto-epistemology theory literacy more-than-human ontology post qualitative inquiry

Elizabeth St. Pierre (2011)¹ in her handbook chapter on post qualitative research critiques conventional humanist qualitative methodology and shares insights and difficulties of the “coming after” (of qualitative research) for post-researchers. She writes,

The difficulty for the poststructural researcher lies in trying to function in the ruins of the structure after the theoretical move that authorizes its foundations has been interrogated and its limits breached so profoundly that its center no longer holds. (p. 613)

St. Pierre and other post qualitative inquiry scholars (Koro-Ljungberg & MacLure, 2013; Lather, 2015; Lather & St. Pierre, 2013; St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014; St. Pierre, Jackson, & Mazzei, 2016) are now wrestling with how to not work in the ruins of qualitative research (St. Pierre & Pillows, 1999) but rather how to refuse qualitative research methodologies as we know them—for us to read, read, read theories and philosophies—and begin inquiry, in the middle, with theoretical concepts (see Lenz Taguchi & St. Pierre, 2017; St. Pierre, 2015).

Two quotes from St. Pierre called me to question the word and definition of social, a term that inundates social science research and has become normalized. Quote one: St. Pierre (2011) reminds us “At the very moment, we are latched onto descriptions that are producing us and the world, descriptions that, over time, have become so transparent, natural, and real that we’ve forgotten they’re fictions. We accept them as truth” (p. 623). The words we use, their definitions, produce us, the world, policies, pedagogies, and practices of inquiry. We’ve used social for so long that perhaps we have forgotten we made it up. Quote two: “We must refuse order-words that enforce the present and, in this case, methodological order-words like method, systematicity, transparency, representation, validity, objectivity, and so on. These words force us into is” (St. Pierre, 2015, p. 85, emphasis in original). I add social to this list. Social is an order-word and perhaps it is time we refuse it or at least work at (re)imaging and (re)thinking what it means (and what it produces). How might a new conceptualization of social change inquiry practices? Or perhaps this word isn’t appropriate or needed anymore? Perhaps we need to invent a(nother) neologism to better help us communicate social within a post qualitative inquiry world. It seems neologisms are popping up a lot in post-scholarship such as Karen Barad’s (2007) term intra-activity in response to the human centered concept of interactions, Alexander and Wyatt’s (2016) term in(tra)fusions instead of humanist interviewing research practices, Murris’s (2016) writing of mindbodymatter as iii as a way to break away from the Cartesian “I” (grayed in original), and Reinertsen’s (2016) concept of intra-observation. I think many of these scholars are doing what St. Pierre (2011) invited us to do when she stated, “Derrida also explained that deconstruction [in this case of qualitative research practices] is more than working within and against a structure. It is also the overturning and displacement of a structure so that something(s) different can be thought/done” (p. 613). As we know, language is limiting, (re)(con)straining, and yet we are still bound to it especially in academic publishing. However, I am hoping to at least open the conversation on the concept of social in a move toward overturning the naturalized ways we have conceptualized and used the term (also see Kuby & Crawford, 2018).

Merriam-Webster’s dictionary defines social first as an adjective in these ways:

relating to or involving activities in which people spend time talking to each other or doing enjoyable things with each other

liking to be with and talk to people: happy to be with people

of or relating to people or society in general

Embedded, later in the definition is a more explicit focus on humans: “of or relating to human society, the interaction of the individual and the group, or the welfare of human beings as members of society.” And yet further down on the list is this definition that accounts for animals and plants: “tending to form cooperative and interdependent relationships with others, living and breeding in more or less organized communities (i.e., social insects), of a plant: tending to grow in groups or masses so as to form a pure stand” (all definitions from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social). However, the phrase interdependent relationships and cooperative signals a different ontology than Barad’s notion of intra-activity and other more-than-human ontology scholars who view humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans in mutually constitutive relationships of the world becoming. It is not simply about humans and other bodies cooperating with each other (or even separately with other like-organisms), but rather, that their entangled relationships produce the world. These more-than-human ontology scholars perhaps would also not label insects as “less organized communities” as this creates a hierarchical relationship between humans and nonhumans.

So how do we deconstruct, in a Derridian sense, social and think of something altogether different, from a more- than-human ontological perspective? I find inspiration in (re)thinking social from St. Pierre (2011) who critiques social science’s idea of culture as “a coherent set of people traveling together in space and time,” a definition that she states is unthinkable in post qualitative ways of inquiring (p. 619). I’m also inspired by Deleuze and Guattari who demonstrated how to question the notion of subjectivity as they put theoretical concepts to work with the idea of haecceity. “Haecceity . . . . a nonsubjective assemblage of humans, time, space, physical objects, and everything else” (St. Pierre, 2011, p. 618). St. Pierre takes up this idea of haecceity to think of subjectivity as a becoming—an entanglement.

These scholars as well as curriculum theorists inspire me to (re)think social specifically in educational spaces. As Snaza and colleagues (2014) write,

Consciously or not, we educators and educational researchers are used to looking at schools as places where humans dwell together to learn what it means to be human and to accumulate the kinds of skills and habits required to participate in human societies as adults. This occurs in spite of the fact that schools are connected with the nonhuman world in so many explicit and implicit ways . . . we are not the center of the universe. Indeed, we should not be the center of conversation. (pp. 39, 40)

For me, (re)thinking of social is an ethical response-ability, especially as an educator. Meaning, I align with Donna Haraway and Barad, who both write of our abilities to response (i.e., response-ability) in the entanglements we are a part of, to make agential cuts, which produce relations, realities, and ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing.² More-than-human ontologies are a (re)orientation to how I understand the world coming to be, and therefore, I have to (re)think pedagogies and relationships with/in theory and inquiry (see Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016 for discussion on the mutually constitutive relationships of theory←→methodology ←→pedagogy). Therefore, students and a teacher are very much a part of this article in addition to the other bodies (human, nonhuman, more-than-human, and discursive bodies³). However, drawing on Deleuze and Guattari and St. Pierre’s writings as discussed in the previous paragraphs, I think of subjectivity not as something a person possesses but as a relational production in-between humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans. I don’t seek to rid my inquiries of humans, but see them in relationship to/with other bodies especially in educational spaces.

In the same spirit, and inspired by Dolphijn and van der Tuin’s (2012) writing on more-than-human ontologies discussed in new materialism scholarship, I don’t see more- than-human ontologies as the next best thing in academia, but rather an ethical response-ability:

The “new” in new materialism is not a term that accepts or continues a classificatory historiography of (academic) thinking that necessarily comes with a hierarchy or a kind of a priori logic. New materialism affirms that such hierarchized specializations creates “minds in a groove” whereas “there is no groove of abstractions which is adequate for the comprehension of human life” . . . New materialism does not intend to add yet another specialized epistemology to the tree of academic knowledge production . . . New materialism says “yes, and” to all of these intellectual traditions, traversing them all, creating strings of thought that, in turn, create a remarkably powerful and fresh “rhythm” in academia today. (p. 89, emphasis in original)

A fresh rhythm. No grooves of abstraction. More than human ontologies is not a new fad but rather a philosophical orientation (which one might argue has actually been around for a long time) in understanding how the world comes to be, an ethical move. More-than-human ontology scholarship has inspired me to read theoretical concepts with/through/against taken-for-granted concepts, in this case, social to see what newness might be produced. Similarly to the scholars described earlier who deconstructed culture and subjectivity, the aim of this manuscript is to (re)think and (re)imagine social as we work with(in) a more-than-human ontology so something(s) different can be thought/done.

More-Than-Human Ontologies

The dominant focus of much social science scholarship is on issues of epistemology, how we come to know, in my case, educational research, which looks specifically at teaching and learning from a logical empiricist viewpoint. However, there is an ontological movement happening around metaphysics, which focuses on reality(ies). Particularly there is a movement to put to work (as inquiry) theories and philosophies that focus on more-than-human ontologies (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012; St. Pierre, 2011, 2013; Snaza & Weaver, 2014; Taylor & Hughes, 2016). An umbrella term for more-than-human ontology approaches is posthumanism, which refuses to take the distinction between human, nonhuman, and more-than-human for granted. The “post” in posthumanism for most scholars is not to signal “after the human” or “anti-human,” but as a way to (re)think the human in relationships with nonhumans and more-than-humans and to build upon and move beyond anthropo- (human centered) and logocentric (language centered) ways of be(com)ing, doing, and knowing (Bennett, 2016; Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010).

This posthumanist movement is referred to by several names, each with distinct yet overlapping features and histories, such as feminist materialism (Alaimo & Hekman, 2008; Barad, 2007, 2008), new materialism (Braidotti, 2013; Coole & Frost, 2010), neo-pragmatism (Rosiek, 2015), political ecology (Bennett, 2010), and while not a new movement, Indigenous ways of knowing and being (Tuck, 2015; Wall Kimmerer, 2013; this is not an exhaustive list, see Taylor, 2016 for a longer list). Some scholars are even re-entering Deleuze and Guattari’s writings, which might be labeled as poststructural, in posthumanist ways (Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016; Leander & Boldt, 2013) although others see this move as incompatible (Hein, 2016). In the field of education, researchers of mathematics (De Freitas & Sinclair, 2014) and most prominently early childhood education (Davies, 2014; Holmes & Jones, 2016; Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010; Lenz Taguchi, 2010; Murris, 2016; Pacini-Ketchabaw, Taylor, & Blaise, 2016; Sellers, 2013; Somerville & Green, 2015; Thiel, 2015a, 2015b) are at the forefront of this more-than-human ontology movement in education.

These education scholars are thinking about how humans and nonhumans (such as time, space, materials, animals, plants, the environment) all intra-act or are entangled together in producing realities, knowledges, and relationships. It is within this movement that I situate my inquiry. This manuscript comes from a larger inquiry project working with a second-grade teacher, Tara Gutshall Rucker, in what she calls Writers’ Studio (see Kuby, Gutshall, & Kirchhofer, 2015; Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2015; Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016). Writers’ Studio is a space within her curriculum where students are be(com)ing writers with a range of art and digital tools to create multimodal literacies (and new realities, ways of being writers, knowing). Since 2010, we have co-researched together, putting to work eight poststructural and posthumanist concepts as methodology and pedagogy in her classroom (see Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016 for extensive discussion of the eight concepts). We⁴ initially thought that theory and methodology would have a mutually constitutive relationship (hence a double arrow, theory←→methodology) as Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012) book on “thinking with theory” inspired us. However, through our inquiry we realized theory←→methodology←→pedagogy are all mutually constitute of each other (see Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016). This reminds us of what Barad (2007) and Lenz Taguchi (2010) write of in relation to an ethico-onto-epistemology or Lenz Taguchi’s writing on intra-active pedagogy. We come to know (epistemology) through intra-dependent relationships (axiology) with the world and within material-discursive embodied realities (ontology). Therefore, it should not be surprising that as we read theories and put them to work with data, that differences were produced in Tara’s teaching practices (i.e., her talk to students or even what she didn’t say, her pedagogical beliefs, the materials available to students in her classroom, how she conceptualized time during the day, her relationship to school policies, and so forth). Hence, our approach to posthumanist thinking is rooted in the curriculum and pedagogy of humans within and a part of a more-than-human world. Our aim is to not rid the human from our inquiries (“post” as in after the human), but rather inspired by Haraway’s (2016) call to use words that begin with “re” rather than “post” (see chapter 6, p. 212, endnote #2), we want to (re)consider and (re)think the human within a posthumanist orientation to curriculum and pedagogy, specifically, in literacy education.

In our field, literacy is studied from an epistemological perspective that focuses on knowledge production and does not explicitly account for the ways of being (realities, ontologies) and doing (relationships, axiologies). Therefore, we conceptualized literacy desiring, building on Deleuzian notions of desire, as an effort to stretch and push the literacy education field in thinking of more-than-human ontologies and new ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing literacies. As we (Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2015) wrote,

The literacy desiring we conceptualize is about the present processes of producing—a force, a becoming, a coming together of flows and intensities. Instead of focusing on what desiring means we asked what was being produced or what was becoming as children were in the process of creating. Our intent with literacy desiring is to focus on the intra-actions of people and materials, movements, and surprises while creating, not necessarily a future, end product. (p. 315)

Putting this poststructural and posthumanist inspired way of thinking about literacy helped us to (re)imagine and (re)think social specifically in literacy teaching and learning. Several years of thinking together generated publications on (re)thinking what counts as writing and literacy in Tara’s Writers’ Studio (see Kuby & Fontanella-Nothom, 2018; Zapata, Kuby, & Thiel, 2018). Meaning, post-theories caused us to (re)consider what is writing and literacy when thinking-with post-concepts. For example, what differences emerge, what new literacies are produced, and what be(com)ing relations of new literacies do. However, our conversations shifted, or moved beyond (re)thinking literacy to (re)thinking social. Hence the focus of this manuscript.

An ethico-onto-epistemological stance claims that theory and practice are not separate or binaries but are mutually constituted. So therefore, in this article, I use one literacy desiring (i.e., silent puppet show) as an example from teaching/learning/inquiring to illustrate how some of Barad’s theoretical concepts shifted how we understand, conceptualize, and theorize social in social science research. Below, I share what we termed the silent puppet show—a group of second-grade girls, stuffed animals, wooden stools, construction paper, paper puppets, dry-erase whiteboards, a cloth globe, time, spaces (physical and curricular), peers, Tara, myself, plus discourses on school ways of doing literacy and the politics of schooling—producing new socials, new ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing literacy(ies) through the processes and production of a puppet show. We name this literacy desiring the “silent puppet show” as there was very little talking in it yet social(s) were being produced. Our conceptualization of social focuses on what could be, rather than what is—in our case, what literacies and ways of being a writer could be in school, the making and unmaking of differences. This is intimately tied to ethics; an ethics of Tara (and myself) be(com)ing-with⁵ students, materials, discourses, curriculum expectations (and so forth) and our response-abilities (or abilities to respond) in each moment. Through this example, I aim to show how thinking with more-than-human ontologies demands a shift in how researchers conceptualize social and propose the concept of socialing.⁶ St. Pierre (2008) invites scholars to consider how we can both—produce different knowledge and produce knowledge differently—when we embrace ethico-onto-epistemological ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing. I invite readers to imagine what/how socialing might be otherwise in their inquiries.

Thinking With Theories: Posthumanist Concepts as/for Inquiry

My research with Tara rests on the assumption that theory is method or concept as method (Lenz Taguchi & St. Pierre, 2017; St. Pierre, 2014). Jackson and Mazzei (2012) describe this process as thinking with theory and argue for research to be a process of plugging in data and theory together. As stated before, in the larger study, we put to work data produced from Room 203, Tara’s classroom, with poststructural and posthumanist concepts. This body of scholarship—thinking with theory—is situated in a growing body of qualitative inquiry called “post qualitative inquiry,” which problematizes the taken-for-granted norms and ways of doing qualitative research (St. Pierre, 2011). The “post” here refers to both a usage of post-foundational theories (i.e., poststructural, posthumanist, postmodern) and a chronological marker of qualitative research after what St. Pierre calls “conventional humanist qualitative methodology.” As discussed earlier, this movement focuses on ontologies, ways of being, realities, not simply epistemology.

Posthumanist theories think of humans in relation to a more-than-human world. In other words, a posthumanist perspective refuses to take the distinction between human and nonhuman for granted (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010). Barad (2007), a feminist-physicist-philosopher states, “by posthumanist I mean to signal the crucial recognition that nonhumans play an important role in naturalcultural practices, including everyday social practices, scientific practices, and practices that do not include humans” (p. 32). As part of shifting the anthropocentric gaze, posthumanist scholarship also aims to shift from logocentric (language centered) ways of knowing and being (Barad, 2008). Dominant perspectives of socially constructed notions of teaching and learning involve humans (i.e., language); however, nonhuman and more-than-human bodies and forces are involved in producing literacy(ies) but have not been privileged in research and/or pedagogy. What would it mean (and what would it produce) for researchers to consider both human (language and bodies) and nonhuman (materials, time, space, plants, animals, technologies, discourses) as mutually constitutive agents in teaching and learning (in producing social[s])?

For the purpose of this manuscript, I focus on a few posthumanist concepts, inspired by Barad’s (2003, 2007, 2013) scholarship:

enacted agency, a view of agency as a force emerging between bodies—human, nonhuman, more-than-human, discursive—not residing solely in individuals

intra-activity, is the ontological inseparability of enacted agencies; humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans, discourses, and so forth intra-act together in producing knowing/being

entanglement, the wholeness produced when parts are together creating newness (the physical proximity of parts isn’t necessary for an entanglement to occur); the wholeness is not identifiable by the parts or individual components, but as a new whole

material-discursive, the material (all bodies) and the discursive (that which limits and enables language) are mutually implicated in intra-activity

agential cut, in contrast to the Cartesian cut of subject and object, agential cuts are relata-within-phenomena, which emerge through specific intra-actions

Drawing on Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012) notion of analytical questions, for this manuscript, I took each of these concepts and created analytical questions while working with data. Analytical questions emerged in the process of analysis (i.e., thinking with theories) not before working/thinking with data. For example, I wondered with theory/data:

How is enacted agency between humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans producing new ways of conceptualizing social?

How are entanglements (within the silent puppet show) working to create new relationships? New literacies?

How are agential cuts made by/between students, Tara, nonhuman bodies, and discourses creating new socials?

How do the intra-actions of the silent puppet show shift our understandings of social?

How does a focus on what could be (rather than what is) help us to (re)imagine social?

How does a focus on the processes that form the forces of entanglements help us to (re)imagine social?

How are socials made and unmade through intra-actions?

I aim to not only think with theories but also write with theories. Posthumanist concepts change the way Tara and I produce data, write field notes, produce transcripts, and (re)present research on paper (see Kuby, 2017a). Given the limits of language, I experiment, in a Deleuzian sense, with bold words (to illuminate theory/data as mutually constituted), various fonts, hyphens, slashes, clock icons (1 clock = 1 second), and margins in an attempt for readers to experience the posthumanist concepts I am thinking and writing with in this piece and the rhizomatic, intra-actions of Room 203. Hyphens and slashes that join more than one word are theoretically intentional to show an entanglement or togetherness of concepts and/or bodies. For example, the phrase “children working-with puppets” demonstrates that the whole of puppeting cannot be separated as children and puppet, but rather a relational, material-discursive coming to be, a wholeness. This type of play-full writing is inspired from Deleuze and Guattari’s (1987) writing as well as educators such as Sellers (2013) who experiment with language and formats of writing.

Below, I use three different fonts to illustrate the following: talk and human actions; materials, time, and space; and what was produced or entangled in the intra-action (i.e., thinking with theories). However, I recognize that by attempting to (re)present intra-actions with these fonts that decisions (agential cuts as Barad discusses) were made—such as deciding if an intra-action should use a font for “human” or “nonhuman”—which matter in producing how one experiences the (re)presentation. Alphabetic writing is restrictive and linear even with attempts to (re)present the silent puppet show in a more posthumanist “transcript” (hence, (re)(con)straining language). Given the (re)(con)straints, I found this way of (re)presenting more helpful in (attempting to) (re)experiencing the intra-actions compared to conventional humanist transcripts. My hope is the (re)presentations feel messy, uncertain, and intra-active, without one “right” way to read/experience it. The “transcript” below isn’t the representation but a (incomplete, always partial) (re)presentation.

To harken back to a point made at the beginning of the article, our work is situated in schools, inspired by curriculum and child studies scholars (e.g., Blaise, Hamm, & Iorio, 2017; Lenz Taguchi, 2010; Pacini-Ketchabaw, Kind, & Kocher, 2016; Snaza et al., 2014), who call us to think about teaching and learning in a more than human world(s). Snaza, Sonu, Truman, and Zaliwska (2016) write that educational spaces are “thrown togetherness, a mess of relations, pedagogical encounters full of angles [which] (does not mean that all relations exert influence equally)” (p. xxiii). In other words, different relations within the silent puppet show exert different forces at different times/spaces. At moments, I foreground the togetherness of Tara and/or students and at times foreground other material-discursive bodies. The purpose is to show the fluid, relational coming to be of (a more than human) social within the silent puppet show. As the researcher and writer of this piece, I made cuts, agential cuts. For example, as I chose words and placements of those words on paper. My hope is that the literacy desiring and thinking-with theoretical concepts discussed will help us to (re)conceptualize a philosophical orientation to/of social, educational spaces with/in humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans.

Producing Social(s) in Writers’ Studio: Puppeting as an Example of Socialing

In March, Elza, Hailey, Bethany, and Raisa (all student names pseudonyms) asked Tara if they could perform a puppet show. The was the first time a group of children in this class wrote a puppet show, practiced, and asked to perform. The example shared below happened as their second-grade peers (7-to-8-year-olds) stood around their desks waiting patiently as Elza turns to Hailey, Bethany, and Raisa who are crouched behind a row of stools positioned as a puppet show booth. Tara says, “This group has been working on a puppet show and Elza is going to give you directions on what to do.” Elza informs the class that when they come to the floor area in front of the puppet booth, that two people should choose one stuffed animal to share, which are in a pile on the floor. The two people with the stuffed animal should sit next to each other in rows. Once everyone is seated they will start taking tickets. Tara asks for clarification, “So you are partnered up and one of the partners has a stuffed animal?” The four girls, all standing now answer, “No, you share the stuffed animals.” They explain that it is like buddy reading time when you share a book; here you share a stuffed animal. A student asks Elza and the girls if they get to choose their partners or if they will be assigned. Elza responds that they get to choose. The room becomes abuzz with students picking partners and stuffed animals and finding spots on the floor.

Stuffed animals—in students’ hands—jostle up and down.

Excitement. Noise. Activity.

Material-discursive relations produce newness: Children, Tara, stuffed animals, tickets, and discourses on puppet shows and literacy in school.

Elza and Bethany talk with Bianca.

Hands-stack-of-paper-from-floor-by-easel.

Elza facing Tara but loud enough for the entire class to hear states:

Bethany is going to give out comment papers.

A mess of papers. Hailey-works-with-papers (and papers-work-with-Hailey) to straighten them.

Bethany looks at Tara who is conversing with Elza.

Bethany, squats down under the easel and

retrieves a stack of 20 or more pencils.

Uncertainty?

Tara perhaps wasn’t aware

of the plan to hand out comment papers.

Bethany picking up pencils and passing out comment papers, an agential cut, produced an unexpected moment for Tara, however, she didn’t say anything but waited to see what was unfolding.

Hailey with a stack of papers held high in each hand

yells above the movement and noise:

We’re going to pass out a comment sheet!

Stuffed animals-peers’ bodies-hugs-laughter-finding seats on floor.

Bethany now standing towards her peers:

We are going to pass out a comment sheet so

if you want to write a comment to us you can.

Be(com)ing teacher, doing school.

Discourses of how to be a teacher in schools intra-act with the girls,

comment sheets, pencils, and other bodies.

Papers/Hands move from Hailey/Comment Papers to peers.

Pencils/Hands move from Bethany/Pencils to peers.

Elza jumps up and down and motions for

Raisa to sit down behind the puppet booth.

Questions. A comment?

Some peers unsure.

Lexie: What are we going to write on?

Hailey and Bethany: You can write comments about our play.

Lexie: I know but what, how, our pencils will poke through?

Unexpected. Not planned for.

Pencils and papers were prepared ahead of time but

not a hard surface for peers to

write on during the puppet show.

The materiality of writing: The future task of writing a

comment and needing a hard surface

(experiences from the past) is a part of the present. Spacetimemattering.

A (new social) moment of experiences, memories, papers,

pencils, lack of hard surface, teacherly directions,

and yet-to-come responses to puppet show.

Hailey/Hands passing out papers says:

We’ll give you [small dry erase] whiteboards.

Bethany/Hands passing out pencils says:

Elza will give you whiteboards.

Elza goes to the tub of whiteboards and begins to pass them out.

Bodies: students-whiteboards-pencils-papers-talk-movement-excitement.

Tara sits to the side, she

still hasn’t said anything to organize,

direct the movement in the classroom.

Elza: Does everybody have a whiteboard?

Several students yell out: NO! We don’t.

Hailey: Did everyone get a paper?

Bethany: Did anyone not get a pencil?

Raisa from behind the puppet booth waves

her hands to Bethany and Hailey to indicate who still needs supplies.

Bodies of three girls circle their

peers-paper-pencils-whiteboards-and move from body to body.

When Bethany realizes she has passed a pencil out

to everyone she does a little jig of excitement.

Elza walks to the front of the room after passing

out all the whiteboards and looks to Tara.

Material-discursive: Expectations after giving directions and being teacher do not match the position of bodies in front of Elza. She had hoped for particular ways that stuffed animals/peers would be configured on the carpet.

Elza talks using her hands to signal directions of bodies:

Kind of what we meant is like everybody gets in a

line in front of the chair (chair is position front center,

facing the class as the ticket booth).

Elza responds by issuing more directions to clarify,

this insistence by Elza is rejected by her peers

who seem to just want to get on with the puppet show.

Agential cuts enable and restrain

(make and unmake socials) at the same time.

Bethany and Hailey: It’s OK, it doesn’t matter.

Change of plans.

New direction.

The material-discursive entanglements produce an (unexpected) social.

A difference in what could (is) be(ing).

All papers, pencils, and whiteboards are passed out.

Bethany: OK, if you want you can leave your things

right where you are and then line up so you can . . .

Hailey: . . . give Elza your tickets.

Elza crouches down behind the chair.

Elza’s hands-poke-through-chair-becomes-a ticket booth.

Bethany: OK, just line up and give us your tickets.

Noise. Excitement from peers.

Material-discursive:

Movement of bodies (both physical and discursive

ideas of what a puppet show is) coming to turn

in the puppet show tickets that

Hailey, Elza, Bethany, and Raisa

made and distributed earlier.

A “quantumness” in the entanglement, experiences beyond this classroom, peers knew how to turn in tickets

and “the way” to attend a puppet show.

Tara: Elza and Bethany you have

about seven minutes for the entire show.

Material-discursive: Tara realizes how time,

pressures to move on to the next item in the day’s plan,

intra-act with the unexpected moments unfolding

between/among students and the stuff animal buddies,

comment sheets, pencils, and tickets.

Social(s) continue to be produced.

Time: Restricts.

Bethany pauses, her face shows

the realization that time is running out.

Time intra-acts with Bethany (and her expectations

for this puppet show) and seems to produce a sadness.

Bethany: Yeah, yeah, I know.

Time intra-acts with Hailey.

Hailey’s body deflates a little, thinking about the restrictions of time.

Spacetimemattering: Time—past, present, and future—are

all intra-acting together.

The girls are thinking of the past and all the rehearsals.

In the moment, things are taking longer and they had to adjust to unexpected questions from peers.

And they are thinking of seven minutes,

will they have time for the puppet show

and to receive comments from peers?

Classroom phone rings.

Additional noise.

Tara gets up to answer the phone.

Students continue to give tickets to the girls at the ticket booth/chair.

Elza, Bethany, Hailey, and Raisa crouch behind the stools/puppet booth.

In these intra-actions of bodies (whiteboard, pencils, papers, people, stuffed animals, spaces on the floor to sit, chair as ticket booth as well as discourses on being teacher, attending puppet shows, and doing literacy in school) all produced a new reality in Room 203—a new social—a new way of knowing/be(com)ing/doing literacy. These more-than-human moments signaled to peers that a puppet show was under way and produced Room 203 as a theater. A puppet show could have taken place even if the teacher simply asked students to sit down and watch, but by Tara remaining quiet for the most part, students/peers/materials/time/space/discourses entangled together to produce understandings and ways of being in the room for this emerging puppet show. The processes, the forces of a social(s). Unexpected moments when humans and nonhumans intra-acted (e.g., Lexie’s question) created spaces for the girls to rethink their vision or plan such as needing whiteboards as a hard surface to write comments on about the puppet show.

The girls used stools with whiteboards propped up to hide behind (Figure 1). A blue spiral paper chain (perhaps the sky) hung between a bookcase and an easel above the constructed puppeteer booth. On top of the stools were pieces of green construction paper, a tree standing vertically that the girls had constructed out of brown and green paper. All of these art materials, furniture, and stuffed animal puppets were materials the children had practiced with before the day of the performance (which produced socials then). However, it was only in the material-discursive entanglements of the moment of the puppet show performance that these (the ones described earlier) (new) social(s) were produced. In each intra-action of bodies, discourses (human and nonhuman) socials were made (and unmade), and (all) bodies responded to each other (agential cuts) in various ways, sometimes unexpected, which enabled and constrained ways of doing/be(com)ing puppet show together.

Figure 1.

Silent puppet show puppeteer booth.

Elza stands up with a cloth globe in her hands. The other three girls are hidden between the stools/puppet booth. Students are seated in partnerships on the floor, playing with stuffed animals, but ready for the puppet show to begin.

Elza: Please be quiet. Don’t play with your stuffed animals. Don’t fight.

Student voices: SSSHHH!

Elza: OK, here is Africa (pointing on a globe) where giraffes and most of the other characters in our scene live. We are just going to get started.

Bethany: We really hope you like our play.

Elza/hands motions for the three girls to stand up.

Elza: In our scene it is me (pointing to herself), Elza, Bethany, Hailey, and Raisa.

The girls settle in behind the stools/puppet booth

and put puppets on their hands.

Girls be(com)e puppets:

Elza becomes Gray Mouse

Hailey becomes Brown Monkey

Bethany becomes Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse Mouse

Hailey becomes Black and White Cow

Bethany becomes Tan Lion

Raisa becomes Green and Orange Butterfly

Elza becomes Stuffed Animal Giraffe

Gray Mouse scurries across the green grass.

Brown Monkey is lying face down on the grass by the tree (perhaps eating the grass).

Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse Mouse stands up moving her feet.

The girls look down, turn script papers over on the floor,

and Hailey takes Brown Monkey puppet off

and exchanges it for a Black and White Cow

with a red collar and cow bell.

Black and White Cow bounces up and down on the

green grass (perhaps eating the grass) and

Gray Mouse and Lily Mouse bounce up and down.

Elza still with Gray Mouse on her fingers turns to the audience and says:

And you can start writing comments along the way.

Perhaps the lack of writing by peers or the desire

to have many comment cards prompted Elza

to remind peers to write notes

as the puppet show was unfolding.

Or perhaps experiences or memories outside

of the classroom entangled with Elza’s

expectations of how the comment cards

should be functioning in this moment.

Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse Mouse keeps moving around.

On Bethany’s other hand/Tan Lion enters, roaring, bounces up and down.

Hailey exchanges Black and White Cow for

Brown Monkey—once again lying face down

on the grass by the tree.

Green and Orange Butterfly fly over the animals, flapping wings.

Brown Monkey exits the scene.

Gray Mouse exits the scene.

Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse Mouse and Tan Lion are left on the grass with Green and Orange Butterfly flying overhead.

The students are quiet, attentively watching.

What is this producing?

Can the students follow the story line?

What is the story line?

Tara is quiet, attentively watching.

What is this producing for Tara?

Is this what she anticipated?

Socials are be(com)ing in the material-discursive intra-actions.

Socialing.

Stuffed Animal Giraffe enters the scene.

Green and Orange Butterfly flies overhead.

Lily’s Purple Plastic Purse Mouse and Tan Lion exit the scene.

Stuffed Animal Giraffe stands tall reaching up to the Green and Orange Butterfly.

Green and Orange Butterfly exits the scene.

Stuffed Animal Giraffe’s mouth taps the tree and taps the grass (perhaps eating them?).

Stuffed Animal Giraffe exits the scene.

The four girls whisper behind the stools/puppet booth.

Students and the Tara are still quiet.

Is the puppet show over?

Unsure.

New socials, new relationships, new experiences.

Hailey stands up, but Elza motions for her to sit back down.

Girls put puppets on their hands again.

Some audience members/students begin to write on their paper/whiteboards.

Other students are still sitting quietly, watching.

Elza/Gray Mouse, Hailey/Brown Monkey, Bethany/Tan Lion, Bethany/Lily Mouse, and Raisa/Green and Orange Butterfly stand on or hover over the green grass and say loudly: Aaaawwwwhhh!

Elza: ’Cause they had eaten all the grass. The giraffe.

Girls pull the puppets off their hands.

Bethany starts to clap.

Elza grabs a white sheet of paper off the

easel with words written in pencil on it.

Elza shows the words on the paper to the class.

Hailey standing up says: Go ahead, say it!

The students and Tara say: Yea!!!

Elza/Paper with shouts of “Yea” produce closure.

Produces approval.

Finality.

The puppet show is over.

New relations of girls-puppets-furniture-comment cards-peers produce new socials (and new literacies).

Elza: OK, if you liked our scene . . . if you didn’t write a comment . . .

Bethany: That is OK.

Elza: If you are still writing one, that is OK. Just drop them off here (pointing to the floor in front of her) when you are done.

Peers, heads down, are writing on their papers/whiteboards.

The four girls are standing, moving out from behind the stools/puppet booth.

Teacherly discourses of giving directions.

Bethany: I’ll collect your comments.

Hailey: And, I will help.

Hailey and Elza walk in between the rows of students,

looking down at what they are writing.

Bethany stands in front waiting for someone to bring her a paper.

Raisa fixes the scenery that was jostled when the girls stood up.

Hailey decides to collect the pencils.

Bethany states she’ll collect the comment sheets with Elza.

The girls instruct their peers to hold up their papers when done.

Hailey gives Raisa a plastic tub to collect the white boards.

Movement.

Noise.

Student and stuff animals come into being together through play.

Phenomena emerge to produce difference (socials).

Raisa is still collecting whiteboards.

Bethany, Hailey, and Elza stand in a line in front of their peers with the collected pencils and comment papers in hand.

Elza: OK, that’s it.

Bethany starts to talk but there is too much noise.

Elza is reading comments on the papers.

Hailey: Can you guys pay attention?

Bethany: Are there any questions about our play?

Hailey: Questions?

Elza’s eager interest to find out what peers’

wrote on comment cards entangle with

Hailey and Bethany’s desire to hear feedback.

Teacherly ways of being/doing school.

Asking for feedback after sharing was a practice

that happened often in Room 203.

Tara: Hold on.

I know some people wrote them on the papers.

I wonder if you can take some time to review

the comments as a group and then if you have questions

or you want to ask for comments to do that.

Does that make sense?

Agential cut: Perhaps nervous or afraid of what

peers might write on cards, Tara wants time

for the puppet group

to review comments first, then respond.

Elza nods her head yes and puts the

comment sheets down on the chair/ticket booth.

This mostly silent, short puppet show could be labeled as a flop, unsuccessful, and perhaps a waste of time as we (and the students in the audience) weren’t sure what had happened. We couldn’t hear a story line and didn’t understand what the purpose was of the moving puppets/girls’ hands. As researchers, we might not have chosen to inquire into/with these data as one might label it unsuccessful. However, we believe this skit produced newness—new social(s)—in the class. It opened up space to consider what could be, in this case literacies, in Room 203. The material-discursive intra-actions, what was physically evident in Room 203 and aspects we couldn’t see or know but still were a part of the silent puppet show coming to be, were productive, even if we couldn’t “see” it at first. We also believe the silent puppet show is an example of how social, within a more-than-human ontology stance, is (re)thought as humans and nonhumans coming into being together or producing new relationships and territories of being. The phenomenon of the silent puppet show did not pre-exist the relations of it coming to be. The nonhuman parts—puppets, stools/booth, time, small space behind puppet booth and discourses on attending puppet shows, being a teacher—all entangled with the humans to produce the puppet show. Socialing.

The nonhuman bodies, the animacy and agency of them with people, were just as important (if not more) as the humans in creating newness. A posthumanist notion of agency is about the in-between-ness or togetherness of humans and nonhumans (see Kuby, Gutshall Rucker, & Darolia, 2017; Barad, 2007), agency doesn’t reside on a human nor a nonhuman but is produced as the relations come into being. The togetherness, the wholeness that was the puppet show was fundamentally different in nature than the pieces (i.e., each student, stuffed animals, Tara, paper, pencils, and so forth). This speaks to the wholeness of entanglements—what seemed physically present (materials, people) but also bodies (that do) not (seem) physically present and discourses, which (re)constrain what is and isn’t possible in the moment. Or said another way, socials get made/unmade and produce difference through material-discursive relations. All of these pieces, close in physical proximity and not, make the whole and aren’t recognizable as separate entities, but a part of whole (the entanglement).

While we (Candace and Tara) weren’t sure how to respond in the moment (we were literally speechless), Tara did ask the class to give a “thank you clap” to the girls for performing a puppet show, which sent a message that puppet shows are acceptable ways of being a writer and sharing in Writers’ Studio. This agential cut, her ability to respond in the moment, was an ethical move perhaps in hopes of acknowledging the new socials produced, and even though unsure of what just happened, welcomed a new social and ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing literacies. It also demonstrated that it was okay for literacy projects to flop so to speak, as these girls and other students continued to try-out plays and puppet shows and used each other’s shows as mentor texts. Over time, puppet shows became more sophisticated, and the actors became more aware of audience.

This literacy desiring, a silent skit of humans and nonhumans, was agentic in the new socials it produced. New territories of literacies came to be. In other words, these new relations created a space for other students/materials to create puppet shows in Room 203. New socials were produced (and not just on this day but on days to come) from this 20-minutes of Writers’ Studio. However, we wondered did the girls assume the materials (e.g., puppet booth, stuffed animals) would work-with their audience in the same way the materials worked-with them when they practiced? The girls didn’t seem to think they weren’t prepared and well-rehearsed for the performance. However, the show didn’t seem to go as they planned. A new social was created (perhaps unexpected to the girls), when all the parts (human and nonhuman material-discursive bodies) came together in this moment. Socialing.

While the (human) audience might be considered unimportant to this inquiry, we found the silence of the audience an integral piece of this whole. If the peers were whispering, not paying attention, or making statements that they couldn’t follow the storyline, it would have produced a different social. Perhaps the girls/puppets would not have felt as confident and successful. Perhaps they would not have finished the puppet show. Also, students dutifully wrote comments on the paper when instructed instead of not writing responses. So, the silence, the respectfulness (and/or confusion), the writing of comments, was integral in the social(s) that was being produced between all the bodies.

Moments such as the silent puppet show demonstrated to us that students thought beyond a passive audience, as traditionally described in writing pedagogy literature (i.e., reading a text aloud to peers for compliments, suggestions, and questions). Instead, these girls created in order for people to become-with their artifacts (e.g., puppet show tickets, comment sheets) and to experience (for pleasure) the production (of a new social). They had spent days creating/planning a puppet show for others to experience—or better said to intra-actively become-with their puppet show (to become a part of the material-discursive becoming of the puppet show). Even for the puppet show’s audience members, the girls desired to have feedback from peers and over time used these responses to enhance other shows. So, while in the moment we (Candace and Tara) weren’t sure of the purpose, if there was one, or what the girls/materials had hoped to accomplish with this puppet show, it was only over time through thinking with theoretical concepts that we came to see the importance of this puppet show. The puppet show was important as a springboard for others to consider playwriting as a valued literacy in Writers’ Studio and it demonstrated that Room 203 was a space to take risks publically. The processes and relationships of this puppet show produced new socials for Room 203 and new ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing literacies. Social was not (solely) about humans interacting with each other but rather the human and nonhuman entanglements.

We also learned, it was pivotal for us to embrace the unexpected moments. Tara could have not given the children time in class to perform the show and insist that it had to be polished and match her adult ways of understanding puppet shows. In other words, assume the performance should mimic or replicate the rehearsals or assume that the more you practice the more you can control the performance. This stance doesn’t align with Barad’s notion of performativity, that phenomena do not pre-exist relations. No matter how much children/materials practiced (and not to say they shouldn’t), we can’t predict or control what will happen in the (new) material-discursive relationships of the puppet show. Tara knew that new ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing (socials) would happen in the processes, not necessary as an end product. She also knew that learning wasn’t going to just happen for the girls in the puppet show, but all students would learn about literacy(ies) in the new socials (realities) produced (these were ethical response-abilities of/by Tara). Social, not solely humans doing something to nonhumans (collaborative, mediated), but rather a philosophical shift in how we conceptualize social. Social not as an intentional move or collaboration, a pre-determined future directed by humans, but an unfolding of (newness, difference) all (material-discursive) bodies in the moment. Students were intentional (and so was Tara in asking them to do so) to practice, gather materials, and orchestrate this literacy “lesson.” However, it wasn’t until the silent puppet show skit came into being, the process of lively relations—the whole entanglement—that the social(s) of the silent puppet show was produced. Socialing.

(Re)Imagining and (Re)Thinking Social From a More-Than-Human Ontology Stance

“Doing posthumanist research in education is a challenge . . . Posthumanist research practices in education engage a radical critique of some of the fundamental assumptions underpinning these dominant ways of doing educational research” (Taylor, 2016, p. 5). This is exactly what we felt as we tried to read, read, read and engage in putting to work posthumanist ideas in research. It is hard. Especially when engaging in educational spaces, such as classrooms, that appear to be (for too long) human focused. And, especially when trying to radically question, or put under erasure in a Derridian sense, something so fundamental as humanist notions of social and think of something altogether different. While in no way do we believe we’ve figured this all out, this manuscript is an attempt to open (and add to) conversations that pause our thinking and call into question our fundamental understandings in social science research—the concept of social.

First, as social science research has taken a material turn, it is critical that we consider how post-concepts from more-than-human ontologies alter the way we conceptualize social. (Re)conceptualizing social is significant because it produces “a shock to thought” as Massumi (2002) writes, in how we think about social coming to be. This more than human social is not about humans collaborating with or mediating other bodies. Collaborative or mediated perspectives are predicated on a Cartesian divide of subject/object. Instead, Barad invites us to consider an ethico-onto-epistemological stance that bodies do not pre-exist but rather come into being through/in relationships. Socialing.

Second, a recasting of ontology, epistemology, and axiology requires a shift to focus on the grammars of animacy (Wall Kimmerer, 2013) and/or agential realist grammars (Barad, 2007; Lenz Taguchi, 2010) of humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans, and therefore consider how we might need to change definitions of key concepts in our fields. For example, Wall Kimmerer (2013), a botanist and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, discusses the grammar of animacy when thinking about language and grammar—how scientists label and put to work language in comparison to how the language of Potawatomi discusses plants, animals, and humans. She writes,

A bay is a noun only if water is dead. When bay is a noun, it is defined by humans, trapped between its shores and contained by the word. But the verb wiikwegamaa—to be a bay—releases the water from bondage and lets it live. (p. 55, emphasis in original)

The language we use and/or assign to intra-actions in the world (bay water and the lively mattering in/around/through it) produces how we think about and know the bay (i.e., our relations with the bay). The way we define “social” in science social research produces how we think/know/do social science research. Wall Kimmerer goes on to explain a point that relates to our work as “social” science researchers,

Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion—until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple an object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into “natural resources.” If a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice . . . A language teacher I know explained that grammar is just the way we chart relationships in language. Maybe it also reflects our relationships with each other. Maybe a grammar of animacy could lead us to whole new ways of living in the world, other species a sovereign people, a world with a democracy of species, not a tyranny of one—with moral responsibility to water and wolves, and with a legal system that recognizes the standing of other species. It’s all in the pronouns. (pp. 57 & 58, emphasis in original)

The words and grammars we use matter in producing how we conceptualize social science research. What barriers have we created as researchers through words and grammars? What is our ethical response-ability in changing these barriers which could lead us to whole new ways of be(com)ing/doing/knowing (and the world we are entangled with producing as we research)? As adults—as “social science researchers”—perhaps we can learn from the Potawatomi peoples and toddlers. How have our definitions of “things” and “people” and the grammars we use to think/write/talk about their be(com)ing relationships produce limiting possibilities?

For us (Tara and myself), by attending to the animacy of materials with humans, we had to (re)think not only social but also what literacy is or what counts as literacy (see Kuby & Gutshall Rucker, 2016, pp. 188-191 for further discussion and Kuby & Fontanella-Nothom, 2018; Kuby, Spector, & Thiel, 2019; Zapata, Kuby, & Thiel, 2018).⁷ Literacy for the silent puppet show group was about engaging-with human peers and nonhumans in the entire puppet show experience—from tickets, to buddy stuffed animals, to sitting with a friend during the show, to comment papers to offer feedback—the puppet show was more than the puppet show. It was puppeting (a doing, an ethico-onto-epistemological experience). It was a social, an intra-action of time, space, nonhumans, peers, discourses, Tara, and myself. It wasn’t solely limited to alphabetic writing by an individual. It was a puppeting; a lively entangled doing(s) with materials-discourses. Our notions of writing, a fundamental concept in literacy education, had to be called into question. What are concepts and definitions in your own areas of study that might need to be called into question when working within a posthumanist paradigm?

Third, a more-than-human ontology stance encourages (perhaps demands) researchers to (re)think how we go about inquiring (Kuby, 2017a). As Taylor’s quote above urges, we have to (re)think how we define and do research. Scholars are beginning to write and question inquiry practices as discussed in the opening section of this manuscript. The material turn articulated by posthumanist theorists moves beyond (and builds on) the linguistic turn of research that focuses on anthropocentric and logocentric interactions and instead embraces materials as active agents (Hultman & Lenz Taguchi, 2010). This changes the way we research. How do we (re)present intra-activity or the entangled-newness-togetherness in print and/or alphabetically? What do field notes look like when understanding social from a posthumanist paradigm (and even, what is the “field”)? How do we write transcripts (do we let go of this altogether, if so, what if anything replaces it)? I attempted to use various fonts, bolded words, and different margins alignments; however, in an article, this is still read linearly, and it is still a representation through language. How might images, three-dimensional figures, and/or videos better help to (re)present the ways social(s) comes into being (and how will journals accommodate this)? How do interview questions change when working within a posthumanist paradigm (would we interview humans at all)? These are all questions we wrestle with as we attempted to put into practice, to truly live-out as teachers/researchers, more-than-human ontology concepts.

Taylor (2016) writes,

Posthumanist research is an enactment of knowing-in-being that emerges in the event of doing research itself. In opening new means to integrate thinking and doing, it offers an invitation to come as you are and to experiment, invent and create both with what is (already) at hand and by bringing that which might (or might not) be useful, because you don’t yet know, into the orbit of research. (p. 18, emphasis in original)

For us, we began with what was at hand—trying to (re)present classroom relationships on paper to not only publish and communicate with other scholars but also as a way to analyze, process, inquire, and think about the knowing/be(com)ing/doing of/in Writers’ Studio—we began with the idea of a transcript and tried to think of how to do transcript in a posthumanist way. We knew it might be useful (or perhaps not); however, we had to give it a try. And when we did, it transformed our analyses (such as turning off the sound of the video to focus on materials, movements, and nonhumans), our thinking of relationships, and ways of (re)presenting on paper. We hope the “transcript” felt like an intra-transcript. We agree with Taylor (2016) that “you can’t simply mix and stir posthumanism into a research design” (p. 18). It isn’t an add on, but a new way of thinking about inquiry and about (re)presenting (which at this point we can’t let go of in the world of academia).

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, at the heart of this work is the ethics, justice, and response-ability from (a) more-than-human ontological perspectives, especially in (re)thinking social. As Taylor and Hughes (2016) write in their book’s introduction, the central aim of the book is a concern with ethics—accountabilities to human, more than human, and other than human actors. Ethics becomes an ethics of mutual relation with nonhumans. When we define social from a more-than-human ontological perspective, we have to also (re)think ethics, justice, and response-ability (see Barad in Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012). Tara has to (re)consider ethics and response-ability to/with children and materials in her classroom (and larger material-discursive relationships). What is a response-able literacy pedagogy of mutual relation with all bodies (materials-discourses)? How does this ethics and justice shift not only pedagogy but also our research projects? Who are we response-able to/for/with? For us, we realized our response-ability was not only to the girls in the puppet show but also to the materials they worked-with, their peers, and how spacetimemattering (see Barad, 2013) came into being in Room 203. It was also our response-ability to give the students curricular spaces to produce new ways of be(com)ing/doing/knowing literacies (e.g., puppeting) even if it was a fissure to current Writers’ Studio practices and ways of defining what counts as “school literacy” or “writing.” Puppeting, this new social, opened up difference, new processes, territories, and relationships.

Even within a movement, the material turn (and all the promise and excitement it brings), we have to remember or caution as Jones and Hoskins (2016) state that “we have to add, parenthetically for the moment, in case we forget, we are all speaking here in a language that contains and determines what we can think and say” (p. 85). So even if we theoretically understand posthumanist theories, we are speaking an academic language with publishing practices that are already material-discursive in producing certain critiques, grammars, and ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing/writing/(re)presenting/inquiry. Jones and Hoskins (2016) also say, “it seems we must reach towards something that exceeds language: an attitude, a sympathy, a feeling, an openness” (p. 83, emphasis in original). So while we acknowledge the shortcomings of trying to (re)imagine and (re)think social in this article, given the various (re)constraints we are working-with, we believe as inquirers we must each reach/stretch toward something that exceeds language, an attitude.

Jones and Hoskins (2016) also write that when working

within/against Western ontologies, it becomes necessary to create a new vocabulary and to trouble the familiar language of empiricist or interpretivist social science in order to open up a space where objects can express their vitality and agency—or, at least, where humans can experience their (“objects”) vitality. (pp. 85-86)

This quote, along with Jane Bennett’s (2010) notion of vibrant matter, helps us think about how objects have forces, flows, and ways of producing the world with others—a togetherness, a with-ness of humans, nonhumans, more-than-humans. So while we haven’t completely shaken or gotten rid of the word social, we are arguing for a different attitude toward humans and nonhumans in producing social realities (ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing). Perhaps like puppeting, we could think of social as socialing—knowing/be(com)ing/doing-with as a way to animate the grammars and theoretical thinking about social. We hope we’ve demonstrated the vitality of (all) “objects” as we (re)conceptualized social (socialing) in Room 203’s Writers’ Studio through the silent puppet show (puppeting). Taylor (2016) invites us all to the challenge: “Putting posthuman theory to work is both exciting and daunting. Posthumanism invites us (humans) to undo the current ways of doing—and then imagine, invent and do the doing differently” (p. 6, emphasis in original). Imagine, invent, and do differently. What might it produce for social science research if we (you) (re)imagine and (re)think social (socialing) even with(in) working the limits of (re)(con)straining language? What is (y)our ethical response-ability to do so?

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tara Gutshall Rucker for opening your classroom to me (Candace) since 2010. The collaborative partnership as teachers/researchers has challenged us to both stretch and grow not only pedagogically as literacy educators but also as researchers. Thanks also to Dr. Shonna Crawford for your contributions to analysis over the past few years around the silent puppet show. Thank you both for your insights on various drafts of this manuscript.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Candace R. Kuby is the director of Qualitative Inquiry and an associate professor in the Department of Learning, Teaching, and Curriculum at the University of Missouri. Her research interests are: 1) ethico-onto-epistemologies of literacy desiring(s) when children work with materials to create texts and 2) approaches to qualitative inquiry drawing upon poststructural and posthumanist theories.

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