Posthumanist Research and Writing as Agentic Acts of Inclusion (Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research) [1 ed.] 9781032226743, 9781032226798, 9781003273707, 1032226749

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“With a more than important focus on positioning knowledge as a force and as a practice, thus involving an openness of thought that contests thinking in conformity, this book presents and guides a reader through a variety of examples of differing knowledge practices. The work of this book is to make comments about the paradox and fear of losing knowledge in what is currently referred to as a knowledge informed society. By challenging the readers’ minds and as a constant work in progress, the book should be found on the tables of scholars, students and other interested public. In particular, this is because the book represents a stepping-beyond the endeavours of traditional quantitative and qualitative research efforts to achieve validity, purpose and outcomes.” – Marko Koščak, Associate Professor at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. “The authors pose the question as to the certainty of knowledge through the perspective of post-humanist research. This suggests that they are challenging the reader to consider the role of uncertainty in what they view as our current paradoxical knowledge situation given their predication of the view that the constitution of knowledge is itself uncertain. “I find the ethnographic dimension – engaging writers, readers and texts – very interesting and value the focus that the authors have made of this topic within their work. Undoubtedly, we also need to look at new ways of addressing the cultural narrative and most commend this book on taking such a bold step in this direction. “At the same time, it is important to view the broader perspective of the book – challenging the reader to seek new ways of examining our approach to knowledge and evaluating the process which we undertake to do this.” – Tony O’Rourke, Professor Emeritus, Green Lines Institute for Sustainable Development, Portugal.

POSTHUMANIST RESEARCH AND WRITING AS AGENTIC ACTS OF INCLUSION

Posthumanist Research and Writing as Agentic Acts of Inclusion: Knowledge Forced Open looks at the true value and possibilities of ‘learning’ and knowledge within the emerging field of New Public Governance by examining, through a posthumanist lens and other perspectives, the paradoxical knowledge situation we are in today. This book addresses the constitution of knowledge as an uncertain process, understanding text as spaces for entanglements of knowledge – knowledge not as certainty but as uncertainty – and writing as the act and art of engaging with these entanglements. Through examining research from multiple perspectives, text, stories as narrative are constructed as data – showing ethnographic engagements between writers, readers and texts. The authors show how to construct messy entanglements of continual, always already constant thinking and becomings, through the art and science of research and writing as knowledging processes. Suitable for scholars of posthumanist thinking in Education and the social sciences, this book challenges the academy to look at new ways of thinking with and through knowledge and showing the importance of such processes. Anne B. Reinertsen is a Professor in the Faculty of Education, Østfold University College, Halden, Norway. Louise M. Thomas is an Independent Academic, Brisbane, Australia.

Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research Editor in Chief Karin Murris Universities of Oulu, Finland, and Cape Town, South Africa Editors Vivienne Bozalek, University of the Western Cape and Rhodes University, South Africa Asilia Franklin-Phipps, State University of New York at New Paltz, USA Simone Fullagar, University, Australia Candace R. Kuby, University of Missouri, USA Karen Malone, University of Technology, Australia Carol A. Taylor, University of Bath, United Kingdom Weili Zhao, Hangzhou Normal University, China This cutting-edge series is designed to assist established researchers, academics, postgraduate/graduate students and their supervisors across higher education faculties and departments to incorporate novel, postqualitative, new materialist, and critical posthumanist approaches in their research projects and their academic writing. In addition to these substantive foci, books within the series are inter-, multi- or transdisciplinary and are in dialogue with perspectives such as Black feminisms and Indigenous knowledges, decolonial, African, Eastern and young children’s philosophies. Although the series’ primary aim is accessibility, its scope makes it attractive to established academics already working with postqualitative approaches. This series is unique in providing short, user-friendly, affordable books that support postgraduate students and academics across disciplines and faculties in higher education. The series is supported by its own website with videos, images and other forms of 3D transmodal expression of ideas – provocations for research courses. More resources for the books in the series are available on the series website, www. postqualitativeresearch.com. If you are interested in submitting a proposal for the series, please write to the Chief Editor, Professor Karin Murris: [email protected]; [email protected].

Posthumanist Research and Writing as Agentic Acts of Inclusion Knowledge Forced Open Anne B. Reinertsen and Louise M. Thomas Edge Entanglements with Mental Health Allyship, Research, and Practice A Postqualitative Cartography Tim Barlott and Jenny Setchell Invisible Education Posthuman Explorations of Everyday Learning Jocey Quinn For a full list of titles in this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Postqualitative-New-Materialistand-Critical-Posthumanist-Research/book-series/PNMR

POSTHUMANIST RESEARCH AND WRITING AS AGENTIC ACTS OF INCLUSION Knowledge Forced Open Anne B. Reinertsen and Louise M. Thomas

Designed cover image: Lauren Hermann First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Anne B. Reinertsen and Louise M. Thomas The right of Anne B. Reinertsen and Louise M. Thomas to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-22674-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-22679-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-27370-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707 Typeset in Optima by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

To Børre and Larry, for their constant belief in and support of all our writing projects.

CONTENTS

Introduction to the series xi Preface xiii SECTION I

Theoretical and philosophical groundwork on knowledge and knowability

1

1 Introducing our riddling for knowledging

3

2 Writing and text as a response to the complexity and uncertainty of knowledge

20

3 Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom

34

4 Authoring agency – force and flow: the paradox of slow and space

55

SECTION II

The actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging: minor fugitive research policies and becoming designs

71

5 Minor research policies and inclusive educational becoming designs

79

x  Contents

6 Becoming technologists: thinking grids and/of orientation

97

SECTION III

Futures governing presents: new space-time domains for ‘tentative-isms’

117

7 Working our ‘tentative-isms’ in the knowledge academy: education for fugitive futures

120

8 Re-authoring methodologies

131

9 Hanging upside down for another retake with Aion and Eros both

145

References 155 Index 161

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research Karin Murris Chief editor of the Series

This book series aims to fill a crucial gap in those mainstream research methods courses that focus solely on quantitative and qualitative research. The methodological implications of new materialist and critical posthumanist theorists for research practices are not always evident. But like other books in the series, Anne Reinertsen and Louise Thomas’ Posthumanist Research and Writing as Agentic Acts of Inclusion: Knowledge Forced Open examines research from multiple perspectives. Their engagement with entanglements of knowledge – knowledge not as certainty but as uncertainty – and minor knowledge policies for dangerous knowledging takes us on a transformative journey that forces knowledge open, arguing against conformity, reductionism and instrumentalism. Navigating the entangled relationalities of a human and a more-than-human world, complex orientations and multi-versing practices are enacted. The authors’ deeply political project is to embrace the affective nature of language and the complexities and tensions inherent in knowledge creation, offering us the innovative concept of dangerous knowledging and challenging conventional ontoepistemological and ethical boundaries. Unlike knowledge as acquisition, dangerous knowledging is always experiential and rejects polarising and discriminatory practices, striving to disperse knowledge beyond confinement. Instead of critique, the authors focus on open spaces for knowledge to unfold. Troubling certainty and valuing philosophical thinking and uncertainty in their explorations, the authors emphasise the importance of noticing conscious as well as unconscious factors, opening possibilities for the yet-to-be-known. This amounts to more than a postmodernist resistance (i.e., against taking up a fixed position) – it avoids relativism intriguingly by embracing hostility and disagreement.

xii  Introduction to the series

Like other postqualitative researchers, Reinertsen and Thomas turn to philosophy as method, addressing educational, social, political and environmental problems. In that sense (although not unusual in philosophical research), this book falls outside the qualitative and quantitative research approaches that tend to be used in the social sciences. Their ‘method’ is the Pragmatic use of enquiry as an experiential process: knowing, acting and experiencing are interconnected. We don’t acquire concepts first and then learn or teach them. We learn them through experience and then enact them. Although committed to American Pragmatism, the ‘minor’ in the book’s focus reveals another important influence: the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. However, an essential part of their method is not to commit to one author, theorist or movement, but to keep thinking-on-the-move. They advocate for research methods beyond traditional approaches, embracing affect, intimacy and intra-active relationality. In feminist fashion, the intimate and the political are put in relation, rethought and enacted with the aim of demystifying philosophy as well as academia. Throughout this passionately argued and beautifully written book, Reinertsen and Thomas weave together a structure that explores knowledge practices as dynamic forces and engages in dialogue, adaptation and contestation. Disrupting a linear style, their collaborative writing articulates their philosophy. They enact through their writing (or better put, ‘composing’) knowledging through dancing as an art, practice and gift. Never ‘sitting still’ themselves, as philosophers, educators, practitioners and women who question, live, love and propel us to think and also think other, Reinertsen and Thomas’ book is profoundly engaging. By including the morethan-human, the authors leave us with the wonderful gift of becoming more curious, of continuing to ask questions, and of asking different kinds of questions. Their commitment to embracing complexity, valuing uncertainty and recognising knowledge as a force related to freedom – not just power (as the poststructuralists keep emphasising) – this book supports researchers in creating spaces for alternative data becomings. Through the novel concepts of knowledging, de-comforting, re-authoring, multi-versing and beyonding, they riddle – as they say – the real and ridiculous practices of academia. Altogether, a welcome addition to the series.

PREFACE

This book is a gesture toward positioning knowledge as a force; as a practice involving an openness of thought; that contests thinking in conformity. Presenting a variety of examples of different knowledge practices is, in itself, not sufficient to illustrate and maintain the complexities of knowledge creation. For the complexities of knowledge to truly occur and be appreciated, we claim that knowledge practices need to be understood as existing in tensions with one another, as potentially contestable within and across contents and subject matters, and as continual practices which can open knowledge up/out through challenge, adaptation, and even rejection. As such, knowledge practices can be presented as a force with thoughtful gravity. Further, we write to illustrate that unless agency and the affective nature of language exchanges and political involvement are fully appreciated, knowledge creation practices will polarise, hierarchise, instrumentalise, reduce, and – in the long run – will always create new divisions and discriminating practices: blind spots of thinking. The work of this book, however, is not about critical thinking, critique or saying yes or no; right or wrong to knowledge practices, ways of knowing and knowledge creation, but the intention of our work here is to make comments about the paradox and fear of losing knowledge in what is currently referred to as a knowledge informed society. We work to enable a force for constant moving with our knowledge and thinking, not to be paralysed in a constricting whirlpool of critique. The why of this book is therefore about avoiding compartmentalisation, reductionism, and instrumentalism; resisting a context of knowledge being authoritarian and colonising, classed, gendered, and racialised. Rather, we want to force open spaces for knowledge to disperse and be actionable; hence, we introduce the notion of knowledging as more than just the present particle of knowledge. Knowledging as coinciding

xiv  Preface

practices and processes. Additionally, we want to work on preconditions for a free and successful approach for the value of, deep, pragmatic thinking privileged in academia, and in the spaces of knowledge and learning. As far as the concept of creation is concerned, we take Camus’ (2018) imperative to our hearts to “create dangerously” and sit this with Nafisi’s (2022) imperative to “read dangerously”, as we work dangerously with knowledge words to force open, to riddle, to challenge and provoke; to release us from mimesis. It is another type of positivism which does not make us victims of ourselves but protagonists of stories of knowledging in which we are neither the owners nor the perpetrators. Or as Marina Garcés (2022) states: “Today, we know more about relations between knowledge and power than we do about knowledge and freedom” (p. 90). For this book we therefore take as a starting point where we ended our last book, Academic Writing and Identity Constructions (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2019). Not so much as the beginning but as a point from which to step into sharing our ever-flowing thinking. As we ended our previous book, we challenged ourselves, as authors, and our readers to ‘slip out the back door’ of that text, but not to finish the thinking with/in “decentred knowledges and polycritical knowledge sharing” (p. 198). Thinking as living possibility spaces of uncertainty and keeping the negative and resistance in to ask more. We pick up on our challenge to concentrate on questioning with/in democratic ontologies of knowledge. Such a challenge implies for us processes of forcing knowledge open, that being the constant what of this book: The ‘yes’ and the ‘no’ are simultaneously turned into a noology (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a), putting wings on our thoughts – giving us courage for riddling the real and the ridiculous of academia with equal conviction; the courage to always question our own thinking and continually question that which is presented to us as knowledge. In our research knowledge work we want to avoid being lured into a fixated certainty; and to what ethics must not succumb. In this book we suggest the importance of working with and in the messiness of knowledges, and argue for valuing uncertainty and the possibility of the yet-to-be-known in our research work; in the ethical academy; in our knowledge natures and cultures; in being us; in our learned predispositions; in our biases; in the prejudices we live – all of this cannot be tidied through a sure-fired dance with certainty. In this way we argue that the ‘ethical-must-not’ is ultimately turned into an ethology (Deleuze, 1988) as a study of affective movements attributing value to both conscious and unconscious factors forming our experiences, flattening knowledge hierarchies, ultimately debunking causality and linear thinking. This book can thus be seen as a constant work in progress. In our thinking work we resist a view of knowledge seen as being produced in isolation or in advance, but always as a result of multiplicities and/

Preface  xv

or bodies (read concepts) coming together in assemblages and working in contexts. But multiplicities and contextuality of knowledges is not a justification for an ‘anything goes’ approach to knowledge practices. We argue for strong theoretical foundations and a thoroughness; a depth to thinking. We value the notion of a constant thinking with theory (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) but claim that this must be more, and other than thinking with a particular position presented by particular theorists. We work towards a forced open approach to knowledge, thinking, philosophising – making propositions across knowledge borders possible (Chernik et al., 2019; Reinertsen et al., 2022) – never settling for conformity to just one way of thinking. Rather, making thinking, theory, and philosophy into dancing partners in knowledge practices. In our messy uncertainty, knowledging, associations, lines, arrows, circles, steps, moves, and points show themselves everywhere, and add fugitive inscriptions and choreographies for our dances. These uncertain inscriptions and choreographies are at work on screens, papers, books, drawings – surfaces that act as dancing floors or canvasses for imagery and writing even with brief and ephemeral materials like affects, words, thoughts, hopes, dreams and wishes: knowledgings. Such knowledging enactments take shape at home, on campuses, in classrooms and schoolgrounds, and in kindergartens, as well as behind our desks and in front of our computers (Reinertsen, 2020). But more, our academic dancing is forced out further and beyond in the processes of grasping for knowledge and learning, trying to make sense of what we witness across a multitude of contexts – in our educational institutions, in the media, our local communities and close surroundings, in our political, public, and private organisations. Thinking as a philosophical knowledge practice is never isolated from social, material and cultural contexts. And to draw some lines on the big canvas, and being crystal clear, the post-modern notion of knowledge as preliminary is probably not open enough regarding complexity; rather we suggest a view of knowledge and knowledging as minor in nature for freedom and justice. Such a view denotes resistance (position) but simultaneously affirms that it breaks with – and possibly negotiates itself in a co-composition without losing its solidity. We propose dangerous knowledging as recognising the “ambivalence of human social nature and the fact that interdependency and hostility cannot be separated” (Mouffe, 2015, p. 9). The how of this book, and nodding to John Dewey, rests therefore first of all on a commitment to philosophical pragmatism and a conviction that philosophy should serve to address educational as well as social problems. (We could add environmental problems, and we will philosophise over the why, what and how later in the text.) Further, we add that philosophy is method, hence ‘I’ am method; I can re-author as a methodology. We advocate that these commitments are pivotal for the type of inquiry as riddling, knowledge blown out,

xvi  Preface

forced open: a pragmatic approach to inquiry appreciating the inter-, or rather intra-, connectedness between experience, knowing and acting; inquiry as experiential processes; knowledge creation as pragmatic philosophy as knowledging: a pragmatic approach to which we give attention in this book. Research wise, our book therefore represents a stepping-beyond the endeavours of traditional quantitative and qualitative research efforts to achieve validity and purpose and outcomes. Going via affect, hence increasing the levels of intimacy and values of relationality in research; opening up to to possibilising through embracing de-comfort (Thomas, 2012), allowing for and perspectivising hope; evaluative categories like care, strength, vulnerability, joy, extraordinary, interesting, and meaningful become important. Thereby, such concepts of/and sentiments also dissolve established measures and binary division of trustworthy research/non-trustworthy research to recognise the self-organising properties of data itself, and open up all kinds of possibilities for data becomings, including possible digital assemblages, phenomena of interest, (non) knowledge and/within knowledge productions. Through this, the intimate and the political are re-thought together and actionalised; affective forces are actionalised and effects of affect become possible to evaluate within limits. In search of the im/possibilities of reasonableness, hence also nodding to John Rawls’ (1993) proposal of reasonableness as reciprocity, we try to attune ourselves ontologically, epistemologically, and ethically towards the entangled relationalities of more-than-human world-making, moving between philosophies of science, educational, linguistic, social, humanistic, natural, legal and political philosophy. Demystifying philosophy and academia both, constructing academic identities as containing multitudes (Reinertsen, 2022b), and always the possibility of other (Thomas, 2019). We present writing as both an act and an art, as a practice, as a gift; knowledging through dancing – thinking, philosophising and materialising together. Education for fugitive futures being our potential gift. Positioning more-than-human relationalities as conditions of complex orientations – brought together and pulled apart through practices of multi-versing. Seeing writing and knowing as collaborative activities: we choreograph and write our thinking/theory/philosophy dance and/as text. To get going we suggest that knowledge creation as knowledging be designed and continually challenged through deep thinking along the features of minor science hence minor knowledge policies (Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2010, 2013, 2019; Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a, 2004b; Semetsky, 2020; Stengers, 2008, 2018, 2022). Such an approach can offer new possibilities to constantly think other in working with the force and flows of affects that produce knowledge, articulations and distinctions occurring simultaneously, engendering moments of sensory sensitivity, and propelling us; forcing us to think, live, love, be in the here-and-now of knowledge creation. It is to such minor bequests – to the discharging of an ethico-political duty of knowledge and care in the precarious knowledge landscapes of the present – to

Preface  xvii

which we think Higher Education (HE) needs to turn its full energies and attentions, as a matter of urgency. And when we say HE we include its theoretical and philosophical efforts, hence both pedagogies and research practices. And before you think that this riddling of the work of HE is unrealistic, not paying enough attention to market forces, new imperialist tendencies, abuse, systemic injustice, big tech algorithms, centripetal monetary and cultural forces, power relations and power struggles, it is exactly these real and ridiculous features of our knowledge worlds that we riddle. We claim that innovation must be possibilised in the knowledge practices and in research designs and processes themselves. Resistance to conformity and challenge to the ingrained certainty of taken-for-granted accepted practices are the starting points for any premise for change: knowledge forced open. Now, what title to give our book? Minor knowledge policies for dangerous knowledging? Riddling the real and ridiculous of academia? Knowledge forced open? No, it seems these will not work. Searchability

Unfortunately, the primary driving factor for all main and subtitles these days is online searchability – it means titles need to be keyword-based, which has (sadly) made more creative titling such as ‘Riddling the Real and the Ridiculous in Academia’ untenable, the publisher said. Oh well, I suppose we must accept that this is the way of the publishing world now and not be naive. I understand the focus on searchability via online domains such as search engines for book titles. However, I also see it as irony (sad/sweet) that a book/text focused on ‘forcing knowledge open’ – shifting beyond the corporatized knowledge domains that can narrow thinking – has its title determined/limited by the workings of the very corporatised global domains we wish to challenge, said Louise. We will keep the creative title component as our subtitle and working with poetics, we can write to it dangerously, creatively throughout the chapters, a gift that can then form the finish, and final riddle, of the book. We will write to it and talk to it. It being a sense/a force of inevitability and yet not, and/of how we work with and against the force generated. How we position ourselves. The inside and outside force working to escape the big tech imitation game, we said.

SECTION I

Theoretical and philosophical groundwork on knowledge and knowability

In the introduction to this first section we will be brief because the first chapter is an introduction to the book as a whole. The next three chapters are about writing and knowing. Writing against processes of epistemic violence hopefully exceeding normalising or regulating forces that tend to control and reduce the potential of contextual and affective becoming and learning. Writing, and therefore sometimes extracting, knowledge from pain, knowing what we know and keeping it complex. Our objective is to expand educational rationales to explore what kind of affective education and research are desirable, necessary, and possible to future. Our objective is to write research of immanent perspectivations in which the researcher and the researched are seen as moulding and collective futuring forces in a globalised (digital) world. Not creating universalised, major, or idealistic politics of research but seeking and learning from immanent stories and storying. Storying, as writing, being a celebration of alterations of the constitution and construction of major perspectives. Not through escaping the fuzziness, incompleteness, neither one nor the other between, but through enhancing the importance of storying a learning perspectivist betweenness for both the researcher and the researched. Stories and storying, through such enhancements, used as ‘data’ for foresight and enabling for the many variations of life that encompass (digital, environmental, and social) existence and becomings: storying as writing as an absolute immanent-transcendent situativity, keeping knowing in play.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-1

1 INTRODUCING OUR RIDDLING FOR KNOWLEDGING

This book is about forcing knowledge open to sustain knowledging as free tentative processes with/in presence. Not to deny the important work of academia and research but to both acknowledge and riddle this work in ways that allow for the possibility of vulnerabilities, hesitations and uncertainties in this work. Thus, while maintaining the foundation of academic work, we recognise and give value to the cracks and wobbles at play as we push our thinking beyond certainty and open ourselves up to the possibilities that can come from non-restrictive fabulation. Knowledging as an accelerating and real non-teleological life-giving insecurity and resistance for learning, avowing democratic ontologies of knowledge. We therefore open with a wish to share our thinking about knowledge in ways that value the reading as much as the writing of text; the listening as much as the speaking. Text being a body and assemblage of writing and reading to be shared and re-authored. We think of text through the combination of Searvelatnja, which is Sami for shared rooms or space and the multiplicity concept of space from Japanese culture/language. We take learning from, and acknowledge that reconceptualisations of space and text assemblages can enrich our thinking: text as a labour of love to the systems we are part of and the spaces we can expand on, text being the space between the writer and the reader. For what is the writer without the reader, the speaker without the listener? Texts thought of as boundary spaces across the reader and writer, as shifting in knowledging processes – spaces as opportunities for movements across and between, and deep collaborative thinking, always with shared acceptance of difference. Texts as agentic forces working somewhere across and beyond past, present, and future.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-2

4  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

This book is a collective act of writing/reading/speaking/listening preoccupied with knowledging and the kinds of knowledge-creation, research-­ processes and education we want to future. The action of writing (to take up and move with the act of writing) we understand as a multi-changing, a ­repetitive – or rather iterative affective force, hence writing as action in difference (Deleuze, 1994). This is a type of writing working to safeguard public goods, producing spheres for interrogating the unsettling and unspeakable – a concerned engagement with a culture of real, visceral, and numbing knowledge seduction. Working with iterative affective forces, we sketch (with tentative and flowing strokes of the pen) our thinking in and through the action of writing this book. We are conscious that the term ‘we’ appears extensively throughout the book. In most instances, when the term ‘we’ (or ‘our’, or ‘us’) is used it refers to ‘us two’ – Anne and Louise – and is not used as generic, all inclusive claims or sweeping statements of collective academic opinion (the precise focus of this book works to resist such an approach!). Rather the term ‘we’ is used as an expression of our ‘in-the-moment’ thinking and an expression of how we wish to place ourselves in relation to the text and the readers. We use the first-person plural pronoun (we) to deliberately place ourselves in the text, and further, through the text, place ourselves in relationship with readers. In keeping with this intent, when we use the term ‘you’ we are humbly and graciously asking readers to step into an exchange of thinking with us. While it has been argued that the use of first-person pronouns risks the content being labelled biased or too personal, even subjective (Davis & McKay, 1996), when we take this first-person approach, we are clear in our perspective that all writing is biased, personal, and subjective to some degree – how can it be not? The ‘tone’ of our text is deliberately one of dialogue, enabling an intra-active exchange between us as writers and readers of the text: acknowledging that it is only together, with both shared, and more importantly, different thinking, that the knowledging work of the text can happen. With difference as the primary marker, we gesture towards actionable knowledge and action writing taking on a dynamic noology and ethology approach. Through a collaborative intra-active exchange between writer and reader in knowledge work, we argue a possibility and opportunity for interiority and an impassioned sense of collective struggle for all our futures. Through such writing action we want to create openings towards expanded meaning fields nourishing valuable diversities of onto-epistemic nature-cultures; ultimately preparing for fugitive futures, giving thinking and knowledge creation a constant continuation: a flow. And to move with this opening, continuous force, we ask if current notions of knowledge and knowledge creation can work efficiently and innovatively in current established, standardised academic ways of being; fields of research generating; and digitalised educational institutions? In response to this query, we write to investigate the concept of knowledge that may force open new meanings in the shifts and staggers between and across

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  5

current and future knowledge iterations. Paradoxically making education and educational science, and research central to politics; equally politics central to education and educational science, and research. A conventional way of asking for and designing a research and knowledge creation project would be something like: What might systematic perspectives contribute or give to our understanding of, for example, education, pedagogy, and its contents? We would then work out a plan for participation, data-generating methods, categorisation of data, data analysis, and findings. We would follow the plan; and doing other would be conceptualised as a flaw or even a failure. Here in our book, we suggest it is conceivable to ask and design differently. Instead of asking for systematisation and designing according to the what question for clarity; instead of asking and designing through and with the how question for explanations and definitions, we propose the possibility to take a different course. The approach to research designs we advocate allows researchers to ask; how can research practices illuminate knowledge creation, educational and, for example, pedagogical complexities and vital importance from within? How can these practices simultaneously push/force out rather than close in? Force out in ways that challenge the processes to think broadly, deeply – other. Through an expanded procedural, affective and experience-based perspective, as authors we therefore theorise and philosophise knowledge manoeuvrings forward from a qualitatively different space. Most important in such design approaches is to possibilise (subjects and objects) through creating movement to make things happen, and to be preoccupied by meanings that connect to affective experiences rather than facts surrounding experiences. We challenge ourselves, our writing and reading, and ask: are we – and how – sufficiently preoccupied with the ideological and political elements in our research assignments, and if not, does that turn us into some kinds of useful idiots? (In itself this is ok: ‘the idiot’ is historically both a diverse and useful figure, e.g., the court jester.) But, through this text, we argue that educational research work needs to model knowledge practices and be models for the so-called practice field. We might not get strong knowledge-informed practice fields if we do not, to a larger extent, continually question, challenge, and thoughtfully resist our own professional knowledge positionings (Thomas, 2009). Jacques Derrida (1930–2004) would probably have advised us to put the concepts of both ideology and politics, every concept that is, in brackets to deconstruct them and put them in play. Michel Foucault (1926–1984) would probably have advised us to study or ‘dig into’ the history of concepts – in the case of his work on the archaeology of knowledge, the power of discourses and discursive practices. He would suggest we always look again, to question the assumptions that sit behind/beneath accepted knowledge and ways of thinking: the genealogy of knowledge to show its historical contingency. Gilles Deleuze (1925–1995) and Félix Guattari (1930–1992) advise us

6  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

to empty – or null out every concept, minor them that is, and question how they materialise and take up new meanings every time they are used. Although each approach has legitimacy, we (mostly) take up the final approach with an attempt to minor knowledge and language practices in our approach to research (with occasional reference, of course, to other ways of thinking). The navigational capacity of knowledging is minor in nature as it does not create clear road signs of where to go and what to do as writers/readers, research designers, researchers, and knowledge workers. But it highlights the fact – the only constant – that we have to do the walking, or rather the dancing: that is, researchers retheorising constantly shifting subject positions within quantum flows of processing information. Inclusive designs therefore, and through writing, turned into constant processes of re-authoring of knowledges, moves, and extensions of sets of knowledges as political struggles integral to knowledge creation, knowing, and learning. We argue that any changes or innovation from research are possibilised in the design process itself. And further to this, any design is always (as is this book) a work in progress; a work in progress between researcher and researched, between writer and reader. If knowledge practitioners are going to develop knowledge politics capable of awakening our critical, imaginative, historical, and fugitive sensibilities, it is crucial to develop types of languaging of simultaneous critique and possibilities: knowledge policies which force knowledge open. We conceive of this as a speculative ethics machinery and practice of noology and ethology as processes of becoming: Noology, which is distinct from ideology, is precisely the study of images of thought, and their historicity. In a sense, it could be said that all this has no importance, that thought has never had anything but laughable gravity. But that is all it requires: for us not to take it seriously. Because that makes it all the easier for it [i.e., the State] to think for us … because the less people take thought seriously the more they think in conformity with what the State wants. (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a, p. 415) Ethology is first of all the study of the relation of speed and slowness, of the capacities for affecting and being affected that characterise each thing. (Deleuze, 1988, p. 125) Therefore, we write, we dance, to riddle the real and ridiculous of academic knowledge forces and frameworks. We write about the paradoxical, gravely laughable, knowledge situation academia is in today: where more and more knowledge is produced and, more and more texts of varying formats are, as a consequence, (or seemingly as ‘proof’ of such knowledge production) constantly produced. But it seems that in this production, knowledge simultaneously is

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  7

inflated and losing value, and any level of thoughtful, deep engagement with knowledge texts is more precarious – a situation which can be positioned as both real and ridiculous. It situates us (as authors participating ourselves in this process) in a foggy type of unease, but opens to us a chance to rethink and expand on what it means to identify as an academic, possibilising opportunities for a more dynamic creation of individuated collective subjectivities. Thinking with Deleuze and Guattari (2004a, 2004b), but obviously nodding to other forces of knowledge, we therefore write, with laughable gravity, about the constitution and/of subjectivities and knowledge creation. Our approach is on designing for constant knowledge expansions. Through a built-in but flowing difference – and focus close to our heart, a dynamic reality, a ridiculous im/possibility from the start. In our riddling we use and introduce terms such as knowledging, re-authoring, de-comforting and multi-versing, beyonding in mysterious and feasible flows. And there is more; resisting the almost overwhelmingly powerful work of big tech in our knowledge world, we work to escape the imitation game: the echoing mimesis that we can unwittingly take on in our research, academic, thinking work. Knowing about mimesis is important because it gives us the opportunity to liberate ourselves from its grip. As two mature, dynamic, female academics we hold dear the power of our pens (keyboards) to resist; to question; and to always value difference, uncertainty, thinking other. We are not seduced by the ‘big tech’ imitation games. In our work through this book, we therefore, first and foremost, give our attention to resistance. Resistance as a force of life is a way out of the narcissistic loss of self that is played out culturally and also in Higher Education (HE). By looking at something that does not imitate us back, and without expecting imitation back, we have the opportunity to lift ourselves out of academic mimesis, and at a broader level to liberate our thinking. To liberate the human attention, to re-awaken our thinking capacities, is the most important moral and political fight of our times. Hence, the purpose of this book is to give credit to knowledge work that is not conforming to the current political expectations nor unexamined academic expectations. We write to provide a space to question and challenge, to imagine the world from different standpoints and perspectives, to reflect upon the self, simultaneously ourselves in relation to others. And in so doing, to understand what it might mean to assume a sense of natural, social, political, and educational responsibility/ies and work on our response ability/ies as academics, writers, educators … and above all as thinkers. Our book evolves across three sections. The first shows and elaborates on the theoretical, philosophical groundwork of our perspectives on knowledge and knowability. In the second section we actionalise philosophy, theoretical thinking, and knowledge creation through minoring, designing, and becoming technologists. Practical philosophers writing pragmatic methodologies

8  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

FIGURE 1.1  Adobe

Stock https://stock.adobe.com/au/search?k=eros Retrieved November 16, 2022

recognise connections between experience, knowing, and acting. In the third section we re-author for multi-versed assemblages of knowledging and bring these to our work as learning academics. Ethics and education as experiential processes; the future as the governing of the present. Education as a form of nature-cultural work extending beyond the classroom and its pedagogical influence, while often imperceptible, is crucial to challenging and resisting a hierarchical notion of knowledge exchange. Section I: Theoretical and philosophical groundwork on knowledge and knowability

In Section I the book presents distinct paradigmatic positionings and theorisations within philosophy of educational sciences that argue for fabulations and speculative approaches to research. Here we argue for approaches to thinking about knowledge that require and allow for engaging learners and teachers; researchers and practitioners in both individual and collective writing processes in order to experience the ‘real’, the honesty – hence sometimes brutal and

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  9

‘riddling’ effects of writing. Such approaches in turn require and allow for preparation for strong reactions of both joy and sadness, loss and gain, real and ridiculous, gravity and laughter. Additionally, these reactions require, allow for and privilege deep and slow engagement in writing/learning. Recognition of sufficient time and appropriate resources is key to support affective engagement in such approaches to and processes of research and knowledge exchange. In Chapter 2, “Writing and text as a response to the complexity and uncertainty of knowledge”, we take up/on experiential learning/writing/text-ing and learning/writing/text-ing with/in the affective language of the un/conscious and the uncertain. We position text as providing spaces for entanglements of knowledges and ways of knowing – knowledging, not as certainty, but as possible responses to the complexities of uncertainty – and writing as the act/ art of engaging in/with these entanglements. To resist thinking of research only through post-qualitative, critical post-human or new materialist perspectives, we work to always do more, we as authors/writers/researchers position texts/ stories/narratives as data. Hence our purpose is to conceptualise the work of this book as dataphilosophical, ethnographic engagements between writers/ readers/texts. We move with this conceptualising, trying not to allow ourselves to fixate, to rather construct messy entanglements of continual, always already constant thinking/becomings in academia, research methodologies, and educational policy practices. Thinking along and around these entanglements, we ask/we riddle: What real and ridiculous practices are at work in our knowledge and in our knowing, and in what way can we multi-verse the multiplicities of knowledge and knowing practices – knowledging? We both acknowledge and look anew at the theories and science of knowledge: ontologies, epistemologies, teleologies, and axiologies, through writing/ theorising from different places/spaces, knowledging from different places: as a philosophy; as poetry. While holding on to our commitment to messy uncertainty in knowledge work, we ask what are the possibilities of ‘other’ places to think the theory and science of knowledge: possibilities through philosophy and poetics – and we ask what can these possibilities do for us and with us in our knowledging? We use the messy and never finished exchanges between writer/reader; writing/reading; knowledges/ways of knowing, to force open thinking. We see the multiplicities of these always fluid exchanges at work to both construct and present knowledge policies and practices, and to force a continual movement of such policies and practices. We argue for the value of academic work in spaces where knowledges and ways of knowing are always in the act of being forced open. In such spaces, and through such acts, academics/learners are always constantly becoming: re-authoring in the process of knowledging. In the process of knowledging, writing can work as a practice of re-authoring through agency and via affect. We introduce this practice in this chapter and elaborate in Chapters 3 and 4. In spaces of exchange between writer/reader,

10  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

we write with hope/anticipation (but never an arrogant expectation) of response from readers – as writers, we entangle ourselves/our thinking/our research with the future through the possibility of such responses from readers. In Chapter 3, “Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom”, we discuss the importance of writing and/as procedural designs for knowledging; the indeterminate nature of human knowability and the procedurality of freedom. With theories of language of events qualifying all concepts as minor, the concept of freedom is turned into a matter of ontology and being labour in essence, not a fixed ideal to be realised some time in the future, dependent on justice being achieved first. Rather justice and freedom as coinciding processes of indeterminacy forcing knowledge open enabling a continual attention to future proofing. Writing on the backcloth of a move within HE institutions from New Public Management to New Public Governance (Osborne, 2007) and focussing on the relationship with the external environment and inter-­organisational relations supported by digitalisation and standardisation, we show the importance of an affective “language of events” (Deleuze, 2004, p. 5) to iteratively design inclusive designs for knowledging: a constant flowing redesign of the design process itself, through minoring all concepts to make them work and hold their spaces every time they are put to work. Governance implies a shift in the work of academic research and knowledge creation, towards cross-sectional, interagency, and transdisciplinary collaboration with partners in different sectors, private and public. A move from management to governance promising just and inclusive learning rich possibilities individually and collectively. Despite a rhetoric of individuality, freedom, and democracy, knowledge is under pressure, and we see tendencies of instrumentalism and reductionism. As far as academia is concerned – of which we are active and responsible contributors – many of the analyses are so weak theoretically that educators and researchers risk being put to the side or being side-lined by others. Others being corporate entities, big tech companies and the administrative hierarchies of universities, and the latest fad of research. Power is concentrated in a few hands only. We ask to what extent freedom is at risk of being side-lined and the bodies of academics dociled in this push towards governance and performativity in the spaces of co-opted knowledge? Our primary interest is in the processes of knowledge rather than any fixed outcome or position of what is or is not known. A concern with which we grapple, and which is a driver for us in our work on this book, is the sense that academia and academics seem not to be afforded or allowed sufficient opportunity to take on/up, work with rather than just within the complexities of the institutional systems, structures, organisations. Nor do there seem opportunities to speak to the power at work in knowledge institutions that undermine any opportunity for freedom and democracy in knowledge work. In our experience, neither do academics use – or are they

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  11

allowed to use – perspectives from their own professional expertise in ways that give value to qualified opinions about power and use of power, and even more so any ability to speak to freedom and knowledging is restricted. Knowledge perspectives are, in this way, eroded from within, and academia becomes weak theoretically because complex knowledges and knowledges about complexities are not sufficiently valued in governed and standardised compartmentalised systems. Through this academia and education are slowly, and in sublime ways, turned into an imitation game, de facto excluding instead of including knowledges. Consequently, and often irreversibly, excluding those taking part in the ‘game of education’ who have knowledges that do not fit into the system. Additionally, knowledge becomes subjected to competition which, again, can lead to the opposite of what we wanted in the first place. Very often such competition turns into practices of self-governance and self-censuring. And, of course, we are also mindful that as academics we need to live/survive in the ‘real world’, and we can be driven by a fear and a desire to avoid being seen as troublesome: we do try to get and keep our academic jobs (or not). At times there is a real and ridiculous cost: a cost to our bodies and our knowledging. Our response to the concern we have outlined here is to promote the value of forcing knowledge open (and when necessary to be troublesome!). Governance requires a reconsideration of theoretical and methodological concepts, strategies and research practices in HE for knowledge creation, and subsequent application of that knowledge. Specifically, there is a shift in university-based educational, pedagogical, and social research towards interagency and transdisciplinary working and collaboration with the practice field and non-academic partners, which requires a reconsideration of methodological concepts and research practices. As academics, surely we must work to improve insight in and creative responses to collaborative knowledge practices. In Chapter 3 we therefore take a closer look at what governance is doing, what it is doing to knowledge and academia, what it is potentially doing to knowledging. We suggest we must see our work as academics, researchers, writers as never finished, always moving to future thinking. It implies a recasting of subjectivity and an interest in what writing in general – autoethnographic writing specifically – can contribute to the process of forcing knowledge open. In this book, and going via affect, we force open relations between language, text, nature and culture and what might be produced/presented as knowledge collectively and individually. In this process of ‘forcing open’ we work to focus our thinking on how increased sensitivity to language, text, nature, and culture might influence both formal and informal learning; and as such create, sustain or challenge the concept of knowledge. In Chapter 4, “Authoring agency – force and flow: the paradox of slow and space”, we work with our previous encounter with expectations of certainty in research. We take this further to question the impact of a fast-paced world of academia, relating

12  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

this to considerations of agency and affect. We look at how the spaces for academic research and writing – knowledging – can be put to work in a multitude of ways: slowing, stepping back, looking relationally at what is at play in our research/academic work. We work to show links between agency and governance, agency and subjectivity, agency and becoming, agency as authoring and knowledging. Agency is other than teleological motivation. Rather, agency or agence (Barad, 2007) is an immanent desire for life, as the urge and force of continual re-authoring knowledge and writing as a force for becomingness. Writing is not only a research method or tool, but also a methodology for agency: a methodology of thinking with de-comfort of uncertainty. Some research paradigms will try to convince research practitioners that messy uncertainties are a flaw/problem in research methodologies to be fixed/ resolved/tidied. Other paradigms present the possibility that messiness and uncertainties are, in fact, key elements of the research; that research, as a fluid construct, can never be fixed, finalised, tidied. Through working/writing with the notion of knowledge forced open, where fluidity suggests a focus on affective iterative knowledges and ways of knowing, we argue that there is benefit in beyonding: attention being directed into mechanisms which transform the virtual and transfigure the dynamics of affect. Through the process of beyonding, the concept of knowledge is politicised as a micro-political force and/as agency. Educational policies being minored to secure learners (students and academics) the right to a sensual becoming: the right and ability to create knowledge or knowledging. The focus on agency/agence and affect is running through Chapters 3–6 because they are pivotal. We see writing/authoring as agency: enactments and spaces at work in and across research practice and knowledge forces. The enactments and iterative spaces we present in this text are between writer-reader; learner-teacher; researcher-practitioner; and are interactions which give value to time and space for the messiness of inter- and intra-relational work. The writing we advocate here is slow: slow, deep, fluid writing – a type of writing that invokes speeding up while standing still (Sandvik et al., 2019, in Thomas & Reinertsen 2019) and with an eye to the real and ridiculous impermanence of all things we advocate writing while ‘seriously’ laughing (at ourselves and our worlds) with gravity. Section II: The actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging: minor fugitive research policies and becoming designs

In Section II the book focuses on abstraction and imagination for actioning theoretical thinking and knowledge. Had we been novelists, we would probably have tried to call what we do knowledge-based fantasy. Had we been more regular theorists, we might have called it something in combination with the concepts of practice or praxis. Being riddling academics, we call it writing minor fugitive designs for becomings. Our riddling takes a Möbius form. The

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  13

FIGURE 1.2 Mosaic from the ancient town of Sentinum (now known as Sassoferrato

in Marche, Italy), excavated in the 1980s depicting Aion holding a Möbius strip.

mathematical object of a Möbius strip might serve as both symbol, tool and design. See Aion in the mosaic in the picture above and study closely what he holds in his hand. The Möbius strip has no form of hierarchy in its design: no defined inside or outside, no defined up or down, no defined beginning or ending. So Aion is able to both hold tight and step out – thus riddling and resisting the taken-for-granted, the thought and the unthought, hopes and fears, in the real and ridiculous design of the strip. These qualities possibilise the value of knowledging processes, through riddling and resistance. Going with a Möbius flow in one moment we are inside, the next outside, in one moment we are upright, the next we are hanging upside down. Speculations about the future very often turn out to be wrong because hope for stability is at their core. Speculations with and for fugitivity and becomings – although seemingly conceptually very open and complex – are paradoxically more

14  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

practical and precise because foresight and change (and their inherent uncertainties) are accepted and built in as riddling prerequisites. In Chapter 5, “Minor research policies and inclusive educational becoming designs”, we continue on with our examination of knowledge at work in collaborative educational contexts and consider the place of trust and inclusivity from a perspective of design. Actioning minor policies and design through putting the active back in activism as knowledging. Redesigning the design process itself that is, “going beyond designing for, to designing with. To understand lived life as a true form of expertise” (Stead, 2022). We are critiquing the discursive production of policies in attempts to create openings towards expanded meaning fields; interrogating the societal implications of theoretical and methodological innovations as an ethics; and considering the politics of introducing creative, innovative, and speculative methods and designs. Ultimately, our intent is to tune in to or “intervene” by extending the possibilities of the role of the qualitative social sciences and humanities in societal change and futures. In beyonding there is no conflict between documents and fiction, but a problem that affects the faculty of imagining. What is true? What legitimacy do we have to share realities that are not strictly ours? What truths can we share from what we do not have direct access to, or have not experienced directly? Such questioning points towards an artistic, ethical, and political problem conditioning the cultural, social, and activist landscape today to such an extent that it needs careful, plural, and creative reflection, a willingness to rework, as in writing words and materials together, and to interact with learners who are willing to engage in such adventures together. Again, we want to contribute, and force open the complexity and inclusiveness of knowledging processes, create inclusive, fluid designs in research and knowledge ‘creation’. This implies a movement away from the idea that knowledge ‘creation’ happens through presentations and explanations where certainty and narrow vision are the dominant forces; this shift problematises the idea that knowledge is created and locked-in as processes of transition where risk and controversy are avoided. In these more collaborative, fluid research processes there exists the possible promise of uncertainty. The possibilities/promises lie in the design itself. We do this as an autoethnographic writing. An autoethnographic becoming-design calls for opportunities for pauses, silences – to stretch our thinking; it will at times come up with hesitations and interruptions, our work together in the design process may stagger and slide. What can we learn from/in the pauses, the silences, the hesitations, the interruptions, the indeterminacy, the staggers and slides? Chapter 6, “Becoming technologists: thinking grids and/of orientation”, is written with a wish to transcend a potential deadlock in digitalisation and digital pedagogies, and the governance of knowledging, uncovering the lived experience of bias and procedural inequity. However, inequity, inequality

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  15

and discrimination buried in institutional policies and procedures, technologies, or rules and regulations, are difficult to uncover in any direct manner. They are often unconscious and/or hidden in what we take for granted. However, we gesture towards, with the help a lived experience, alternative ways of approaching this. Furthermore, the collection of information or data regarding, for example, minority progress in schools with respect to grades or other aspects of performance, or even micro-aggressions, is customarily done quantitatively and hierarchically, hence with methods that might obscure or even shield privilege or not embodied in majority-constructed policies. Digitalisation and the algorithms we build from might also amplify such conditions and cement a deadlock even further. We indirectly therefore ask, how can we think adequately about the relation between knowledging, learning and ethics in educational systems and societies that are governed by algorithmic digital systems and objects endowed with agency? Further, how can we think adequately about the relation between ontology and language in educational systems and societies that are governed by such algorithmic systems and objects? In the digital age, democratisation of information might as well give way to democratisation of disinformation, as disimagination-machines proliferate, and corporate-controlled cultural apparatuses colonise our educational and political landscapes. As we write we resist the mesmerising modes of representation that run rampant across our ocular territories. We work with riddling as a way to think other and to expand what writing and research actually encompass. We question narrow assumptions of neutral knowledge creation and teleological competence building in the act of research and writing. We, instead, argue that knowledge creation and, consequently, perceived subjectivities – knowledge and quality – are much more inter- and intra-connected and complex, involving fluid and complex relationships of knowledge and ways of knowing: what we call knowledging. It is in working with/in these connected complexities of knowledging, as an encounter, that affect, and agency can be put to work in an educational context. We worry about the relevance of education as we see it playing out in institutions globally, and we see experiences of educational grief felt by those who care. This is why we write this book. Section III: Futures governing presents: new space-time domains for ‘tentative-isms’

In the third section of the book, we continue to write, put to work, and practice our noology and ethology as becoming processes, not as position statements or codes of practice. We want to pay extra attention to an articulation of ethics as a fluid concept (that is ethics with a lower-case ‘e’ – where it is minored and able to be put to work). If kept as an essential or normative concept (with a capital ‘E’ – meaning as a defined subject matter in itself),

16  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

Ethics equally victimises and heroises. Minoring turns ethics into something which is emerging and experienced. We take this thinking and apply it to education policies, pedagogies, and the practices of educators and educational researchers. If not minored, even the affective pedagogies of agency have the potential of going wrong all over again because we dismiss complex thinking and professionalism in our knowledging. Ethics might turn out to be the most manipulative and exclusive type of tool endangering education futures, if our thinking is governed by reductionist, institutional procedures and predefined conceptualisations of Ethics; governed by pre-determined normative criteria (Ziarek, 2001), rather than being actioned as processes of constant ethical becomingness of relational exchanges in knowledging. To keep the concept of ethics and education futures dynamic, we put them to work through writing – writing as a method and means. As we will see with the idea and concept of inclusion, the idea and concept of ethics is an ideology but will only be useful if it is made real. Ethology being about futuring knowledge grounded (but not fixed) in the challenges of minor politics of our real and ridiculous ‘now’. As we move through this thinking, we work towards another model of knowledging, new ways of being academics. We are not wanting to lose knowledge, and/so we advocate for knowledging beyond representation. Learning as a constant; not a good or bad, right, or wrong type of learning. Post-approaches ask how things are and how things can be, always seeking to nurture possibilities. How can we do activism/knowledging in post-approaches and what do we do with what it does? What else can activism/ knowledging mean from post-approaches perspectives? Going back to creating dangerously, and also nodding to Debord (lifespan) when he encouraged the use of détournement, “which involves using spectacular images and language to disrupt the flow of the spectacle” (Wikipedia, 23 October 2022), we aim at creating engagement and discussion in knowledging processes which combines practical and academic work, and post-approaches activisms. Braidotti (2019) proposes not to let critical studies stop at pointing out problems, but rather to move towards a “posthuman humanity” with creativity and “putting the active back into activism” (p. 42). Posthuman theories have implied that all our doings have ethical implications and thus are always already ethical actions and political engagements (Alaimo, 2014). To search for the activistic aspects in the small implicit acts as well as the bigger, louder, and explicit ones is what we do in this section explicitly, and in this book generally. In Chapter 7, “Working our ‘tentative-isms’ in the knowledge academy: Education for fugitive futures”, we take up our ethology and noology, and bring them with us into knowledge contexts as learning academics. As we do this we work with ethics as a fluid, constantly becoming process, a constant ‘re-thinking/re-authoring self in relation to other’ process rather than a static

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  17

concept: our ethology and what we do with it. To move forward with this idea implies multi-directional educational philosophy, research, and ethics that can open up the role of imagination and poetry, signs, linguistic, and materiality alike in the academy, and places value in the complexity and uncertainty of human relational experiences and exchanges that make up this academy. These experiences and exchanges include – as opposed to exclude – middles; and include both ebbs and flows in the directionality of knowledging relationships. Working with/in/across middles and with/in the fluid ebbs and flows allows for non-hierarchical inclusion and non-linear thinking in knowledge inter/intra-actions – forces open knowledging. For us, this is key in any thinking about and consideration of ethics. We work to avoid a culture of instrumentalised knowledge institutions. That is, academies that reproduce and legitimise dynamics of domination, where ethics is a mechanism of hierarchical control: control between the knower and the non/un knower; the researcher and the participant/practitioner. To avoid such hierarchical engagements, writing academics and scholars can create inclusive debates; designs opening up for moments of awareness and quiet, emphasising acceptance of difference as fundamental for ethical exchange. Inclusive design thus thought of as a move and extension of a set of knowledges and rights located in the abstract future to political struggles integral to learning: the right to rewrite and/or re-author knowledges and rights. In research and education, as in life, problems of inclusion and the capacity for ethical engagement with participants arise not in bodies themselves, but in the troubles bodies meet. Hence, this chapter is ultimately a perspective and attempt to sharpen our focus towards forms of research/learning collaboration that might create a more distinct culture for the middles and flows of respectful exchange within difference, as a continual centrifuge in knowledge work. This is an educational philosophy working across a dynamic ethical foresight in/as research: imagining educational futures that we want for ourselves and for future generations. In Chapter 8, “Re-authoring methodologies”, we start where we are, multiversing and creating dangerously, and work with you to riddle-with ideas from this book – an intra-activity between writers/authors and readers. We invite you to take up your own re-authoring of the matter, theory/noology to force knowledge open. Languaging and sensating through place/space/time domains, making matter matter (Barad, 2007) by materialising sensations, and working with these sensations to actionalise – to become ‘other’ in your own multi-versing. We are careful to keep the intra-action real and hopeful of the courage for working dangerously, while also building trust, allowing vulnerability, embracing other, accepting uncertainty, stepping outside comfort zones, agitating, living with/through the risk of uncertainty, de-comforting ourselves. Our focus and our intent is not about making anyone uncomfortable, but about re-authoring ourselves and our knowledges (knowledging) with others. We/you can do this individually and through the sensation of being in-­ community with

18  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

others – we/you are always included and connected to others, we/you contain multitudes: always multi-versing. There is no blame or shame – no right or wrong – no good or bad: we want to move beyond divisions. To maintain our focus on non-judgemental, non-binary engagement in shared thinking and knowledging we present some ‘think-tank’ exercises in this chapter. Not the traditional notion of ‘think-tank’ (i.e., a group of individuals, usually ‘experts’, working together to develop ideas/solutions to particular problems), rather we propose a ‘think-thingumabob-tank’ (yes, ‘thingumabob’ is a real word! … “An indefinite name for a thing or person which the speaker cannot or does not designate more precisely” [Macquarie Dictionary]). So, we take this approach as a way to allow you to remain part of a collective (the tank) and engage in thinking, ideas, ways of becoming that remain indefinite/uncertain; a constant re-authoring of thinking in your becomingness? We use the ‘think-thingumabob-tanks’ as places and spaces to create/work dangerously and possibilise experiences of other. We invite you to work with practices of ‘thingumabobbing’ throughout the chapter, engaging with collective opportunities, but also indefinite uncertainties, of ‘other’ in safe, smooth, striated spaces and slow, multi-versing spaces: spaces to ask new questions. What questions can be asked that will enable thinking new thoughts? Finally we ask, what we do with what it (knowledging) does: we continue to constantly re-author. And finally, in Chapter 9, ‘Hanging upside down for another retake with Aion and Eros both’, we poetically recite and bring this book together with a wish to write with a gaze of possibilitising, from the imperfection of relational lived experience: If our life was perfectly experienced – how we wanted/ expected it to be – would we even ever write with a gaze to look further, to look other, to look for new possibilities – to re-author? When we read and when we write, do we read and write to engage with what we already know, or to know more; to know other/otherwise? We present in this book opportunities to think otherwise about knowledge and learning, and the relationships which exist as complex, multiple flows between these. We present this through writing as a poetic methodology, and as a consideration of research/writing as a hope for more fluid, flexible knowledge construction that may come from entanglements of known and unknown; certainty and uncertainty; conscious and unconscious; human and non-human; governance and freedom: riddling the enigma of academia – to give and receive knowledge that works with/in/ out, across boundaries of knowing. Working to push against barriers/boundaries/fixed frameworks that construct hierarchies of knowledge/ways of knowing in learning relationships, to challenge and resist hierarchies that construct education/learning/knowledge as binary power relationships. Having given you an overview of this book we now invite you to step into our thinking and contents. Through the concepts of knowledging, de-comforting, re-authoring, multi-versing and beyonding we riddle the real and ridiculous

Introducing our riddling for knowledging  19

practices of academia. Section I is about theorising, in Section II moves to actioning, and in Section III we engage in opportunities to re-action. But first a comment about how we engaged in the writing of this book and to flag how you may choose to engage in the reading of the book. How are we taught (implicitly and explicitly) to think about stories/narratives? Certainly, for the two of us (and possibly for most readers of this book) we grew up with an assumption that stories/narratives have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Really …? Are our stories always that straightforward? That straight, or, even, always only forward moving? When it comes to the big (maybe also the small) stories of our lives, our worlds and how we engage with them, it is not always a linear, one-dimensional process. Louise shares the story of an event/ experience in her life in Chapter 2. It is one she has dipped back into in various places and moments in times, and it has taken her in various directions throughout her academic career. She remembers the experiences of this story from different angles, and she has moved her thinking back and forth across the experience as she has tried to make sense (and non-sense) of the elements and how they propelled and spiralled her in her life. And again, taking up the spiral of story, in the introduction to Section II, Anne shares a story about teacher training that she has iteratively relived throughout her academic career. It is such a perception of spiralling stories/narratives that has driven our crafting of this book – it has not been linear but rather we have spiralled back and forth across the chapters; writing and re-writing, shifting our words and constantly shaking our thinking. And, while the fact that the book is now ‘in-print’ means we have had to settle to some degree, we are also handing over to the reader to shake up some more and keep us moving/spiralling/ beyonding. Of course, how you choose to read the book is up to you – you may move through from beginning to end (with the middle where it will be) or you may decide to spiral with us back and forth, stepping in and out of the writing/reading Möbius strip of our book.

2 WRITING AND TEXT AS A RESPONSE TO THE COMPLEXITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE

Moving from the back door of our previous book, we slide our writing into an engagement with knowledge forced open through the possibilities of complexity and uncertainty. We initially address uncertainty as a critical aspect of knowledge … in fact we go further and invite a celebration of the complexities and multiplicities made possible through uncertainty in knowledge work. In doing this we recognise the value of working with/through a continual, never resolved condition of not-knowing, or more precisely, a research mindset of always-yet-to-be-known: the constant becomingness of research, and the multi-verse of always engaging in re-authoring. We look for ways to hold on to states of uncertainty and complexity that we consider essential in our knowledging work while also acknowledging the theories and science of knowledge: ontologies, epistemologies, teleologies and axiologies. We then go on to highlight and pay attention to the ways in which we work with words; and words work with us – the art/act of writing as becoming processes; as collaborative interventions in thinking processes. And, again to take this thinking further, we consider the complexities and possibilities involved as we work with and through our text writings as objects and processes of shared thinking. Finally, in this chapter we give focus to written text as spaces for living the entanglements of knowledge processes – that is, spaces which invite and allow for processes working with uncertainty and processes which flow always around/with (sometimes towards) yet-to-be-known possibilities. Such processes can be thought of as living cracks flowing into and forcing open our research work; as moving, creaking, at times groaning, shifting spaces. This perspective gestures towards the crack as a moving space forced in to being through tensions arising from simultaneous acceptance of and resistance to both the hope of knowledge and the sublime uncertainty of the never fully DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-3

Writing and text as a response  21

known. In such shifting tension-spaces we work with/through writing as always already constant thinking/becomings, and knowledge as a force; as an action of open thinking, as a flow, never a fixed position; always engaged in processes of re-authoring. And ultimately, we write to acknowledge, celebrate and live knowledge forced open. Uncertainty critical aspect of knowing

As knowledge practitioners, we have focused not on reaching positions of knowledge but rather on continually engaging with knowledge as forces of possibilities. Although we come to the task of writing this book as two experienced academics, there are so many ways of knowing of which we are ignorant, about which we are yet to know, so we argue that we could never legitimately call ourselves knowledge academics/scholars if we are not always open to possibility thinking – thinking that forces open our approaches to knowledge … opening up our work to otherwise thinking, thinking that is always uncertain and always ready to embrace this uncertainty. As we undertake this book-writing task and share the focus of our book with colleagues, friends, neighbours, family, we have been delighted by the responses and insights we have gathered from these responses. When sharing with others our focus on what it means to think deeply in the knowledge/ learning/research processes, we have heard story after story of how people have drawn on their experiences of learning and scholarship in reflective ways. Their responses demonstrate their capacity to broaden and deepen the ways in which they think, and more explicitly the ways in which they think about knowledge and what it means (and does not mean) to know; ultimately what learning can be; what deep knowledging can do. While these colloquial responses are inspiring and although for the most part they do not provide the content of this book, they do demonstrate to us the value of listening to stories, and the real possibility of classifying stories as knowledge. To start, we have one of our own stories. We use this story as a reflective knowledging of uncertainty and as a gesture to a place for uncertainty in/of/for our research work. Speaking out my uncertainty as an early career researcher

A story from Louise: I am aware that I have not always seen the value of uncertainty in research/knowledge work but reflecting on an experience over twenty years ago in my early PhD proposal presentation gives me a hint at the possible seeds of this awareness. In this presentation I was deliberate in my use of words and deliberate in my slowness of presentation. The words I choose to use and the way I used them served a particular purpose for me. I selected words to demonstrate that I was thinking through

22  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

particular knowledge concerns. I wanted my audience to know that my thinking was a fluid process: a process which I purposefully wanted to keep open and a process through which I wanted to work with my sense of uncertainty and hesitation. I saw my proposed research work as an opportunity to think, to think through concepts and concerns in which I was interested. To authentically think through ideas, I needed to accept uncertainty as an opportunity for possibility thinking; an openness to possibilities to come. Such uncertainty thinking, I saw as an evolving experience – or more precisely a relational, ever-evolving exchange … an exchange between myself and those I hoped to think with (I saw my fellow thinkers as: my research participants; my doctoral supervisors; my presentation audiences; my readers). But at the time of this presentation, I was not yet aware of the connections I would later make between uncertainty and knowledge. In presenting my words and thoughts, I deliberately worked to convey hesitation and openness to possibilities. I worked to keep open opportunities through the fluid cracks of my thinking always for new possibilities; new ways of seeing an issue. Some of my fellow doctoral students (and I suspect my supervisors) in the audience that day interpreted my hesitations and, seemingly, lack of speaking/presenting confidence as a flaw; a weakness that would need to be quickly, and confidently, resolved if I was to have a strong research proposal and any credibility as a serious researcher. In fact, one student approached me at the end of the day and, as he patted me on the back in what I considered a patronising way, offered words of ‘reassurance’ along the lines of “I felt so sorry for you in your presentation; you seemed so uncertain about your work, but I think you have some good ideas and I’m sure you will get it all sorted out soon”. I remember thinking at the time that this person had presented a research proposal that had ‘the beginning the middle and the end’ of his research all worked out from the outset. And, more precisely, I remember thinking ‘why would a person bother spending three years (or more!) of their lives researching something if they thought they already knew what they were going to find and/or think at the end of the process?’ This encounter stayed with me for a long time, and I found myself reflecting on the experience often. Looking back now, I wonder if this moment was a crack, a rupture, a shifting in my research ‘platform’ that eventually opened up for me the possibilities of re-thinking my expectations and assumptions about research/knowledge work. In many ways I believe this experience was a constructive disruption that contributed to shaping my subsequent approach to research practice, presentations and writing. From this experience and my encounter with a feeling of vulnerability that ensued, it may have been expected that I could feel intimidated and powerless. In fact, it was the opposite, from this experience there sparked a determination and a confidence to hold on to

Writing and text as a response  23

uncertainty as a critical element of my knowledge work: a freedom. Looking back, it was just an initial spark, but that was enough for a fire to blaze with a glow that would light the future direction of my research approach. Without this experience (or at least the spark and the blaze that followed), and the subsequent development of my approach to research and thinking, I possibly would not have reached the point of writing this book with my colleague Anne … so to some extent I wish I could recall the identity of ‘my consoling fellow student’ so I could in fact thank him! It is the very feelings of vulnerability and freedom that can come with uncertainty that give us the drive to force our thinking/research open; that open out a multiplicity of approaches to knowledge work in ways that resist a locked-in mindset. Our passion is for the constant becomingness of research: the excitement of the always-yet-to-be-known as we embrace and celebrate our knowledging worlds through practices of multi-versing. We do not do this with any tag of naivety. We are well aware of the importance and value of being well versed and engaged with the theories and science of knowledge. This has of course a place in research/knowledge work. But there are other valuable elements to bring along with us. We see a place for other ways of thinking about science – through philosophy and poetics. We are particularly focussed on thinking through what we can do with these other places for/of science, and what they can do for us as thinkers, researchers, knowledge workers. Other places for forcing knowledge open – multi-versing places. Multi-versing science and theories of knowledge

Venturing in to our thinking about knowledge using Louise’s experience of uncertainty in the story of her initial PhD proposal presentation, we look for ways to hold on to uncertainty and complexity that we consider essential in our knowledging work while also acknowledging the theories and science of knowledge: ontologies, epistemologies, teleologies, and axiologies. We can hold both together by locating ourselves in new places and spaces available through philosophy and poetics – opening us up to ontologies of freedom. But with most ‘holding together’ of seemingly opposites, there comes tensions – of course tensions can be productive, can even encourage the practice of creating dangerously. Keeping our minds soft (not stodgy or doughy) – while writing analytically with sharpness, thinking analytically with flexibility – always allowing for /making space for re-authoring. We write/theorise from different places/spaces, knowledging from different places/spaces: as a philosophy, inserting something new into our existence through poetics, allowing us to sit with complexity and uncertainty in our knowledging, giving another plane to the practice of critique. Poetics allows opening ontologies of freedom, of unease, of uncertainty; ontologies of indeterminacy (more to come in Chapter 3 and moving with this through the

24  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

whole book). Holding on to such places for thinking, while also realising that everything is value-driven (axiology) offers productive places for creating dangerously in our uncertainty; our unease – as a way to work with/in places and experiences of de-comfort (more on this to come in a later chapter). Epistemological theories of knowledge and learning can be moved from defined and conceptualised constrained constructions, to a fluid, de-centring acceptance of multiplicities and the im/possibilities that come with an acceptance of uncertainty in knowledge. Human becomingness and identity politics are de-centred and teleologically more than a performing and goal-driven entity – a re-authoring through multi-versed knowledging. Riddling the possibility of ‘other places’ in knowledge theory and science; the possibility of philosophy and poetics, to work with this riddling, we ask what such possibility thinking can do. What are the opportunities to force knowledge open in these other places/spaces – these multi-versed places and spaces? Uncertainty even as we write our text

We have previously written about words as slippery, deep, layered, sculptured and flowing: and in all this we see words as uncertain – beautifully, purposefully uncertain. Words are slippery, and their multiplicities of meaning and interpretations can give both writers and readers opportunities for possibility thinking that can flow rather than stagnate. They dig deep, they surface, they layer, they sculpt, flow, float and move along. It is wonderful writing to enable nothing but uncertain possibilities with which we both continue to create ways to think, speak and do. (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016, p. 86) We argue that uncertainty in knowledge work allows us the opportunity to do more with our thinking; to work more with and through possibility thinking, and, as such, force knowledge open. It is the enabling of possibility thinking through writing that challenges us to be otherwise than the limitations of our assumed knowledges – to re-author our thinking/our selves. As suggested by Foucault (1986), we write to be other than what we are; and to take this further … we want to think in ways that will take us beyond what we thought we knew, to stand outside ourselves as writers/readers/thinkers/ researchers/ academics. With our previous work winking at us, throughout this book we notion that words/concepts have to be put-to-work to work. To keep this in mind for us (the writers) and you (the readers), we deliberately riddle with words; messing up our thinking. How we use words, or more precisely how words use us as we write, leaves us dissatisfied with consistency in our use of words. As we

Writing and text as a response  25

engaged in the exercise of writing this book, we found ourselves intentionally mixing up our use of particular words. We did this messing with words not to show any arrogant exhibition of creative terminology nor some imaginative yet abstruse use of language (nor to create a reviewing/editing challenge!). We did this as a way of messing up/with our struggles with knowledge actioning and to reflect our challenge to ourselves to both resist and sit with/in the complexities of knowledge. We do this because of our fear that engagement with knowledging in and through writing action can be so easily reduced when the emphasis is placed on ‘sharpening the writing’ – simplifying beyond necessity the complexities of our grappling. As a response to this fear of reductionism, we wanted to consciously riddle our knowledge ‘actioning’ words throughout our text as a way to constantly keep our thinking agile, always pivoting, never fixed or stagnant. We keep our use of words loose to give you the reader a place in the process of thinking with the language of this book. And so, as we move through this uncertain writing/read adventure we write out and fade out a list of words and ask you to write in and take up your engagement with these words, to riddle your own use of language in the knowledging processes of this book. Glossary of/for riddling/pausing/flowing words and language with wings (with a nod to Pip Williams [2020], The dictionary of lost words.)

• Riddling: we riddle words to shift and shake-up our thinking; sometimes it

•

• •

•

takes us back and forth, and at times we feel it takes us in multiple directions at once. Our riddling offers a sensation of powerful uncertainty and joyful freedom in our thinking and our multi-versing knowledging. Multi-versing: we actionalise the notion of multi-verse (as we do with many words). We are not interested here with the concept of a multiverse. Rather we shake-up, shift, riddle with – to move with a notion of many (multi) ways of writing our/your thinking/philosophising with a nod to poetics (verse): thus, multi-versing. Knowledging: putting coinciding practices and processes of knowledge to work; to disperse and make actionable the multiplicities of what it can mean to know. De-comfort: our use of this term does not imply any necessity to experience discomfort but rather it is used as a way to encourage a stepping back/ away from ‘comfort zones’ that can be created/experienced when we rely on unchallenged, normative assumptions in our knowledging: acknowledging and working the possibilities that come with uncertainty; an agentic force, not a paralysing malady. Re-authoring: practices of continual becoming, and in this continuality always thinking, doing, becoming ‘other’. Re-authoring is writing inside

26  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

out of fugitive moves and emergent practices, working against normalising forces that tend to control and reduce the potential of affective and contextual becoming, learning and change. Beyonding: is the celebration of alterations of the constitution and con• struction of major perspectives and exceeds the major without leaving it behind, revealing however the limits of the major as it is transformed along with the minor. • Minoring: is about changing the power, position, and function of language, and recognising that subjectivities, spatialities, temporalities are embodied, situated, and fluid. Minoring demands that we analyse terms and images down to the affective level to understand their impact and intentionality. As two experienced academics, we engage in acts/art of writing as research/ academic work which are continual enactments of purposeful indeterminacy. That is, research as a constant flow, re-opening of our thinking rather than an expectation of a fixed understanding of things or a discovery of something. This approach to research involves a resistance to, and often a shift away from, methodologies in research/academic work which are hermeneutic in their practice. Such a resistance or shift stirs the embers of knowledge and ways of knowing driven by possibility thinking; constantly becoming in their processes and purpose. Inviting such possibility thinking opens up knowledge and the opportunities for a continual flow of knowing rather being locked-in by a fixed point of ‘is-ness’ driven by the expectations of certainty, and the privileging of the value of such certainty. Knowledge, at-work in this becoming way, allows conditions for writing as a practice of becomingness; as both poetic and politic; enabling, through writing, an ethology of the knowledge academies as micro political spaces. These micro political spaces of knowledges are always, and must be, slippery spaces; spaces working with, and always also working towards, the fluid, uncertain processes of diffractive knowledge possibility – fugitive futures (more on this in a later chapter). Contemplating the notion of writing as both political and poetic intra-actions with knowledge enables a gesturing towards writing and knowledge as relational endeavours. The relational aspect of knowledge and writing brings with it tensions as the diverse elements of any relationship are brought together and held together. As with all relational work, writing-knowledges work is never smooth, neat or certain. To credit the relational capacity of writing in knowledge work, we celebrate the messy uncertainty of academia through writing/research. We work as a way to both compress and open out the thinking that can come from such knowledge acts with/in/from poetic rhythms. Allowing a poetic writing-flow to hold in relational tension the seemingly opposites of acceptance and resistance. We write with/from acceptance, we write with/from resistance. From this relational tension springs a flexibility, an entanglement in

Writing and text as a response  27

writing and being-ness that enables knowledge, in its fundamental relational context, to flow always towards the yet-to-be known. To take this further, we suggest that writing can be equated to a thoughtful, considerate travelling companion (Jach, 2021), whose companionship and relational interactions enables you to reflect back on yourself as you traverse to yet-to-be known worlds/selves. In this way when we think of writing we take up more than just the conventions of writing; and to go further, we think of writing as an intervention, and yet it is more than that. It is not just an intervention where one person’s thoughts/thinking/becoming can be imposed on others – but we wish to take up the notion of collaborative interventions. That is, interventions where the focus is on writing as collaborations; where thinking and the actions of becoming knowledges are shared/multi-directional processes. In this way we gesture towards a presentation of processes which engage with/in knowledge as an uncertain brokerage; as an active, never fixed force. Text as space for entanglements of knowledge: writing as doing philosophy

We think of text as spaces for entanglements of knowledge – as we have argued, knowledge not as certainty but as possible responses to the complexities of uncertainty – that is, doing philosophy and writing as the act/art of engaging in/with thinking through these entanglements. We position texts/ stories/narratives as thinking data when we work research practices with critical posthumanist perspectives. Through engaging in/with thinking between writer and reader, data can be developed: thinking data; possibility thinking data. This thinking/research work we perceive as dataphilosophical ethnographic engagements between writers/readers/texts. Taking up this approach to research, we work in and through messy entanglements of continual, always already constant thinking/becomings through the act/art of writing. For us critical questions in working these entanglements are: what ‘messy possibilities’ have been enabled and what have been constrained in the various approaches to research? And how do/can we open up messy possibility thinking through writing? There can be no pre-conceived structure to these messy entanglements and no preconceived approach to working through these entanglements. And to be clear, such questions confirm for us the notion that research is always embedded in and driven through philosophy. Writing gives space and opportunities for the philosophical in research work. And to apply this approach to knowledge work, we consider how the acts/art of writing provide spaces to work with and through the entanglements of knowledge policies and learning practices. This writing work also provides opportunities to perceive these entanglements, and the very work that can be done with and through these entanglements, as philosophical. That is, for us writing is doing philosophy. And to take this thinking further, we engage with a number of

28  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

contexts within this book and, as we do this, we work to unpack and resist assumptions that, in research, ‘uncertainty’ equates to confusion/lack of confidence in yourself and your thinking. We write and think as academics secure, and yet not, in our uncertainty; confident, and yet not, that our experiences of doubt are opportunities to spring with flexibility from the tension of holding together seemingly opposites; to know other and to write/research in/to places other/wise. To be clear, our key focus is that philosophical work can never be static and can never be undertaken in isolation. Rather than creating isolation and fear of the unknown, uncertainty makes available and opens up opportunities for knowledge connections and collaborations (if we allow it). Working/writing from a place of uncertainty allows us, as researchers, to open our thinking out and open ourselves up to the contributions of others and other thinking: other/wise thinking. Uncertainty enables both strength and vulnerability in our research work. The holding together of these seemingly opposite experiences (strength and vulnerability) allows for a moving away from the processes and practices of academic work which emphasise the consolidation of positions and shoring-up defences as researchers argue particular cases. More valuable, as we see it, is the move towards more resilient spaces where knowledges and ways of knowing are always in an act of being forced open; forced open and opened up to others and thinking otherwise. This forcing open of thinking/ideas/knowledge we see as the important work of academia. Key to any such forcing opening of knowledge brokering is the recognition and sustainability of the critical component of relational exchange in knowledge work. As we work with and for knowledges, we see the spaces of and opportunities for exchange between writer/reader as adding breadth and depth in our thinking; as a movement towards knowledges as possibilities, not positions; a spiralling expanse of thought. We have previously authored work focussed on writing and specifically educational leadership (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016). In this work we also wrote about the pivotal notion of shared authority in our writing – an authority shared with our audience/readers. We take up this idea once more but in a more generalised consideration of writing as a continual becomingness of knowledge and exchange between writer and reader. In this way we see readers as co-authors of the knowledge/thinking that comes from our written texts. Because we see knowledge as a shared exchange process when we write we do so with the hope/anticipation of responses from readers. We see such responses as a critical component of knowledge; the relational component of knowledge. … In and through such responses knowledge is conceptualised as a fluid future, focus; a constant becoming. But we would never want to work with any arrogant assumption or sure expectation that there will be any response to particular elements of our writing. … This adds to the uncertainty of what we do when we work/write in knowledge spaces. As writers, as academics, as thinkers, we entangle ourselves/our thinking/our research with the

Writing and text as a response  29

future through the possibility and uncertainty of such/any/no responses from readers, and the opportunities and challenges such entanglements invite to always be forcing open our thinking, our ideas, our knowledge. For us the relational nature of writing presents the act of writing as also and always as an ethical encounter, in which we see the key to ethics being respect for and acknowledgement of the other in any authentic relationship. Drawing on the work of Levinas, I have previously argued that a key element of an “ethics of encounter is responsibility to and for the other being faced” in a relationship and that “such an approach to ethics denies the possibility of an independent, autonomous self and places a focus on acts of interdependence” (Thomas, 2009, p. 45). And to take this further, “relational ethics requires an engagement in processes of relating that are not focussed on attempts to make the ‘other’ more like ‘self’” (Thomas, 2009, p. 45). It is in this way that we present the writing act as an act of ethics; there is a responsibility to the other and a focus on the act of writing as an interdependence between writer and reader: intra-actions. As writers, we intend not to make the reader think like us but rather to spark the possibility of thinking other in a continual process of becoming. As such we present ethics as a continual process of becoming that necessitates spaces (through the writing and reading process) for continual construction, deconstruction and reconstruction of thinking and knowledge work. For us the act of writing can be worked as such a space; a shared space in which thinking can happen as a continual becoming process. To think of this as ethics is to give emphasis to possibilities of continuality of thinking/knowledge/knowing rather than the risk of fixed-ness of thoughts/ideas/positions. To take our ethic of writing theme further, we suggest that the ethics of writing is both relationally political and personally poetic. To enable a deep and purposeful knowledge process, thinking engagements can be thought of as both poetically personal and political; and to unpack this further this engagement also requires multi-directional flowing movement across elements of intimate and civic; vulnerable and strong; local and global. … With this, we think of our writings as poetic/political – process ontological “thinking territories” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a, p. 45). Writing eroding, sculpturing, possibilising every/anything always: poetry and politics becoming an ethics of constantly building in perhaps-ness, and never ‘is-ness’, in every word. Writing with and through vulnerabilities, relationships, and emotions – all of which require an acceptance of uncertainty. A shift away from the traditional/privileged mantra of ‘knowledge is power/power is knowledge’ can be realised through a move towards a more authentic experience of knowledge through vulnerability and the power of imperfection. It is our unique cracks/imperfections that give us opportunities for unique beauty and knowledge as possibilities, not fixed positions – when forced through the imperfection of shifting cracks in our thinking; where thinking is seen as a continual living flow on a simmering fault line, the moving crack of knowledge.

30  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

We will pause here for a story – there should always be time for a story (and this story helps to make our point). Later we will introduce you to a brilliant young story creator, Mackenzie Berry, who tells us: “It is all about the story!” But for now, an abridged (and slightly, respectfully modified) version of the Chinese fable: “The cracked pot”. For two years an elderly (wise and experienced) woman daily carried two clay water pots on a pole balanced across her shoulders to the village water well. She filled the pots with water and returned to her home, providing water for the household. Each day one pot was full of water when she reached her home and one pot was always half empty because it had a crack across its base. Over the years the cracked pot became increasingly despondent as it felt it was not fulfilling its purpose and was not achieving a full contribution to the needs of the household. Eventually the cracked pot spoke to the pot-balancing woman about its sense of not meeting the required outcomes for a water pot and not matching the water carrying standards of its fellow pot. The wise old woman responded not with a standardised check of the comparative water carrying capabilities of each pot, nor with an inclusive learning plan for how the ‘cracked pot’ would be more effectively included in the water carrying to enable the same water carrying capacity as the other pot. The woman picked up the cracked pot and they walked together along the path to the water well. Along the way the woman pointed out the beautiful garden beds of lush, flowering plants on one side of the path. “These” the woman said “are the outcomes of the water you provide daily as we return to the house from the water well. Without the purposeful and effective crack across your base I would not have beautiful flowers to pick for the tables in our home”. The cracked pot was filled with a sense of fulfilment (and the crack expanded with joy!). It is our unique cracks/imperfections that give us opportunities for unique beauty and knowledge as possibilities, not fixed positions – when forced through the imperfection of shifting cracks in our thinking; where thinking is seen as a continual living flow on a simmering fault line, the moving crack of knowledge. Text as living spaces for the entanglement of knowledge processes

But words are just words – it is what we do with them and what they do with us that matters – how we craft them through the act/art of writing to create text/stories/becoming relational exchanges of ideas – to inspire, challenge, stretch and crack open our thinking – this is knowledge forced open. The crafting/texting of words can allow/enable our work to be at once both personally poetic and purposefully political.

Writing and text as a response  31

Central in our writing work is a desire to expand and increase the depth of our analytical thinking practices. We enact this desire as we write about knowledge processes and practices that work to resist normative pedagogies and ways of knowing. As we write we try to both make sense/non-sense and resist limitations that can flow from any imposed expectations of sense-making. We hold these experiences in tension as we construct/deconstruct/reconstruct our separate but shared knowledges. That is, we disrupt and connect “with our separate and together thinking and wonderings” (MacLure, 2013, p. 660): our separate but shared writing. Always expanding possibility thinking, thus increasing and deepening our thinking: broadening our theorising and analytical awareness about our own agendas, our own ideologically laden words. We see this action as critical to academic responsibility and ethics, and as such, we take onboard the material consequences of our constructed, and ever-changing knowledges and work with what Barad refers to as an ethic of knowing (cited in Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) – a response-ability as key to our analytical thinking practice. Writing, for us, is tentatively a method for democratisation of both research and knowledge brokering. As such writing, as we make and share text, can allow/invite more voices to speak, and can allow for/invite into a more democratic listening; an exchange between self and other – a multiplicity of response-abilities in knowledge work. Taking such a democratic approach through the act of writing, to share and exchange possibility thinking (not positions), presents both research and knowledge as future focussed flows, and written text as becoming “agentical – realists – realism/s” (Barad, 2007, pp. 133–185). We see this as becoming knowledge practices which assign agency to words and writing. Writing positioned as an embodiment of language, as always shifting, never fixed knowledge: language thus words/thus writing/thus language. In this way, language/writing/text-ing has the ability to invite always continual responses and can be at once personal and political; ethical and at a local level. We resist any notion of writing as static embodiment of knowledge construction, and argue for writing as fluid multiexchanges that are constantly becoming and never fixed; thinking always working through fluid words and language. Thinking surrounded by and surrendering to movement – personal and political – language words take on/up a different expression – a poetic flow. Words through writing and text-ing can engage in a continual flow of construct, deconstruct, reconstruct, and co-construct. They can produce, reproduce, and co-produce. Slippery, sliding words write constructions and productions of knowledges: constructions and productions of knowledges, which are always already fluid, floating, deep, superficial, layered, and segmented. The act/art of writing is a constant and fluid exchange to construct, produce, reconstruct, reproduce, and co-construct knowledges in ways that are never fixed but always flowing. Key to our thinking about the flow of

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writing practices is that it is relational work, and it is through the relational exchange and multidirectional flow of writing/reading/thinking that knowledge is sculptured in fluid, ever continual formations. And to be clear we see this work as enabling an ontological approach which allows thinking movements across the domains of both personal and political. Such movement is enabled through the act/art of writing informed, and fluidly shaped, by ontologies of exchange: relational ontologies. Knowledge seen as relational exchanges and writing which allows/invites both the writer and the reader to participate in knowledge processes are born from relational exchanges conceptualised through honesty, openness, vulnerability, pain, joy, hope … key for us is writing with/for/in hope. What can ‘hope’ do? What can we do with ‘hope’? It gives us opportunities to think, speak, do knowledge otherwise; as a continual, never finished process. So, what have we done with our conceptualisation of writing with hope? To take us back briefly, we concluded our previous book with a poem that compressed our words, our thoughts but also presented future opportunities to reconstitute thinking presented through this poem into a continuing flow of thinking on knowledge, what knowledge can do, and the role of writing in this process: Focusing, as we do, on potentialities of writing, this is a collection of words, an entanglement of stories, a poem and a book about decentred knowledges and polycritical knowledge sharing: questioning with/in a democratic ontology of knowledge. Speaking against fear. Speaking against clarity. Speaking against power. Speaking against bias. Speaking against giving up. Speaking for courage. Speaking for uncertainty. Speaking for power. Speaking for acceptance. Speaking for hope. (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2019, pp. 198–199) The work we do in such a democratic ontology is to force open knowledge work such that we can write with/for/as contingencies, deviations, contradictions and reversals, hesitations, tensions, and harmonies – always new possibilities of thinking otherwise. Ultimately we wished to leave our previous book with hope in and for knowledge futures; a hope in and for writing where words can be put to work as democratic ontologies of knowledge.

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When words are put to work as writing, they are turned into tools and/or methods for using ourselves as thinkers and questioners, and knowledge brokers. Sliding doubts and questions into the material; into words (the matter of language: words) is our strategic task, thus we write to respond; to force open knowledge in ways that create opportunities for deeper thinking, sharper questions that allow for an acceptance of the uncertainty and constant becomingness in knowledge. When writing is thought of as a becoming process it is possible to consider writing as a research methodology that values uncertainty. As we have argued previously “The aim in using writing in this way is not finding truth in this knowledge and knowing, but being in analytic, fluid and creative processes of writing: opening up for multiplicities, complexities … and possibilities” (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016, p. 87). This then has implications for how/why/what of research, and the policies and practices of knowledge exchange – that is, education systems, institutions, and pedagogies, through the minoring of policies. (More of this in later chapters.) We work with writing not so much focussed on the conventions of writing but with a focus on the possible collaborative interventions/intra-ventions (inter/intra-ventions both as acknowledgements and resistances) made available through writing. The type of writing we find ourselves easing into is writing with and through unease; an acceptance of unease as a multitude of possibilities in and with our thinking. This way of writing our thinking enables us to resist any (even/mostly our own) expectations of finding/wanting certainty in this thinking – because in the end this is not what we want. We think of writing as more than just the conventions of written language, and we engage, through our writing work, to rethink functions of language. We write to push ourselves beyond expectations of certainty in our thinking and our research work. We write with writing seen as an intervention: an intervention which can make available, or, more precisely, can invite possibility thinking; we see writing as agency. Writing agency – to give ourselves opportunities to think other; to see possibilities; to remind ourselves that this is what we want. Writing agency is an intervention/an opportunity to constantly rethink how we have been configured in and by the world, and how we multiply configure our worlds – present and future. As such, we see writing as an opportunity to reconfigure our own engagement in and with the world. Again, to be more precise, we write to take ourselves beyond ourselves. And so, we see our work as writing unease to be beyonded. We take this thinking with us as we write on in Chapter 3, riddling new twists and turns with governance and freedom in our academic games and knowledgings.

3 ONTOLOGIES OF INDETERMINACY AND FREEDOM

Going back to the beginning of this book; ‘noology’ as a theory and theme to think with instead of risking anyone else thinking for us, and ‘ethology’ as the study of the ‘capacities for affecting and being affected’, this chapter is about nulling or minoring the concept of governance through affect – every concept that is, and taking “thought seriously” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a, p. 415). Governance, inclusion, and knowledge … all concepts to be reworked, being in essence labour and a force, productive and actualisable through usage only, an affirmative vital force. Every concept is turned into a philosophical concept and method possibilising its own liberation between algorithms and heuristics, the analogue and the virtual. The studies of governance, inclusion, and knowledge as studies of de-linear, de-hierarchical studies of coinciding processes, relations of speed and slowness, studies of queered chrononormativity. Or as Camus (2018) puts it: “The contention was that we needed justice first and that we would come to freedom later on, as if slaves could ever hope to achieve justice” (p. 45). We move beyond intentions and representations, linear processes of pre-defined starting points, pure absorption, and predetermined ends, and promote cluttered clashes and messy encounters. And, with reference to our dance and choreography in Chapter 1, the concept of governance is opened to associations, lines, arrows, circles, and points that emerge from everywhere adding fugitive inscriptions to our thinking – on screens and papers – surfaces that act as canvasses for imagery and anticipations even with ephemeral materials like affects, words, thoughts, hopes, dreams, and wishes. The inscriptions of governance that take shape are simultaneously confronting and stimulating in the processes of grasping for knowledge and learning as we are trying to make sense of what we witness in our educational institutions and the world. The processes of minoring turns translation and application of DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-4

Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom  35

policies into a thinking with the ideals of, for example, governance and inclusion, justice, and freedom; not taking any ideal literally, definition final, for granted, already thought through. Rather, taking the ideal down from the pedestal and affectively putting it to work in situ, producing importance – not certainty – for those concerned: students, academics, all species, and agencies; subjects and objects. Thus, allowing studies of the inter-intra relational complexities as assemblages of knowledging. And further, taking education and research practices far beyond the compartmentalised of the present regimes that simply add another layer to the existing ones. All concepts being qualified as minor, we speak of minor policies and work with/in ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom, showing how important an affective “language of events” (Deleuze, 2004, p. 5) is for knowledging. Knowledging hence as a constant re-authoring or flowing redesign of the design process itself through minoring all concepts to make them work and hold their spaces every time they are put to work. Governance and inclusion, justice and freedom as coinciding processes of indeterminacy forcing knowledge open enabling a continual attention to future proofing. Ontologies of indeterminacy thus concerning engagement in multiplicity, a multiplicity beyond the individual, before the person and containing zones of friction or swirling organisations that produce the positive as the absence of negative, the right as the absence of wrong; the limitations of human knowability. Also referring to Chapter 2 about writing to be beyonded and multi-versing, the transformative potential of poetry, noology, and ethology become research – and education – of the senses by exploring the faculties of perception beyond and above the data of sense impressions. (More on this in Chapter 5.) To underline however: to value affect, ontological openness and freedom challenge any mediating models, languages and discourses that are used to mobilize and strengthen existing forms of knowledge creation, forms of languages and valuation that tend to privilege those modes and discourses already in existence. Modes too often seeped in colonising epistemologies and the identity practices that colonialism breeds, including how academia values the stance of objectivity and distance. The language of events therefore being the only ideal. Eros is desire wings is life The promise of precision education governance

A move from management to governance in HE can be seen to promise more just and inclusive learning rich possibilities individually and collectively, transdisciplinary collaboration, knowledge brokering and networking; a move from the idea and policies of management and inspection to possibly

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only management – or more precisely, the idea of participatory management and precision education governance (PEG). Intended, desired, policies do create implications for educational institutions, and the idea and ideal of good governance emphasises inclusion, democracy, voice, rights, politics, policy, and decision-making: hence emphasising knowledge creation and every individual’s learning potential and mental health facilitated, governed, and cared for. Considering such major ideas – and subsequent, so-called, value/research–based or knowledge-informed public policies and the current technical possibilities for designing precision education through the usage of digital platforms and artificial intelligence, and in combination with knowledge from the behavioural and life sciences, endless network possibilities, tailored programs, individual learning trajectories – freedom, knowledge, and learning seem to be there just waiting for each and every one of us. (This chapter is concentrated on governance. We elaborate on digitalisation in Chapter 6. But as you will experience when you read the across the chapters, the two concepts intersect. They are clusters of complexities separately and combined, multiplicities encountering other multiplicities.) The idea, concept, and promises of governance and digitalisation are intriguing, seemingly democratic and followed up by guidelines and objectives to make education safe, strong, predictable, and risk-free (https://www. udir.no/in-english/). Given this, letting go of the idea of governance – and the hope of future-proofing educational institutions and future-proofing education might seem rather defensive, indeterminacy possibly counterproductive. Nevertheless, this ‘letting go’ is what this chapter is about. Not with an intention of throwing the idea of governance away as such, but to put it to work through minoring. Minoring ultimately being about changing the power, position, and function of language – hence a re-authoring of the idea and concept of governance, through affect. Instead of language having an ascertaining and defining position and function, every concept, word, and linguistic expression is linked to experiences in materiality, events in situ. This means that a concept or word is not only its defined meaning, but a sound or feature that can trigger vibrations and associations, begin to live, and create rippling – here riddling effects. This further implies an increase in value of, and attention to, so-called sublime or “weak signals” and sensations in processes. Or put another way, minoring breathes life into abstractions and opens opportunities to approach governance and knowledge processes (knowledging) through less tangible aspects and embodied processes of change and learning. Becoming materially identifiable subjects for one another, a constitution of subjectivity producing some sort of agency. Deleuze and Guattari (1994) write: The concept is a form or a force; in no possible sense is it ever a function. In short there are only philosophical concepts on the plane of immanence, and scientific functions or logical propositions are not concepts. (p. 144)

Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom  37

The implication of such a subtle and indirect stance (and hopefully sensed throughout the book) is to dare, trust, and have patience to create newness as in dangerous something that matters and is important for participants; to dare, trust, and have patience to take paths you have not taken or walked before. This is linked to the question we asked in the introduction about to what extent freedom is at risk of being side-lined and the bodies of academics dociled in a push towards governance and performativity in the spaces of co-opted knowledge? Such dangerous newness turns importance into justice: adequacy in action building up a sense of self-integrity and agency as learners. Freedom simultaneously as that of propelling out of comfort zones: to de-comfort. Not through an inward focus but through the force to engage externally, and agency to re-author oneself. Looking more for constant becomings than for who I currently am. (More on minor politics of language below.) We argue that, as researchers and educators, and explicitly as research designers, we should be careful with major ideas and ideals, what is designed and what is that to which we adapt and risk taking for granted. At least, we suggest, it is important to think on different temporal scales when undertaking research design: “A plastic bag isn’t just for humans. It is for seagulls to choke on, … A Styrofoam cup isn’t just for coffee, it is for slowly being digested by soil bacteria for five hundred years” (Morton, 2021, p. 63). If taken for granted, inclusion can exclude; participation can turn into formalised activities, only and even forced ones; PEG can turn into enslavement of bodies and minds. Despite a rhetoric of individuality, freedom and democracy, knowledge is under pressure, and we see tendencies of instrumentalism and reductionism – exclusive instead of inclusive – knowledge processes. As far as academia is concerned – of which we are active and responsible contributors – many of the analyses are so weak theoretically that educators and researchers risk being put to the side or being side-lined by others. Our concern is the sense that academia and academics seem not to be afforded or allowed sufficient opportunity to take on/up, work with, rather than just within, the complexities of the institutional systems, structures, organisations. Nor do there seem opportunities to speak to the power at work in knowledge institutions that undermine any opportunity for freedom and democracy in knowledge work. In our experience, neither do academics use – or are they allowed to use – perspectives from their own professional expertise in ways that give value to qualified opinions about power and use of power, and even more so any ability to speak to freedom and knowledging is restricted. Knowledge perspectives are, in this way, eroded from within, and academia becomes weak theoretically because complex knowledges and knowledges about complexities are not sufficiently valued in governed and standardised compartmentalised systems. Through this academia and education are slowly, and in subliminal ways, turned into an imitation game, de facto excluding instead of including knowledges. Consequently, and often irreversibly, excluding those

38  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

taking part in the ‘game of education’ who have knowledges that do not fit into the system. Additionally, knowledge becomes subjected to competition which, again, can lead to the opposite of what we wanted in the first place. Taken-for-granted notions of competition as positive and spurring motivation for newness do not apply. Rather, competition very often turns into types of self-governance and self-censuring and de facto knowledge loss, hence why forcing knowledge open is so pivotal. Governance requires a reconsideration of theoretical and methodological concepts, strategies, and research practices in HE for knowledge creation, and subsequently the application of knowledge, working to improve insight in and creative responses to individual as well as collaborative knowledging practices. We need to analyse the larger ramifications of governance and digitalisation so to speak and take a closer look at what governance and digitalisation are doing, what they are doing to knowledge and academia, what it is potentially doing to knowledging. And again: this is not a theoretical stance or policy against governance, digitalisation, marked forces and standardisation as such, but a stance and policy for serious complexity thinking and multi-versing. Forcing knowledge open through affect and minor language policies, agency as a force to write and re-author knowledge. We advocate for a new constitution of “futureproofing” education for freedom as a kind of speculative futurality and writing, opening unconditional indeterminacy, never decaying to nothing. Forcing knowledge open, knowing that inclusion, participation, and justice depend, in part, on freedom. Writing and multi-versing is not unbiased. Its powers, as in freedom, lie in asking about the values we build on and coming to terms with values we want: the power and freedom in asking what value paradigms we are heading against (Reinertsen et al., 2022). And following through from the early extract from Camus (2018): – “freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and the union of all” (p. 54). I guess I am my own best example, Anne says: Who would like to work in education if life is gone from our professions? I was workshopping with a group of Early Childhood Centre (ECC) leaders about inclusive leadership practices. We talked about skills and competences involved and how important it was to employ the right type of pedagogues and teachers. Warm-heartedness over grades and practical skills over theory came up repeatedly. The leaders then engaged in a discussion about recruitment policies and what they did to ensure that they got the right persons. It was hard because all ECC’s were competing to recruit the same people. I asked myself: Do I know what inclusion is? Is there a definition working for all and everywhere? How effective is a definition? Is it? Are we building exclusion into our leadership policies here? How do I evaluate

Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom  39

warm-heartedness; can it be seen, heard, smelled, or sensed in any way? Does warmth materialize? Can warmth be defined? Why put practice over theory? What happens to knowledge if we recruit likeminded teachers? How do we become learners and build learning organizations or learning ECCs if we foster and promote sameness? What is this freedom to be won every day and learning? (Fieldnotes, 28 January 2022)

Ideological majority dangers of governance

Any idea, ideal, system, design, concept, policy or technology can end up as self-reinforcing mechanisms, sucking out all life forms if we find ourselves inside them and unable to move out. The intimate and the political are separated, and we risk losing knowledge due to reductive and instrumentalist forces. The warmth we all want evaporates and reduces professionalism to following routines and accountability. Life and death, feelings and affects are out of the equation. Cognition and cognitive social-constructivist factors in knowledge creation are dominant. Sadly, this is often thought of as progress. One might wonder if mental ill-health is produced this way: too little attention given to the right to a sensual childhood, life, and education. If deprived of warmth, education, governance, research, and science risk ending up as their own system. Minority views, therefore, failing to get the hearing that they need and deserve to produce knowledges that are more in tune with articulations of the world; and research denied the chance to be presented as processes accommodating freedom, inclusive and justice-oriented fugitive futures – freedom as that possession to be won every day. Katariina Mertanen, Saara Vainio and Kristiina Brunila (2022) bring three separately studied lines of precision education governance (PEG) together. The PEG lines they studied being (i) global governance of education, (ii) marketisation, privatisation and digitalisation, and (iii) behavioural and life sciences as the basis for managing the future of education (p. 73). In bringing these three lines together, they show how these lines shape the aims and outcomes of education, knowledge and understanding of human subjectivity. Their focus is how, ultimately, such governance practices lead to a de-politisation and de-contextualisation of education, continually shaping and reinforcing the practices from within, leaving those involved in education as vulnerable to manipulation as ever before. And, in accordance with our fears articulated throughout this book, of establishing and facilitating exclusive instead of inclusive knowledging possibilities and freedoms. According to Mertanen, Vainio and Brunila (2022), the first line calls for ‘objective’ and ‘evidence-based’ knowledge in policy making, hence requiring

40  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

continuous maintenance, choices, standardisation, and quantification of complex phenomena to become ‘objective’ (p.735). The second line provides particular infrastructure of data analysis, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI). Data, ultimately, harvested on ourselves and personalised, hence going handin-hand with current identity policies of education (p. 734). Further, and based on this rationalisation and validation of data production and identity policies, the third line turns the purpose of education into practices of helping or releasing its targets – children, pupils, students, workers, any individual or subject – from emotional and behavioural burdens so to speak, and help with and guide the means for how the life and the self should be actualised and obtained towards optimising the potentials for a life in learning: When looking at the ways in which education is seen as a lucrative business opportunity for big tech companies and EdTech businesses, it is obvious that both students and teachers are seen as a resource, and the information collected on them is at the centre of the focus. Education is not only a new, promising market segment, but with a sleight of hand dressed in philanthropy, it also become the source of data as raw material and governable future clients and customers. (Mertanen, Vainio & Brunila, 2022, p. 739) Being careful, these precision education governance lines and subsequent majority politics make up an almost impenetrable, unassailable assemblage of traditional, linear, positivist, result-oriented and solution-oriented conceptions of governance, pushing for value-neutrality, evidence – as personalised based methodologies (read technology) and reductionism scientifically and educationally; convincingly modern, systematic, institutionalised, hence inevitable, and practically impossible not to adapt to, hence rather immune to change. Nothing is, however, value-free or neutral, and students and academics alike witness aggressive impositions unmistakably political and ideological, on sciences and research, on education and educational institutions. These are impositions of a misleading, alienating and flawed idea and ideology of high-tech utopias and the cognitive rescue operation of learning, ultimately humankind “thanks to connecting all knowledge in the global hypertext” (Garcés, 2022, p. 84). And – in view of the opaqueness of the majority policies, practices and realities – ultimately, premised on an “ethos of quietism … all in compliance with the market-driven, managerial interests” (Stetsenko, 2020, p. 727). PEG through simultaneously convincing and hard-tooppose arguments and solutions turned into a powerful machine consolidating its own forces day by day, a lack of warmth. … Or as Garcés (2022) argues, being wise for academics to engage in to make a difference: “We need to find our own fight against the credulities of our time. Our present lack of power has a name: Enlightened illiteracy. We know all, but cannot do

Ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom  41

anything” (p. 21, author’s own translation). The idea of governance, in general, the idea of PEG, specifically, ultimately showing the blind spots and limits of our collective intentionality and knowing, and in danger of creating a deprived, paralysed, and isolated type of individualism; paralysed, seemingly uninterested, and vulnerable even to disease. On the other hand, however, possibilising tyranny. Arguing for a new constitution of knowledge in the market and megatrends of globalisation and digitalisation implies a shift and urge to remake or rather minor our theoretical, conceptual, technological, and political mentality. And through this, giving future-proofing educational institutions and future-proofing education a new meaning. A meaning focussed on securing freedom to philosophise, speculate, and explore: stretching and lingering longer so that philosophising and thinking develop texture and depth. A speculative philosophy and futurality of openings and knowledging and that are part of everyday life. Or as Braidotti (2018) has beautifully put it: We need to learn to think differently about our own limits, and on the cultural, ideological and technical closures of our times. Recasting subjectivity is a way of actualizing the positive scenarios that lie in store in the transformations we are currently experiencing. (p. 46) The argument we present here, is eventually an indirect questioning of “scientism” and the influence of the “predictive sciences” in education and educational research. Not to lose knowledge and perhaps persistence itself, and whatever it is that flows in change, creating states, scales, and processes. Temporal scales as multi-versing, space scales, and knowledge scaling. Grosz (2004) writes: We need to return knowledge to the stream of life from which it is drawn, which means producing knowledges that are somehow more in tune with the real articulations of the world, its real differences, its qualitative intensities, knowledges that are capable of making themselves particular to suit their objects, (knowledges in which “no quality, no aspect of the real would be substituted for the rest ostensibly to explain it” (p. 194), knowledges that are able to accommodate duration, change, and transformation. (p. 194) Knowledging as a prerequisite for possibilising inclusion, Knowledging avoiding the tyranny of sameness, Knowledging to make PEG other than a reductionist and instrumentalist machinery directly and indirectly detecting failure, Knowledging as a machinic instrument for activist live agents.

42  Theoretical and philosophical groundwork

At this point, a thorough theoretical background story is timely. But first; Anne is not the only example of a professional who does not know what inclusion is but goes on minoring: What I … think a lot about is my own experiences and feelings related to inclusion and exclusion. Perhaps that’s why I’m touched, engaged and … motivated. (Letter from participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022) Minor politics, language of events and only ideal

When including affective aspects in language, every concept is seen to contain friction zones. In every concept there are exterior multiplicities of conscious ordering, measuring, differentiating and extensiveness associated with predetermined knowledges. Simultaneously, there are interior multiplicities of unconscious, intensive, libidinal, and impulsive evolvements associated with novelty. Or rather, each word is seen to contain an x-factor and when put to work the word moves away from the ascertaining to the more unknown in the construction of knowledge and meaning. Affect thus having a minoring effect and seen as a threshold experience which simultaneously precedes and moves beyond feelings and opinions: affect is a prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act. (Massumi in Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a, p. xvii) The not known-, the pre-known- the x - and through affect open language to the preliminary existence of processes across preliminary boundaries, which in turn open for translations and interpretations outside known vocabulary in unfinished channels. Again, this is working in a minor mode, working differently-, working inside out of fugitive moves and emergent practices, knowledge production integrated in life itself. Minoring as a life science exceeding the major without leaving it behind, revealing however the limits of the major as it is transformed along with the minor. Language through affect becoming impossible to separate from materiality, and every concept is being situated in embodied experiences. More than mere knowledge, it is therefore what one senses that activates action. Newness or novelty can thus be seen as openended multi-versing processes of constantly intensifying something without directing it to a certain place or centre (read conformity/identity). Rather, frictions and swirlings flow and continue flowing where the actualisation of the virtual and the virtualisation of the actual are going on. Through these frictions

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and swirlings, knowledge is forced open, expanded, and allows for more than our habits teach us. Minor knowledge policies, allowing and possibilising learning pedagogies which can be responsive not constrictive, and what Deleuze and Guattari (1994), with reference to labour and hard work, eventually call the pedagogy of the concept: “concepts only created as a function of problems that are thought to be badly understood and badly posed” (p. 16). Allowing studies of the assemblages and complexities of knowledging. Pedagogy as the ultimate architectural social science of learning. It’s important to me to get away from defining who should be included. At our own workplace, we approach this by focusing on participation. The idea is that every student- or person´s experience of participation indicates whether the person is included. … To get there, it’s important for me to look at my own practices; How do I meet my employees and how aware are we of relationship and communication? Do we in fact regulate when and which students who are allowed to participate? It is a question I often ask, myself. Also, I ask if we are responsive enough to the individual student? (Letter from participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022, underlining in the original) Broadening our perspectives towards affective language cultures increases political, pedagogical and research scope and space for manoeuvre. It makes governance, digitalisation, inclusion, freedom, and justice concepts that must be unpacked in everyday life in an inter-intragenerational perspective, and opens opportunities to explore the stops, the transitions, the intensities that arise and that are sensed and experienced as important. This rather than experiences of intentions about something particular, or representations of something specific. It flattens out hierarchical relationships, be it between teacher and students, practitioners and academics, participants and researchers, theories, and practice or between different institutional levels, and gives increased focus and importance to the event itself as an event and a raw affective moment (Reinertsen, 2021), an event without time in time and which therefore only communicates in the one and the same event. (More on research processes in Chapter 5.) Events occur in the immediate here and now, and that makes freedom – ultimately any concept – an event and an ethics that revolves around opening to the immediate, opening to what is to come but is not yet here. Open to the intensities where freedom unfolds and takes effect. Definitions of concepts such as freedom, justice – or inclusion for that matter – do not lie out there somewhere waiting for us, as something that we must/can search for and find. Rather, their contents must be forced open and created in context again and again. When it comes to change in our understandings and mentalities (read ontologies) ethics – and possibly quality – is not measured as a

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before-and-after, but as a contingency that enables more just and inclusive practices. Deleuze (2004) writes: Events are ideational singularities which communicate in one and the same Event. They have therefore an eternal truth, and their time is never the present which realizes them and make them exist. Rather, it is the unlimited Aion, the Infinitive in which they subsist and insist. Events are the only idealities. (p. 64) The event being the only ideal, Deleuze and Guattari (2004a) use the Aion (see picture of Aion in the Möbius Strip in Chapter 1) as the concept of time to detach events from both present and chronological times. The Aion is then presented as the indefinite period of events: The floating line that knows only speeds and continually divides that which transpires into an already-here that is at the same time not-yet-here, a simultaneous too-late and too-early, a something that is both going to happen and has just happened. (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004, p. 289) In this way, the concept of time can be filled with paradoxes, but with a recurring return to the concept, different variations, nuances, and contours are constantly added. However, and to underline, each concept is always stripped of any identity and relation to a self, and it is thus seen as mobilising for knowledge and meaning: knowledging that is. A minor politics of language provides access to new languages and silent undercurrents in places where children/students, teachers and researchers spend time together. A minor politics of language possibilises responsive research and pedagogies alike; research and pedagogies that learn; learning students, researchers, and pedagogues. A minor politics of language gives access to gaps and uncertainties. It gives access and courage to speculate, to think again and again, to always try to find out more, and to care for stories. Through minoring, every concept is turned into labour, and every act of language or conceptualisation involves an expression of affect. Nothing decreases in size or loses its importance, though. No one’s right to knowledge is reduced. On the contrary, knowledge moves with its potential relevance because causal, hierarchical, and linear structures dissolve and flatten out, and can run together, here and now, collectively actualized and situated. A potential in sorrows and joys, in hopes and despair, in care and brutality. Re-authoring, and agency through this becoming contextualised and ontologising, hence possibilising and enabling in concurrency, and knowledging opportunities arise in convergence. More on agency towards the end of this chapter and in Chapter 4.

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As indicated above, ontologies of indeterminacy and freedom as speculative futurality are, through minoring, turned into the signature pedagogy of education, the ‘code of conduct’ of educators and researchers so to speak. Philosophising and theorising activism and conceptualising agency and imagination at the intersection of individual and social dimensions. Actively working hard, or rather labouring, for transformation, a recasting of the status and role of our theoretical, conceptual, technological, and political imagination – and associated notions of agency, hope, affect, care, commitment and so forth – is therefore needed. For Camus (2018) this is pivotal to “save intelligence” (p. 37) and to avoid the blind spots of a cynical “dialectic which sets up injustice against enslavement while strengthening one by the other” (p. 47). For Stengers (2022), through a reading of the philosophy of Whitehead (1861–1947) this is a question about “reactivating common sense” (Making sense in common: a reading of Whitehead in times of collapse) taking anything mysterious out of any mystery or riddle: The use of philosophy is to maintain an active novelty of fundamental ideas illuminating the social system. It reverses the slow descent of accepted thought towards the inactive commonplace. If you like to phrase it so, philosophy is mystical. For mysticism is direct insight into depths as yet unspoken. But the purpose of philosophy is to rationalize mysticism: not by explaining it away, but by the introduction of novel verbal characterizations, rationally coordinated. (Whitehead [1938]1968, p. 174)

I don’t have the solution as to how we will be able to think about the future differently from what we do today, but I believe that schools – and the entire education system – can with advantage be opened to the outside world. And that we must show enthusiasm for knowledge and skills that are not our own – and without being afraid to highlight our own weaknesses. Finally, we must include those who are going to live in the futures we are planning for. Perhaps these young people can see outside the boxes we who own the system today are unable to see. It should not surprise me if there is a lot of good practical inclusion work in this as well. When I think about it. (Project Manager in a Norwegian Municipality and participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022) Minoring governance

Returning to precision education governance (PEG), we note that the analytical- poetical– or rather minoring task is “to expand on the frame, to metaphorically zoom out to a wider view that at once acknowledge the magic of

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the effects created while explicating the hidden labours and unruly contingencies that exceed its bounds” (Suchman, 2009, pp. 283–284). Suchman (2009) being preoccupied with human-machine reconfiguration and shaping digital inclusive learning spaces continues: The task for critical practice is to resist restaging of stories about autonomous human actors and discrete technical objects in favour of an orientation to capacities for action comprised of specific configurations of persons and things. To see the interface this way requires a shift in our unit of analysis, both temporally and spatially. (p. 284) In critical practices (or as we prefer in this book, minoring practices) freedom and justice cannot be found. Freedom and justice are neither online nor offline. Freedom and justice can be chosen, and we cannot choose one without the other. Rather, freedom and justice are made up of a duty to resist and forgiveness. In relation to governance and the three studied lines of PEG (as outlined in an earlier section – (i) global governance of education, (ii) marketisation, privatisation and digitalisation, and (iii) behavioural and life sciences as the basis for managing the future of education) coming together, this duty implies, in regard to the first line of study, a duty to both resist and expand the empirical basis on which we design pedagogies, perform research and create knowledge. In this way, broadening our perspectives of governance towards affective language cultures and materiality, increasing both scope and room for manoeuvring, swirling together ontology, epistemology, political perspectives, and ethics. This duty is about resistance and forgiveness, ultimately to force knowledge open and knowledging. Forgiveness as a method demanding systematic and hard work, turning any situation and policy towards the good. And, as any observant reader, you would at this stage ask; what is this about – theory or practice, research, or methodology? The short answer is both, all, and already in Chapter 2 and here in Chapter 3, but also in Chapters 4 and 5 you can read and reauthor the longer answers. In Chapter 4 there is more on agency. In Chapter 5 we focus on implications minoring has for research: governance as agentic and re-authoring knowledge practices of inclusion, knowledging as multi-versing in situ. The tool and method being a language of events and the recasting of subjectivities: liberated singularities. A strengthening of research analysis through theoretically situated discussions and experiences with the complexities of knowledging. Multiplicities encountering other multiplicities, therefore not easily put aside, or side-lined, by simply competing alternatives. Rather, letting the logic of governance contribute – through a duty and obligation to resist – to new beginnings of inclusive and open-ended knowledging processes. Continuing with the duty to resist and forgive, and going, now, to the second studied line of PEG (that of marketisation, privatisation and digitalisation),

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we see that minoring governance implies a duty to knowledging and “researching about, with, alongside, and relationally to automation as it evolves in continually changing worlds” (Pink, 2022, p. 747). Leaving researchers to develop the strength to stand/be in the uneasiness; indeterminant, open and de-comforted knowledging and research ethics would insist that we must! And as such, documenting eventually the joint autobiographical nature of human and machine that minoring governance implies: speculative philosophical (data) collecting, ultimately, as an act of knowing. And further, writing a language that expresses material-linguistic reconfigurations inhabiting the between interface. (There will be more on this in Chapters 6 and 7, but you might also reread and re-author Chapter 2 again.) The third studied line three of PEG (behavioural and life sciences as the basis for managing the future of education; and what we de facto follow through throughout the book), leaves minoring participants with a duty and an obligation of undertaking participatory constant (re)design projects creating experimentations opening theoretical and practical opportunities to re-imagine governance as more capacious and just futures. Minoring implies engagement in common conflict situations, ultimately allowing life’s inflections to work directly on our bodies. Bringing us to the place of sensations when we sense; allowing infinite sums of minute perceptions that destabilise macro perceptions that are already there while preparing the following one. Engage in novel collaborations and modes of interdisciplinarity, engage with multiple stakeholders, and address diverse temporalities of anticipation, imagined futures, and possible worlds. Both educator and researcher design speculative creation frameworks that privilege the professional expertise and capacities of both students and teachers, researchers and the researched, and learners. Ultimately strengthening the impact of practices as a prerequisite for knowledging, research in general, educational research in particular. The good in governance must be made, knowledge must be made. Rhetorically, we might say that for PEG to work, we must make sure it does not. Our duty to resist and forgive opens and allows for more and other. We´re only on target with inclusion when we’re no longer thinking about inclusion. (Letter from participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022) A point of spiralling and a hub for thinking back and writing forward

The end of Chapter 3 has turned into some sort of hub in the book. We have created some material to build a foundation, but now we flow out from that to continue building as in writing. As we therefore write back, and write

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forward, and with minoring as the only ideal, we thought it suitable to elaborate and think deeply on riddling, mysteries, philosophy, thinking and ‘the good’: taking warmth back and inclusion as the most difficult duty and task, we must as/for governance. We have gestured towards the notion that the task of philosophy can be expressed as that of making “common sense active again”, for what we know is only common sense “as it has had to give up” (p. 63). Whitehead ([1938]1968) elaborates: Apart from detail, and apart from system, a philosophical outlook is the very foundation of thought and of life. The sort of ideas we attend to, and the sort of ideas which we push into the negligible background, govern our hopes, our fears, our control of behaviour. As we think, we live. This is why the assemblage of philosophic ideas is more than a specialist study. It moulds our type of civilization. (p. 63) This brings us to the riddling and the mysterious again. And one of the mysteries that seem to live, and live on, is that of the unconscious and how consciousness occurs. Presented as consciousness is and problematised on the one hand, as the most challenging and mysterious thing to deal with in both education and science – hidden from us, inaccessible, also impenetrable, and unassailable, left to experts to deal with. On the other hand, consciousness being necessary to voice and translate into language, in the belief that once we become conscious of a phenomenon, we will be able to create knowledge, link knowledge and behaviour together hence create and find our identities and learn. In this book, this is what we challenge. Dealing with un/consciousness used to be in the hands of psychologists and psychoanalysts. Today perhaps the brain experts have taken over. But questions about consciousness have always been philosophical. Could it be that combined with PEG – and the experts – now supplemented with education experts – such perspectives, that nothing exists unless we are conscious about it, pathologise education and learning and limit or lock un/conciousness to mental health issues? Pathologisation defined as the treatment of a health or behaviour condition as if it were a medical condition. Could we reach a point when, based on the perspectives of PEG, perceived lack of learning is conceptualised as a disease? Think of the warmth that could sustain us and give us back our life. The warmth that evaporates because warmth is taken out of the life/education/research equation, pushed aside because it cannot be defined and measured. What is the good and the beautiful, that could come from more warmth? What is life without warmth … is it the life we want? Taking warmth back through affect, the duty to resist and the minoring tool comes into play in our knowledging work. And not only demystifying anything

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mysterious, in line with Whitehead above, Guattari (2011) even gives us/you/ me both our unconsciousness, hence consciousness, back through affect and brings it/them – our un/conscious warmth – into our daily lives with which to produce realities: We have the unconscious we deserve! … I would see the unconscious … as something that we drag around with ourselves both in our gestures and daily objects, … and perhaps especially, in our day-to day problems. … Thus, the unconscious works inside individuals in their manner of perceiving the worlds and living their body, territory, and sex, as well as inside the couple, the family, school, neighbourhood, factories, stadiums, and universities. … In other words, not simply an unconscious of the specialists of the unconscious, not simply an unconscious crystalized in the past, congealed in an institutionalized discourse, but, on the contrary, an unconscious turned towards the future whose screen would be none other than the possible self, the possible as hypersensitive to language, but also the possible hypersensitive to touch, hypersensitive to the socius, hypersensitive to the cosmos. (pp. 9–10) Calling this the machinic unconscious is, Guattari continues, to simply “stress that it is populated not only with images and words, but also with all kinds of machinisms that lead it to produce and reproduce these images and words” (2011, p. 10). It is a turning away from any type of psychoanalysis or pathologising tendencies to what Guattari (Ibid.) names schizoanalysis, as that of turning language towards the future as “a linguistics of the private individual, a linguistics of desire” (p. 29). It directs attention to the micropolitics of language, ultimately politicising language, and to languages that Guattari, together with Deleuze (2004), has qualified as minor. Schizoanalysis as minoring and, thus, as that of pure becomings and sliding into what Deleuze calls “the language of events” (p. 5). Thinking about inclusion does not go away. Even though I know I initially wrote that that is where I wanted to go. (Letter from participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022) Identities disappear from the self through schizoananlytic minoring languaging, minor languages or eventicising language. And referring to Braidotti (2018) again, the constitution of subjectivity is linked to the self as something constantly emerging. Furthermore, that subjectivity and agency are shown through movements between an inner individuality and a public outer one. Presenting it as the test of knowing (savoir in the original) and recitation, Deleuze (2004)

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states that in this type of procedurality words may go awry, being obliquely swept away by the verbs: It is as if events enjoy[ed] an irreality which is communicated through language to the savoir and to persons. For personal uncertainty is not a doubt foreign to what is happening, but rather an objective structure of the event itself, insofar as it moves in two directions at once, and insofar as it fragments the subject following this double direction. Paradox is initially that which destroys good sense as the only direction, but it is also that which destroys common sense as the assignation of fixed identities. (p. 5) All concepts being qualified as minor, and having made that reservation, the journey of remaking our theoretical, conceptual, technological, and political mentality can commence. Giving future-proofing educational institutions and future-proofing education a new meaning. Future-proofing through minoring and a language of events. A duty demanding experiential and experimental encounters that would force us to think and learn. Ultimately, what writing as knowledging (the focal theme of this book) is all about. Writing and constant re-writing as forces and flows of authoring agency. Introducing novel verbal characterisations and choosing to show them as pictures or shifts from identity and representation to futuring through the private and affective, ultimately difference and multiplicity, but as a love of the now and as a/the knowledgeable rightfulness of every individual established through presence. In practices of indeterminacy and freedom, it is important not to make up a particular opinion, attitude or routine and subsequent established patterns and pedagogies, but to build in the will and ability to constantly reassess opinions, attitudes, routines, structures and pedagogies and draw, create or write and rewrite new patterns here and now, and adapted to the current situation. Rewrite in the sense of the proceduralisation of concepts in general, here the concept of governance in particular. The self and the system, the personal and the political, are reconceived together in context. Dewey (1994) writes: Personality must be educated, and personality cannot be educated by confining its operations to technical and specialized things … Full education comes only when there is a responsible share on the part of each person, in proportion to capacity, in shaping the aims and policies of the social groups to which he belongs This fact fixes the significance of democracy. (p. 209) This must not be confused with any effort to work with, so called, inner development goals. The machinic unconscious is far more open-ended and productive; attuning to affect helps prevent us from falling into the habit of seeking,

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through educational research and learning theories, what is decided as of importance, regularity, didactic and value up front. Freeing our thinking, hence ontology, ontologies of indeterminacy possibilising adding value to what is not valued in more predictive sciences and research, theories of learning; the autonomy of affect, that is, its openness (Massumi, 2002, p. 35). In a Deleuzian approach to thinking, thinking does not help to identify or provide more knowledge about a field of study or phenomenon. Deleuze distinguishes between thinking and knowledge, where he relates knowledge to the recognition of something we already know and links this to a reference plan for understanding, and to identification. Thinking, on the other hand, moves beyond the known and what we know, and towards (and away from) the differences below and within thought. This does not mean that having knowledge of something is worthless; it is simply not sufficient in the face of what is alive and what, in the situation, overtakes us. In this respect, thinking is a situated business. Constitution of subjectivity, freedom and pedagogies for immediacy and agency

Building up to Chapter 4: ‘Authoring agency - force and flow: the paradox of slow and space’, and Section II (Chapters 5 and 6) of the book focussed on actioning of theoretical thinking, we end the current chapter and between hub with a little more on subjectivity and pedagogies for immediacy and agency, minored governance, hence emerging governance again and again. So far we have argued, governance as agency in knowledging can be understood as acting/actors (subjects and objects) in difference (Deleuze, 1994). Action conceptualised as presence and as a repetitive, or iterative force. A constant reconfiguration of one’s own being and doing, reconfiguration of what was and is, with what can become. It involves, as we have argued, movements away from identity politics and pedagogy and towards an onto-epistemological shift in which affect, body, material and discursive inputs are given importance in an expanded relational thinking. These are movements from an individualised view of human actions and responsibilities, to a view of agency as an expression of a force and freedom to influence, and to be influenced, in a collective context. Not the will and ability to influence, influence of either a positive or negative nature, but as a presence in creations in themselves. Agency as freedom to force knowledge open cannot be given as an ability, power, talent or attribute. Rather, it is something that we can learn to notice and experience; we can experience agency in joint activities and creativity. In this sense, agency is the freedom to express oneself in contexts where one is accepted for who one is, and the freedom to create images of a desired future, in which one seeks to learn, learns, explores, and discovers, understands oneself and others. A pedagogy of knowledging agency, therefore, involves an understanding of the role and importance of creativity as a freedom, and most importantly, what

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that freedom enables in terms of activity, action, and self-expression. Freedom is thus the philosophical and procedural side of the actions, measures or interventions of a teacher, administrator, leader, academic, politician or researcher. That is, a teacher, administrator, leader, academic, politician and researcher who wants to teach with a pedagogy of knowledging agency. Camus (2018) writes: It is true that freedom, when it is made up principally of privileges, insults labour and separates it from culture. But freedom is not made up principally of privileges; it is made up especially of duties. And the moment each of us tries to give freedom’s duties precedence over its privileges, freedom joins together labour and culture and sets in motion the only force that can effectively serve justice. (p. 53) As stated earlier, working/writing in a minor affective mode is to recognise that subjectivities, spatialities, temporalities are embodied, situated, and fluid; knowledge production integrated in life itself. Minoring as a minor policy is turned into research and pedagogies for the immediate, research and pedagogies for the-here-and-now, hence what emerges and comes to the surface. At the level of affect, the pressure in every single educational meeting and moment and research therefore increases, and becomes a focal point for change, justice and inclusion, and all actors are forced together to make thinking and measures work. Major legislation and guidelines are set in motion and the authoritative position of official politics, traditional research approaches and subsequent pedagogies is levelling off. Multiple and complexity factors come into play and increase pressure and uncertainty, the need to read, write and look again, and one is never completely finished or completely sure about anything. But there is great joy in not understanding everything. Opportunities, agency hence knowledging is opened to everyone. The way we see this, minoring is in line with Whitehead above as he gives philosophy the task of welding together experience, reason, and imagination. Minoring corresponds to what he considered to be the dangerous, perhaps deadly, weakness of the modern world. He writes: Philosophy is akin to poetry, and both of them seek to express that ultimate good sense which we term civilization. In each case there is reference to form beyond the direct meaning of words. Poetry allies itself to metre, philosophy to mathematical pattern. (Whitehead [1938]1968, p. 174) It is a philosophising with a focus on action-based knowledge, recognition of connections between experience, knowledge and action, and that exploration is an experience-based process. Philosophising as commitment to freedom

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and justice, problems ultimately seen as ontological and epistemological thinking possibilities only. The aim being shifted from prevention, measures, facilitation and follow-up, didactic planning, implementation, and evaluation based on criteria, definitions, models, routines and goals, strategies and measures in the sense of communication, division of responsibility and interactions or interactions in a phenomenological perspective, to the philosophical and procedural aspects of a teacher’s, educator’s, administrator’s, manager’s or researcher’s actions, measures or interventions. Agency becoming contextualised, autonomy-building in collectivity and ontologising. Enabling knowledging in concurrency, opportunities that arise in convergence. Going via affect, new things can arise. Noological and ethological approaches, hence minoring, increase tensions in the present, but are at the same time oriented towards new social futures. Value is activated each time anew. Design for freedom and justice is therefore not a consequence of design decisions. It is not a repair of something that has already been done. Design is for everyone, not for repairing or customising. Freedom and justice are integrated as a dynamic in the design process and in thought from the start. It provides a type of warning or indicates some sort of signal value about how we build our society, our education, research, and our learning. The strength of these perspectives lies between presence and foresight; an in-phenomenological accelerating and real nonteleological life-giving indeterminacy and resistance in research and/as education/learning spaces, recognising, and appreciating through this the existence of various ontologies and as processes. With regard to agency and freedom, increased sensitivity to language and affect turning concepts into labour, perhaps we can speak of creating learning institutions and organisations in which we re-create ourselves, and our research and sciences, policies and systems, again and again, not to lose force to create on the basis of knowledge. If we think about PEG again and self-reinforcing machineries, ultimately health issues, dropout rates and apostasy consisting of different not-seen, not-included, or not-privileged individuals and groups, minor policies, research, and pedagogies open up completely different insights from this very different place about what it takes to get by and learn. Garcés (2022) writes: What we perceive as lack of interest, is really a deinstitutionalisation of the humanistic activities that today’s capitalist cognitive project brings along. (pp. 85–99, author’s own translation) Garcés (2022) continues: Against the apocalyptic dogma and its messianic and solutionideological monochrony (either condemnation or salvation) the meaning of learning is to work in an alliance of knowing that coordinates distrust and trust. I imagine the radical illustration as a work performed by weavers who are

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simultaneously both irrepressibly mistrustful and trustful. We don’t believe in you, we are able to say, while we from different places recreate the threads and times of the world with sharp and indestructible tools. (p. 102, author’s own translation) The concept of inclusion can quickly become an abstract concept that we just use as it is given. … To create an inclusive environment, we need to work on ourselves. … We must work to establish a culture of trial and error, a culture of reflection. A learning rich environment does not arise by itself, it is a value. (Letter from participant in project on inclusive practices, Norway 2020–2022)

4 AUTHORING AGENCY Force and flow: the paradox of slow and space

As we grapple with the real and ridiculous complexities of governance, performativity and subjectivity as academics – workers in the business/busyness of knowledge – we find ourselves asking: Is there no more joy and laughter in our knowledging, have we completely lost all the life force (the desire? the passion? the love?) in our thinking? Has Eros actually left the building? We hope not … we are optimistic and so will keep looking for, working for passion and love in our knowledging. It is with such a mindset that, in this chapter and while also spiralling back and forth, we take up and speak to what can be thought of as paradoxically both real and ridiculous in academy contexts. Contexts which give precedence to the fast paced and yet narrowed notions of knowledge in a highly corporatised space. We have frequently been perturbed by the pervasiveness of normative/assumed ways of knowing and, indeed, normalised and assumed ways of being academic when corporatisaton takes hold in research and knowledge environments. As we riddle such assumptions, our goal here is more about ‘calling them out’ than ‘taking them on’. Through this riddling we gesture towards resistance without any fundamental claim to solutions (or at least not the solution). Our interest is with the possibilities of knowledging for fugitive futures through new space-time domains that open up to ‘tentative-isms’ in research workings and that are not totally focussed on ‘solutionism’. (Spiral back to Chapter 2, where focus was given to writing for possibilising – writing for/with ‘perhaps-ness’, and never ‘is-ness’; we will also take this up again in Chapter 7). Working towards fugitive futures through ‘slow writing’, writing and thinking with depth, we see possibilities of holding together multiplicities of knowledging – in the hope that as academics, learners, and teachers we can think, be always with the possibility of ‘otherwise’ – ‘other-wise’ in DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-5

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our knowledging. In this way we hope for/work for knowledge as an actioning requiring an intra-action with ‘other’ – the ‘other’ being: other ways; other thinking; other knowledges; other wisdoms. We suggest that writing provides/ is the space for intra-activity of knowledges – knowledging; where such activity can be intra-connections across and between a multiplicity of human and non-human contributions to knowing. With further connection to our focus on ‘calling out’ assumptions, we consider the real/ridiculous consequences when academics are given minimal opportunities to take time for depth of thinking/contemplation in the relentless output/production knowledge cycle and, yet, are expected to be intellectually/cognitively always innovative in their contributions. We open up to questioning assumed expectations that are seeping into (saturating?) academia; expectations that work on an insistence that time is ‘an investment’ – and such an investment expects ‘returns’. We take this further; we resist the normalising forces at work within expectations that to be an effective academic, your knowledge production must always have a fixed end-point (read: measurable outputs/commercial impacts) in an innovative academy. Our concern is when the expected ‘return’, in the form of knowledge, is driven by a pre-determined corporate agenda. While we are mindful that such thinking is not new, we take this focus further and move it forward in conjunction with the case we argued in previous chapters that challenged notions that knowledge must always be associated with positions of certainty in academia. Significantly in this chapter, we are interested in bringing to our task of questioning the real and ridiculous nature of academia an opportunity to contemplate academic writing as a research methodology in learning/knowledge environments; we think of this as knowledging. We see glimmers of hope when unknowing (unlearning, uncertainty) is authentically presented as an art (a state of being) to be ‘worked on’ (Solnit, 2013), always a flowing process of coming to know otherwise. With such glimmers of hope, writing, and more explicitly self-writing, can be thought of as a legitimate research methodology; a methodology with strength and purpose – with agency. But our spark of hope is held in tension with the ever-present danger of taking ourselves, and our own assumptions, too seriously – so seriously that we risk the point of fixation, where the opportunities for knowledging are governed – even more they are self-governed – by our own assumptions. Such governance is what Foucault (1987) would suggest is the most powerful form of control. When we take ourselves, as researchers, and our own assumptions of reality so seriously that we become unable to think, see, be otherwise, there is a danger that any sense of reality becomes ridiculous; dangerously, ridiculously fixated. It is in this way that we can risk losing knowledge, and research being eroded from within. Of course, we see there can be value in the writing practices of auto-ethnographic research. However, we find ourselves pondering

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the danger of a self-fixation that may come with such self-writing. Are there ways we can creatively work with self-writing practices to be always other than what we were at the start of a writing project/task? Foucault spoke of self writing as providing possibilities to be/become/think other than what he was/ did before: “I write in order to change myself and in order not to think the same thing as before” (Foucault, 1994, p. 239). We take up this thinking and make connections to our concept of de-comfort; that is, acknowledging and working the possibilities that come with uncertainty. By taking a possibilities approach to the creation of text, we can position writing as a practice of not only authoring, but always and continually re-authoring – practices of becoming, and in this continuality always thinking, doing, becoming ‘other’. In the following section we work to actionalise auto-ethnography. We never take ourselves so seriously that we limit possibilities of future thinking by our present beingness; locked in by our focus on what is and missing our view of why what is, is the way it is and how it may be other. (In Chapter 7 we will take up this point and will continue to riddle our thinking of self-criticism as unlearning-redoing-self processes.) The intention is to move away from approaches to research that assume the need for certain solutions and take up approaches that force ourselves and our research knowledging open. Taking up Deleuze’s notion of immanence, a constant becoming of what is, requires writers/researchers to consider how they contribute to/participate in the making of realities, not just recording them (Law, 2004) thus working our future thinking possibilities. The social, relational exchange of writing, as a research methodology, is an active element in the becomingness of knowledge, this becomingness of making realities – when realities are never fixed and never certain. What is most ridiculous is holding on to a sense that a reality of now can provide any permanence of knowledge. If we can see writing as an agentic, fluid force, then we can open our knowing; if we can see the ridiculous gravity of a fixed notion of reality, we strengthen our capacity to work with the impermanence of our being; as constant becomingness to always be ‘worked on’: a continual practice of knowledging. For us, writing is agency – a way of being/becoming other-wise … knowing (always working with unknowing) other in/of ourselves. Writing (and, as its necessary companion, reading) can be conceptualised as a way to go/move beyond what is known by the writer/reader: by research – by a practice of fluid knowledging. As such we are presenting opportunities for new space-time domains in and through authoring/re-authoring and multi-versing practices. In this ‘moving beyond’ we also suggest there are opportunities for being outside or otherwise to ourselves, and we can open ourselves to the possibility of always being other. As scholars/as researchers, how can we respond when/if we are confronted by expectations that we only read/write/research what we already know/understand. Additionally, what is the consequence if such expectations become the

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norm for learners. The following story from Louise is shared to give some food-for-thought: As a university teacher I set reading exercises for students and students often respond that they have not understood what they read. (my response: great! That is what learning is all about. But is my enthusiastic outlook shared by the actual learners?) Students: “I read the text you set for us, but I didn’t understand it, so I don’t know why you gave it to us or why I bothered to read it at all!” My reflection on this type of, all too frequent, comment from students: “If we read with an expectation that the text will ‘tell us’ things we already know (or think we know) what is the point of reading – surely, we read to engage with another person’s thinking (the author’s) and through this process expand our own thinking beyond what we previously thought. If I read just to confirm my existing understanding/position, am I doing myself, and the authors of the text I read, a disservice?” We resist expectations of certainty that we will always be as we are. Another story from Louise is reflective of our optimism for multi-versing in knowledging: Being/becoming otherwise (other-wise) as part of pedagogical practice in learning contexts: The staff at an early learning centre, during their regular reflective practice conversations, were discussing the question of whether they (educators) should treat/react/respond to children differently in the afternoon compared to the morning. This discussion could have remained focussed on its initial intent – that is, the issue of children’s different levels of tiredness etc. by the afternoon of a full day learning program and whether or not this might cause confusion/lack of consistency for the children. However, with some input from the leader and other group members, the discussion took on a more thoughtful, philosophical tack, and moved on to an exchange about the ways in which we are all, always, changing. The exchanged reflected on ways in which our knowledge, our wisdom, our ways of being – our knowing and our being known – are always evolving, changing. The group of educators talked about how we come to know; we become wise by being other than what we were before – (‘other-wise’ – my input here). If this is the case – the discussion concluded – we should (we would be ethically required to) engage differently with each other continually in the process of becoming other; (of becoming other-wise). For this group of educators, this

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meant always responding differently with children, as the children, like us all, are always becoming other (other-wise) than what they were – each interaction becomes a new (other-wise) interaction. We (as researchers) work our research/knowledge practices with approaches that enable always being uneased; always de-comforting ourselves to spark new questions and new possibilities with/through which to think – working to always be ‘beyonded’ in actioning knowledge. In these ways we take up, in our research, inquiry through inquisitive ‘tentative-isms’ – not to paralyse, rather to force always open. (There will be more about ‘tentative-isms’ to follow.) We see opportunities to force knowledge open through fluidity and a focus on affective, iterative knowledge and ways of knowing. Critical to such affective, iterative knowledge is to give due attention to the dynamic, relational nature of knowledge. Writing/texts/data with/in space and the intra-connections between human and non-human

We venture further with our thinking about writing as an intra-activity– a connecting and moving force between human and non-human elements of knowledge and ways of knowing: knowledging. As we have argued previously, thinking in and through the act of writing is “embodied not through certainty of meaning but through the possibilities and constant becomingness of words ‘yet to come’ in the constant relationality between self and other” (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016, p. 86). We build on this here with a tentative gesture towards knowledge constructs “as dynamic and shifting entanglements of relations” (Barad, cited in Jackson & Mazzei, 2012, p. 115). It is important to focus not just on the relational entanglements between human elements of the exchange but equally and significantly between the human and non-human. We think of writing as one embodiment of such entanglements; between the human (the writers and the readers) and the non-human (the words/the text/the spaces and contexts). We see this as a knowledge intra-action – as dynamic and mutually constituted; the writing as knowledge in the intra-connection between/with text/spaces/contexts, writer and reader: a practice of knowledging. Knowledging thought of in this way is fluid and always dynamic, without meaning fixed by words, but the act of writing enabling an uncertain constancy in the becomingness of texts; always able to become other; with multiple intra-actions informing what is being continually and dynamically collaborated through a multiplicity of intraactions with texts. And to elaborate further the relational in writing, we think here of the relationship between words/text and the context of their creation. Words and text are never neutral, never unintentional; they are ideologically laden

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(Pelias, 2013, p. 559); and as such are always culturally and contextually slippery. Thus, knowledge, shaped and shared through/in writing and written across multi-contextual experiences, is complex and challenging, exciting and dynamic in the exhilarating opportunities it presents to think, know and be other. As two separate, but connected, authors/researchers, we both write particular texts, resisting representation; always opening ourselves and keeping our thinking open, through our writing, to other ways of thinking/being/ becoming in our shared knowledge work. We write knowledge: knowledge writes us. Although we often feel trapped, short of breath in the bubble of our contextual oxygen, through the act of writing we take up our right to be free to breathe always anew, with our own ever-changing breath; breathing and writing our always present possibilities to be other. Writing is our opportunity to breathe ever-changing oxygen and live with continual becomings in the fluid, contextual spaces of knowledges and ways of knowing. We breathe with practices of knowledging by our openness to other; and to always becoming other in and through our thinking. The contextual spaces in which our thinking/writing knowledge work occurs are always relational, even when we think we work alone in our own space. In Japanese culture/language there are multiple concepts of space and multiple words to express those concepts. Two of these words we pick up on here are: wa (relational space) and ba (knowledge-mobilising space) (McGrath, 2018). The different words for ‘space’ present different intra-actional connections between the non-human and ‘human’ elements at work in a space. As one term for space “(w)a is an awareness of interpersonal connection and is often described in terms of moving air” (pp. 3–4). Building on this work of McGrath, we would suggest if the space influences the relationships that form in such ‘moving air’, then the relationships are flowing and fluid, are constantly working and renewing. Explicitly, we think of writing as an enactment of knowledging in such relationships, and as always flowing and fluid. We put this thinking to work as conceptualising intra-actions/connections/relationships (material and discursive) in the ‘moving air’ between and across writing, knowledge, author, reader – the human and non-human intersections in knowledging. That is, texts/writings have meaning, not in themselves, but in the relationships that they shape; in the relational space that they both shape and are shaped by; in the space such interactions create – that is, texts: the space/s between writer and reader. When we think of writing as creation of text, that is a space of exchange between writer and reader, we can think of writing as “structuring interactions, contingency, and connections to other” (McGrath, 2018, p. 3). However, we would argue, such writing can equally be thought of as enabling hesitations; fractures; uncertainties; and experiences of unease which can, through our engagement with de-comfort, awaken us/give wings to the possibilities of thinking other-wise. Writing: creation of text which, while embracing such unease, allows us to sit with/to work with the fractures,

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the hesitations, the uncertainties – ultimately the very cracks in our thinking – forcing open our thinking: thinking which can flow and move with fluidity of possibilities rather than be fixed and positional. Such cracks provide opportunities for knowledge – no, more than this – these cracks are knowledge: knowledging which, in the right environment, can be constantly open and flowing. And to take up another concept of space presented by McGrath – ‘ba’ – “knowledge mobilizing space” (2018, p. 4) – “the arrangement of elements to create connections” (p. 5) but again these arrangements are not fixed or pre-determined – rather “(b)a asks us to be open to interruptions and distractions when our temptation is to be closed and focused. … what we know is only valuable if it rubs up against what other people know” (p. 5). We acknowledge this important point and wish to take it as a point of departure, gesturing towards the notion that what we can know, that is knowledge, is not only enhanced/enriched in its value when it connects/is influenced by what others know, but more than this … knowledge, as a process, can only be, in reality, a process when it is constantly becoming ‘other’-‘wise’ – and this requires an openness to other; knowledge which is always forced open to ‘other’. So, to bring these concepts of space together: rather than writing being thought of as a presentation of our fixed position on a subject, it can in fact be an experience of the cracks/flaws/flows in our thinking, a way of our thinking being forced open – forced open to engage with ‘other’ – other-wise-ness of thinking. We are best placed to force knowledge open when standing outside ourselves as writers/readers/thinkers (nodding to Foucault) and when we allow ourselves to be otherwise than any dictated limitations of thinking within fixated and stagnated relationships (both human and non-human). As Foucault would suggest, we are strongest as thinkers when we go beyond “the contemporary limits of the necessary” (Foucault, 1991, p. 43). Thinking with post-humanism, again, we present ‘text’ as uncertain/complex/never fixed iterative flow between writer and reader; reading and writing with/in spaces (uncertain, never-fixed-spaces) for thinking otherwise. And through this flow we can make possible an opening of knowledge with a fluidity which allows us to cross boundaries (and back), into new places and shifting spaces – shaking us up, just when we think we might settle. Applying a Baradian notion of entanglements, writing/reading is a multi-layered, dynamic, shifting relationship between and across the boundaries which can divide author, text and reader. Drawing on the way that Japanese language and culture would see a space as “always filled (with relationship building) structures, regardless” of human presence (McGrath, 2018), we see written texts/research data as shaped by relationships between human and non-human – writer/reader/researcher and text/data – regardless of whether these relationships are immediately obvious and present. If we do not acknowledge these relationships, do we risk a loss of knowledge opportunities and risk becoming fixated with assumed ways of knowing?

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To think further on loss in academia … what is lost, what is the cost, when we deny the worth/value of relational, narrative ethnographic work as research/as a source of knowledge? Ways of knowing/being as academic/as researcher/as writer/as learner are limited/narrowed/lessened – the capacity of scholarly work to enable empathy in social exchange is denied. Social empathy, in the form of slow, relational-engagement academia, can be a critical response to globally experienced chaos and anxiety, can be a legitimate resistance to ‘fake news’, fast facts, and false certainties used to shape/dictate who we think we are and restrict the possibilities of being/becoming/thinking other – real and ridiculous imposed expectations of being. Writing: agentic and affect

We riddle the concept of becomingness, agentic agency to shift our thinking and, hopefully, bring you, the reader, with us. As previously advocated, knowledge is fluid, constant becoming, and academicians through their involvement with such fluid knowledges are also constantly exercising and being exercised by this becomingness. We see such becomingness as a key element of research and writing. Both are practices which can move us outside ourselves, move us outside and across the spaces and boundaries of assumed ideological claims and beliefs. Explicitly, as researchers; academics; learners, we work ourselves always to be other-wise, to be constantly beyonding. In this moving to be outside/becoming other to ourselves, we work in and through different ideologies and academic boundaries – different conceptualisations of academic spaces and what can/is happen/ing in these spaces. In these processes of constant becoming otherwise to ourselves – beyonding, academicians’ work spaces and knowledges to engage in movements of deterritorialisation and re-territorialising in a constant flow of becoming other. Beyonding in this way is not certain but indeterminant in the sense that we work always with the yet-to-be-known. Engagement in/with/ between spaces and knowledges always moves us beyond a constraining sense of comfort and certainty to a powerful, agentic place of de-comfort and uncertainty that gives opening to other – to opportunities for multi-versing in knowledging. But more, it is not just a person’s engagement in and through the spaces and boundaries of ideological beliefs that gives rise to multi-­ versing; we see that the pace of academic work within these spaces is also critical to our ability and opportunity to be constantly becoming other. (Here we are using the term ‘pace’ as an articulation of the speed with which one uses time in their work context– an equation of time verses ‘distance travelled’ towards the completion of tasks.) One puzzlement that concerns us as we think about pace in academic work is the effect when a fast speed of production (and high volume of production) is pursued to such an

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extent that ‘slow reflective reading’ and ‘slowly crafted writing’ are at risk of being assigned as ‘poor use of time’ and unproductive acts/art in academia. We riddle our thinking here to give wings to the possibility of new space-time domains in/within academic fields of practice. There are significances associated with particular conceptualising of space and pace in academic work and knowledging that may both/either enable and/or constrain ways of knowing in and through the act of writing and reading. We are not claiming any ‘golden jackpot’ of discovery in response to such wonderings, but we do want to spark questions: questions that will always force our thinking and knowledging out and open to new possibilities. Like many before us and with us, we take up an argument for the critical element of time and space in academic work: time and space to question existing assumptions – but most importantly, time and space to question our own ideologically laden assumptions; assumptions informing and shaping what we claim to know. One question about questioning: Are practices of questioning deeply given greater strength and purpose when there is available time and space for deep thinking? We want to deliberately linger slowly with/in the acts of academic writing and reading. As an intentional response to the expected fast-paced world of academia, we work to position academic writing as a slow art; and, to take it further, we see that it could/can be an agentic act. It is not just about the pace of writing experiences but also the space in which such experiences are enacted. As we articulated in the previous section of this chapter, how we think about space is connected to the intra-actions/relationships that are happening in the act of writing. We want to take this further and focus on not only how writing can shape these intra-actions but how the act/art of writing, that is the formation of text, enables affect between writer and reader – which is knowledging as an intra-active flow; a multi-versing exchange between and across writer and reader. We consider the formation of text as an enacted mechanism which enables us to step outside ourselves (in both reader and/or writer role); outside our thinking, to be other-wise to ourselves; to think other-wise (think back to our earlier reference to Foucault [1994] … we write to be other than what we were before. We could in the same way read to be other than what we were before). As such, writing is an intra-action; a relationship through the formation of text – the space of writing – enabling writing as affect. Spiralling again, thinking back to Chapter 3, we focus for a moment on affect and affective. Through affect and affective powers or forces – thought of as that which express our innermost intense and, as yet a-conceptual, experiences and/or feelings – the concept of knowledge is forced open to yet-to-be-known territories of thought, matters and potentialities. Agency as a force/knowledge as a force – re-authoring self via/with/in such force, and auto-ethnography research allows knowledge forced open to happen in the

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process of the re-authoring and multi-versing – a way of actionalising knowledge. Through such forcing open, there can be constant breaks with patterns, customs, traditions, structures, discourses and habits. As a means to engage this forced opening, the practice of writing can explicitly be presented as change. Not the change of the individual subject, particular groups or systems – from one state to another – rather, change seen as a force; an opening force – “giving to the world the power to change us, to ‘force’ our thinking” (Stengers, 2008, p. 57). And again, in this way, writing can be thought of as affect; as an inventive method – a method which can change thinking; can engage learning (which necessitates thinking!). Through writing, the social unfolds in real time and virtual time, and acts of responding to the social creatively work both with and against the ridiculous reality of the world – messy, indeterminate, situated, provisional and always fluid. Other-wise (and importantly non-representational) thinking, expressed through fluid writing, is immersive and unfolding. Such thinking can be paradoxically praxis in a Deleuzian sense – not fixed on an end point, but rather, moving/flowing via lines of flight toward always emergent becomings: other-wise/affect. We bring with us from Chapter 3 agency and ontology and also ontology of indeterminacy. That is ontology of freedom, unease, uncertainty always in productive de-comforting, with a force to act –where de-comfort is agentic force, not a paralysing malady. Agency is the force, the freedom in all this unease, uncertainty. For us, this sparks questions that reflect our sense of who we are/can be as researchers – what is there in these depictions of ontology that enables us, as researchers, to sit-with rather than try to solve the complexities and dichotomies of our social, political, environmental worlds? – How do we sit-with and move-with the produced unconscious – so as to produce life/live life – how do we take with us ontology of immanence – the place where you disjoint yourself through constant territorialisation and de/ re-territorialisation (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a), constantly re-authoring self: re-calibrating being in a flow of constantly becoming other (Reinertsen, Gajic, & Thomas, 2020). Agency is a re-constitution of subjectivity – re-casting our subjectivities; re-authoring ourselves and our knowledging – we will take this thinking with us throughout the book. To take our engagement with affect in knowledge work further, we take up the notion that affect bears connotations of bodily intensity: affect as a passion, as pathos, as sympathy and empathy. Affect can be acts of thinking embodied and embedded in the maximum intensity of experience, as “a power to affect itself, an affect of self on self” (Deleuze, 1988, p. 101). Bringing together concepts of writing and affect, we actionalise our notion of writing as affect – embodiment of always thinking/knowing other-wise. And to give this legitimacy in research practices, we see writing as iterative affect; as methodology – at work in and through text – writing as intra-active opportunities between text,

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writer and reader; a place of fluid thinking; a flow of knowledge always at work in the possibilities of other-wise. Writing as method and methodology

To gestate and ruminate further our thinking on connections between writing and research practices; we take up a notion of writing as methodology and method. Writing is both a tool for doing the research and it is also a means of thinking; a means of analysing; a means of knowledging. When we have shared our thinking on language and text previously (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016), central to this work was a desire to expand and increase the depth of our analytical writing practices. As always, we want to do more: so, we focus here on practices that work to resist normative assumptions of what research is and ways in which we engage knowledging. As with our earlier work (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016) and pointing to Section II of this book, we see research work as accepting the multiplicities of knowledge and as being open to both sense and non-sense making. In this accepting and being open, it may be possible to resist constraints of imposed expectations of research only, and always, being about ‘sense-making’. And, yes, we are aware that we are holding together (in tension?) a hope for our ability to engage acts of acceptance and resistance. To bring us back to writing, we can weave our way through struggles and tensions of acceptance/resistance – ultimately questioning and riddling – as we construct/deconstruct/reconstruct through/with the acts of writing, and slow, deep thinking. Writing and thinking which always have at their heart possibilities of thinking and knowing other-wise. That is, we can disrupt and connect “with our separate and together thinking and wonderings” (MacLure, 2013, p. 660). What is research methodology if not a platform from which, and through which, to launch slow, deep thinking – and we see writing as such a platform. To be clear, we advocate writing (which must always include the reading) as affect. This allows for writing as a flexible research method that works our constant questioning rather than expectations of certainty and finality. And further, writing as affect enables writing as a fluid work of iterative inclusion, without hierarchical positionings in knowledge practices. In research processes the navigational capacity of fluid, iterative writing is minor in nature as it does not create clear signposts of where to go, what to do or what to write as collaborating researchers, learners, partners and participants. Instead, we can both theorise and practice such writing as a flexible method which engenders moments of constant becoming/being with – affect – and, as such, as a method which can propel researchers and participants into iterative practices of sensory sensitivity in the here-and-now. And further still, when we present writing as methodology, we enact an engagement with knowledge practice

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and research as process-based, and, always, as inclusive participation in a form of collaborative co-composition of thinking. Seeing writing as methodology works as an act denoting resistance but simultaneously affirming that the writing act can break with – possibly negotiate with – itself in a continual co-composition, without losing its solidity: writing as an iterative affect. The break, The flow the flowing crack, the uncertainty, the rewinding, the reconnecting, the grid of ever-overlapping, fluid thinking collaborative thinking thinking processes intra-active writing processes thinking practice/practise co-compositional writing/knowledging acts, in all their/our relational fragility de-comforted in our powerful uncertainty both strength and beauty of writing – us both strength and beauty of re-authoring – you. Writing as methodology in knowledge practice and research can enable thinking outside ourselves: thinking otherwise. Elsewhere when reflecting on writing and research, we presented a notion that “(t)he law and the word decide but, through being put to work as writing, both are turned into tools and/or methods” (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016, p. 85). We take this thinking further here, and suggest that tools and methods at work through writing allow us to step outside ourselves, to be other-wise in our working as thinkers and researchers, and to look back and forward at/with ourselves and with the readers – the other with whom we think/know. Through writing we work with knowledge and knowing as knowledging; asking always and continually – what it means to know and who decides? Through writing we slide doubts and questions into the material matter of knowledge and knowing. It is the doubting and questioning which form our strategic grip: a grip in which we would never want to claim certainty of our grasp. We write to always respond, never position, “to open up opportunities for deeper minuscule questions to allow for undecidability and constant becomingness” (Thomas & Reinertsen, 2016, p. 87): a continual knowledging. And further, we view writing as a link between analytical practices of research and pedagogical practices of learning and ways of knowing. We have used writing as an immanence tool and method for working with and against knowledge and knowing: knowledge, knowing, and not-yet knowing of self and other. Our aim in using writing in

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this way has been, not finding truth in this knowledge and knowing, but to engage the analytic, fluid, and always possibility, processes of writing. Writing, as a creative analytic affect, gives life to knowledge, to notions, memories and feelings that shape knowledge … no more, notions, memories and feelings that are knowledge. This creative analytic affect is knowledging. Writing as affect triggers recognitions and possibilities of knowing. It triggers unknowings and not-yet-knowns, and constant erosions into knowing: the cracks which are knowledge (not just pathways to knowledge). It triggers possibility moments/movements which allow thinking ‘other-wise’. And with all of this, we write and think as academics secure, and yet not, in our uncertainty, confident, and yet not, that our experiences of doubt are opportunities to know other and to write/research in/to places other/wise. Writing thus can be seen as more than a tool for research work; it can be the research; the analytic work of research – writing as both method and methodology. Writing, for us, is ultimately (but always with a tentative claim) a method for democratisation of thinking: thinking which can shape and move both research and knowing. In this way we see knowing as always expanding and contracting (like the crack in changing atmospheric pressures), thus increasing; broadening and deepening our theorising and analytical awareness about our own agendas, our own ideologically laden thinking. When we engage in a continuous, conscious self-challenge of our own, always laden, agenda, we are informed by Foucault’s suggestion that it is important to guard against privileging our own theoretical positions (Popkewitz & Brennan, 1998). (We are mindful though that we are not always conscious of our biases – our unconscious biases are always there.) By opening ourselves – our thinking and our unconscious to a continual becomingness, we work to link responsibility, response-ability and ethics in the presentation of our ethology and noology (more to come in Chapter 7). We acknowledge the material, political and ethical consequences of our contextual knowledging, and bear witness to such knowledging as ever-changing. In such a theoretical terrain, we work with what Barad refers to as an ethic of knowing (cited in Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) – a response-ability. Exercising the act/art of writing is a response-ability and, in addition, is a responsibility in knowledging/research work. As such, it is not just an invitation or an expectation for more voices to speak and be heard, it is an ethical imperative, that as professionals, as researchers it is we that must exercise response-ability and responsibility in the relational exchange. And further, it can open opportunities for listening, to play multiple roles in research processes: it enables a more democratic listening to both self and other. In this way writing (and listening as a key element in writing processes) provides multiple engagements between self and other – where the text, as a practice of research processes, allows for co-construction of knowledges across author and reader of that text: multi response-abilities and multiple responsibilities. That is how, as we see it, democracy can be put to work in knowledge practices.

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We bring with us our earlier suggestion that research can be eroded from within when complexities are, consciously or unconsciously, ‘smoothed-over’ and thinking is locked-down. And, we additionally ask: can research be more robust, as well as more real, if it works within and through thinking which is always becoming “agentical – realists – realism/s” (Barad, 2007, pp. 133– 185): that is, becoming research practices which assign agency to words and writing. Writing (which we suggest must always involve an element/a practice of listening to other, and a practice of always thinking other-wise), as an embodiment of language, is thus seen as fluid, contextual knowledge; knowledging. Language thus words/thus writing/thus text … texting/writing … writing text has the ability to relate/flow between self and other (writer and reader); and can be both ethical and political, at a local level; at an institutional level; at a societal level. Writing can enable mutually constitutive, and never fixed, embodiments of contextual knowledge that are constantly becoming and never fixed, through collaborative exchanges of word and language, and slow, deep thinking that are always forcing knowledge open. Writing: Forcing Knowledge Open Knowledging as writing art/act In and through writing and reading Boundaries and thresholds of space Borders not to hold us in Borders to give us leverage A Möbius strip to give us wings To push and force open To go outside ourselves Outside our thinking outside our ‘thought assumptions’ Always open to becoming other To be other-wise To be beyonded. Writing from a distance; writing with distance; writing for distance; writing as distance Writing across boundaries and thresholds writing back writing out writing away Writing with wings writing with uncertainty

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writing my de-comfort writing my re-authoring; my multi-versing Riddling, riddling, riddling Taking with us our riddling and riddled words, we now move on to the second section of our book. To get there we go via a separate introduction, where we step out from, but hold on to, theory and theorising; while taking up our move towards actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging.

SECTION II

The actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging Minor fugitive research policies and becoming-designs In this section of the book, we interrogate societal implications of research and research innovations to create capacious and speculative (creative) visions of knowledge-making practices that reimagine and force open the impact and focus of qualitative inquiry. Creativity and innovation for freedom. Ultimately, to intervene by extending the possibilities of the role of the qualitative social sciences and humanities in societal change and futures through methodological innovation. In undertaking this innovation, we are hopeful of generating affirmative future possibilities for inquiry, promoting more equitable outcomes, authoring agency through freedom. Broadening our awareness of affective language-cultures creates expanded scopes of actions – a stretching of possibilities and beyonding. Such awareness opens possibilities to give consideration – as we suggested in Chapter 3 – to thresholds of intensities rather than intentions and representations, in which HE encounters unfold. We have chosen Aion standing in the middle of – but holding tight and stepping forward and out of – the Möbius strip as both symbol, tool, and design, resisting chrononormativity fostering experimentation and creation of the new. With/in Aion, presence becomes a part of past and future simultaneously: “Aeon: the indefinite time of the event, the floating line that knows only speeds and continually divides that which transpires into an already-there that is at the same time not-yet-there, a simultaneous too-late and too-early” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004, p. 289). Time as something within which lived experience happens and research is carried out. Aion holds on Steps out DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-6

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In multi-versed knowledging, de-comforted re-authoring writing, there is no conflict between document and fiction, and – following Whitehead’s ([1938]1968) philosophy from Chapter 3 again – no conflict or separation between experience and datum. In the process of knowledging, the subject and object are intertwined. In relation to indeterminacy and freedom and free research, however, we might, despite theorising and processes of thinking with a concept or ideal, still have problems affecting the faculty of imagination because of how we are trained, our research habits, enduring traditions, and dominant policies. What is true? What is a proof? What is fiction; anticipation; futuring? Can any of these be validated? What is empirical data? What is speculation worth? What can a mix of genres do? Can poetry be research? What is a story of the self? What is a story of self and self-criticism worth for others? What legitimacy do we have when we attempt to share realities that are not strictly ours? What is the impact of generalisations; or what truth can we share regarding that to which we do not have direct access, or have not experienced directly? Taking up indeterminacy and freedom again, such questioning points towards artistic, ethical, and political problems that we think are conditioning the cultural, social, and activist landscape today. We suggest that this is happening to such an extent that what is needed is a willingness to rework, as in writing words and materials together, and interact with learners who are willing to engage in such adventures together. (And we would argue that most learners are in fact eager for such adventures!) The challenges we therefore embrace by this collection are to argue for and showcase a praxis that activates research and educational knowledge and enlarges the research and educational imagination. Education being just as much an art form as it is a science. From this perspective, we claim that how research is written is of paramount importance. Always writing: writing differently. We cite Camus (2018) again: The free artist is the one who, with great effort, creates his own order. The more undisciplined what he must put in order, the stricter will be his rule and the more he will assert his freedom. (p. 27) Ultimately, and again, we are investigating the possibilities which flow when HE/knowledge language-nature/culture collaborations maintain focus on procedurality itself: specifically, on procedural responsibility. We are interested in what is made possible if, as researcher/academics, we can keep processes open in ways that avoid closing knowledge collaboration down; and in ways that focus on knowledging. We are interested in keeping processes open to avoid yielding to management-by-objectives too readily (i.e., read ‘without thinking’). Freedom being researchers’, and educators’, procedural responsibility. This focus on procedural responsibility implies research

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as change, as a writing that is messy and uncertain but always political. As a political endeavour, research must therefore first and foremost be about fluid thinking – a resistance to thinking “in conformity” (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004a p. 415). Turning freedom, as speculative futurality, and writing into the signature research processes and pedagogy of education for success. Let us launch a minimum demand: a policy, education, and research for equity – justice; inclusion – must, at least, not make people’s possibilities for success (for freedom) more unequal. Defensive, but critical, we are afraid. Ogden (2022) writes: Unknowing is on every side of the predicament. Unknowing is there in the terminal flight into frozen innocence with which some of us try to protect ourselves from knowledge of our culpability. Unknowing is there, too, in the uncertainty one may feel when confronted with the problem of how to repair the damage. And unknowing will still be there if one finds a way to live that one can live with. For the few fish captured, many more will escape the net. (pp. 3–4)

Speaking out my defiance as a teacher educator (A story from Anne)

I was giving a one-day in-service course on philosophy of education and learning. Complicated and complex themes of layer upon layer of theories to think with: so I needed some time to both unwrap and wrap up again. The day was packed with lectures, discussions, and groupworks. It was intensive. All participants including myself were pretty ‘hot-headed’ by the end of the day. The next day I received an e-mail from a young colleague: Dear Anne, thank you for yesterday, your knowledges and your enthusiasm. You give me a lot to think about. Having thought about it overnight however, I would like to offer you some advice… no offence. 1) Divide activities in chunks of no more than 15 minutes. Our attention does not last longer than that. 2) Lecture about one thing at a time. 3) Start with something concrete or simple, then move to the more complicated and abstract. 4) Have regular breaks. No session should last more than 45–60 minutes. 5) During a 45–60-minute session, arrange up to three different activities to vary with and/for flexibility. 6) There are so many interesting examples and talks on, for example, YouTube that you can use to illustrate your points. I will be happy to guide you where and how to find and use them.

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Bless her, I thought. I was so glad that she approached me. Being a senior to her, both academically and age wise, I was content that I had at least removed my person away from representing any kind of authoritarian danger to her. She felt confident and safe to approach me. Louise and I were talking with a young mother over the fence of her backyard. She held her baby in her arms (15 months old). He is very sweet and babbled along. Waving towards a spider, smacking his mother on the arm at the word ‘mosquito’, eagerly pointing to one of Louise’s tomatoes hanging on the other side of the fence, tempting him. He loves the small red tomatoes and, of course, he got one. The mother said: The other day he spent at least thirty minutes concentrating on stacking a set of small plastic cups. Can you imagine! Stacking, arranging and demolishing the same cups over, and over again. I wonder what he was thinking. He did not say or utter anything. He sat there by himself on the floor. Back in the day when I studied to be a teacher I was taught the same things as my young colleague listed in her email to me. But is this true? Does attention last – give or take – only 15 minutes? The little boy of only 15 months can concentrate longer. I know I can. My best working days are when time flies and I can concentrate on my writing. Sometimes I can write for six hours without pause. The only reason I stop is because I need something to eat or drink or to go to the loo. What might not last long however is my back. I am getting older. I am happy with such physical facts though; I just want to know where they come from. Are children predisposed to think in narrow fashions? Because of their early stage of cognitive development, are they dismissed as not having the capacity to engage in abstract thought? Are we defining and confining them to specific performativities, outside of which they cannot exist without being pathologised or disqualified? What implications might this have for learning throughout the educational systems? What might the social do? According to Bruno Latour (1947–2022), “the generous philosopher”, facts have careers. “The apparent ‘solidity’ of facts is dependent on the ongoing support of the social apparatuses” (in Muecke, 2022). Constructivist socio-cultural, cognitive, and social oriented learning theories have dominated learning theory for decades. I sometimes cry when I think of effects of affects. What do we think about what the little boy is doing when he stacks cups? Or what do we think about a child who watches the same film repeatedly or wants to be read to – the same book again and again? Do we think that it is because it is easy, because he is bored, incompetent, or what? Is it because he can do only one thing at the time? Do we think it is because he aims at creating a sense of familiarisation or belonging? Is it

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because he is becoming, learning something? Stacking cups is simultaneously concrete and complicated, simple and abstract. Starting where you are is starting in complexity. What might it cost to belong? Where does a 45–60-minute per lesson policy come from? Who does it gain? What does it serve? Is it organised around basic needs of eating and drinking, stretching the legs? When and why did it become tradition: accepted/assumed practice? Why, if so, is it? Does organisation implicate governance and digitalisation, the on-line systems we develop, PEG? Selfregulation, identity policies and autonomy are both pedagogical and political aims of our educational systems. What if regulations were lifted? Would there be chaos? There was an experiment conducted at a roundabout in Germany. Something had to be done because there were so many accidents. Engineers were hired to assess what might be done to regulate traffic, altering the curving of the road, improved traffic signs, and so forth. Solutions were environmentally invasive and expensive. Decisions were made to do nothing with the road and remove all existing traffic signs. The only regulation that was kept was to drive, in this case, on the right-hand side of the road. Drivers regulated themselves and their behaviours in relation to other drivers and the traffic. The number of accidents was reduced to zero. Why is variation important? What is it to be flexible? Can it be seen or heard? Can flexibility be sensed? What does ‘practice makes perfect’ imply? What might a recursive move away from the concept of repetition to and with the concept of iteration contribute? Iteration never returning to the exact time and place. What kind of activities, rehearsal materials, and questions do we provide students with? Is critical thinking for or against exercises? Why did the number of accidents change? Digitalisation is the future and permeates every aspect of institutions, organisation, contents, and thinking through Web 3.0 technologies and/in metaverse. Web 3.0 being the third generation in the development of web technologies. Web 3.0 promotes mainstream use of blockchain technology and contributes to the work of making machine learning and AI systems (artificial intelligence) smarter and easier to adapt. The development seems simultaneously intriguing and unavoidable. Life ‘online’, social media (SoMe), offers fantastic opportunities, SoMe platforms are fun arenas for interaction and information, but perilous paths also lurk at every click. Democracies shake and we see unprecedented, centralised power in big tech companies. For SoMe companies, it’s all about business and marketing. The more we use them, the more money they make, and ultimately what they do is create echo-chambers in which we only encounter information or opinions that reflect and reinforce our own. Advanced algorithms determine what appears in our feeds (news overview), and the SoMe companies collect as much information about us as possible, serving the stories

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and ads they think we like. Beliefs are amplified by communication and repetition inside closed systems and insulated from rebuttal (https://www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/echo%20chamber, Accessed 2 February 2023). Regulations seem to have little effect and concepts like cyber security, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and sustainability become inflated. We seem to be in some sort of limbo, not knowing what to do. Given the SoMo modus operandi one thing we do know, however, is that those who are employed in the big tech companies gradually become so similar or alike that the technologies they create instead of being inclusive discriminate and exclude. They might exclude different individuals or groups, but the mechanisms of the algorithms are working the same way. Subsequently turning ideals, policies – and concept of, for example, diversity and inclusivity into riddles in themselves (https://hanspetter.info/ tekologitrender/, Retrieved 30 August 2022. There are “good and bad” effects from technology, and therefore never has the need for storytellers and storydoers as writers and doers, writing and actioning been greater. Writing and storying ourselves into being and becoming. Writing and storying principled in its activism and advocacy. I think about my young colleague again and the neoliberal thinking that surrounds our practices, and ask: Is learning linear and sequential? Do we need a goal to be learning something? Do we always know in advance what to say? In a report from the Norwegian Work Research Institute 19 October 2020,1 we could read that professional judgement is under pressure because 1) the use of new forms of control, such as performance goals, competence measurement, performance management and strategic management, significantly weaken the use of professional judgement. 2) That the sector is largely governed through Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) directives, European Union (EU) research funding, guidelines in Horizon 2020 and from the Research Council of Norway. Even professors and associate professors find that the framework for academic judgement is being narrowed. 3) Standards, measurements, risk assessments, and monitoring of institutions have been established as a form of governance where competition in the global ‘knowledge market’ becomes the dominant management principle. Quantifiable targets and efficiency requirements are normalised and permeate all levels. 4) Trade union members are experiencing increased distrust in the workplace in line with increased control and reform, bureaucratisation, top management, streamlining and the ABE- reform.2 This goes beyond research and education as a core business.

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5) Political constraints and economic cuts devalue professional judgement. It reduces confidence in management. Members feel overruled. Co-determination and participation are weakened by the management systems. 6) University democracy is under pressure of commodification and market logic. None taken! In Chapter 5 – and moving with Anne’s story – we continue to riddle inclusivity from speculative futuralist perspectives and what we conceive of as an immediate need to (re)design our knowledge practices and/in/for diversity. For some readers this might come as a relief because finally the concept of inclusion gets some direct attention as a concept. Some might want to reread Chapter 3, and/or reread the introductory chapter: to re-author. Writing this way, back and forth, direct, and indirect, key points hidden within a paragraph, hesitant, diffuse, creating gaps and writing fuzzy and unclear some would say, is deliberate and works to/with the book´s contents and form: keeping the potentialities of the concepts within the concepts through helping the reader to follow the concept development … not. The ‘not’ reminding both the reader and the writer to stop, think again, think more, think other; to re-author. Education and research being in ‘positive’ relation to their ‘negatives’. Thus, allowing for yoking together observations about different genres, from different periods: writing research and educative moments of how to live, how to love, how to be and become, again and again; what to do (or not to do), in uncertain times. Traditional method-driven qualitative or quantitative approaches do not necessarily challenge established bodies of traditional methodology. And our intention is not to revisit or add to the ever-growing debates of the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ of either/or qualitative or quantitative approaches. Our focus here is to advocate research and learning from/in the pauses, the silences, the hesitations, the staggers, and slides; research for, and pedagogies involving understanding the role of creativity as in ‘creating dangerously’; research and learning that are embedded in the ‘not-yet-known’. When Doherty (2022) writes a critique (or was it a critique?) to Emily Ogden’s book On Not Knowing, she alludes to the challenge she experiences in taking on the role of critic in response to this work. While Doherty presents Ogden’s writing style as designed to focus on a ‘not knowing yet’ approach to expertise and knowledge in general, she also presents this style as a thoughtful way to ‘elude the critic’. This approach, Doherty suggests, is woven through an avoidance of any claims of expertise or having the answers to the dilemmas she addresses in her text. Rather, Ogden presents her readers with questions – questions with which to think deeply. Elsewhere, we have written about the de facto end of critique (Reinertsen, 2019 in Thomas & Reinertsen [eds.], 2019)

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turning every concept into an epistemological thinking possibility. Taking up the thinking possibilities presented by our take on Doherty and Ogden, we are interested in innovation uncertainty, in education and difference: escaping and/or eluding the critic. Writing and multi-versing between divergent knowledges; writing and questioning from a basis of not-yet-knowing. Writing in such ways being a form of activism and aesthetics, expanding the empirical basis with which we perform research – creating a think-to-elude-tank. Through asking how we do what we do as researchers, what these research processes look like, how they might unfold and how is it that researchers do analyses, we aim to move thinking/working/writing towards an acceptance that research and educational innovation can – and must be possibilised in the design process itself. In Chapter 6 we discuss knowledging across divides or “across computers” so to speak as a heliotropic metaphor for writing within digitalisation. Writing autobiographically, exploring the mattering dimension of digitalisation, paradoxes in binary thinking hopefully strengthening our algorithmic awareness, shaping digital inclusive learning spaces, becoming technologists between. Expanding our emotional registers in/for automated futures. The concept of governance re-emerges directly and indirectly in both chapters to continue to be thought with for actioning and newness: the logic of governance continuing to contribute to new beginnings of inclusive and open-ended processes. Notes 1 https://www.forskerforbundet.no/nyheter/2020/-alvorlig-at-forskernes-fagligefrihet-begrenses/ 2 The de-bureaucratisation and efficiency reform (ABE reform) was introduced by the Norwegian government from the 2015 budget year to ensure more efficient operation of central government agencies. In Governmental White paper 1 S (2014–2015), the Government stated that it assumed annual productivity growth of 0.5 per cent in the central government and assumed that all central government agencies implemented annual measures to increase productivity. The proposition emphasised that less money should be spent on bureaucracy, creating room for manoeuvre for priorities in the central government budget. The reform was intended to transfer part of the benefits from less bureaucracy and more efficient use of money in the annual budgets to the community. The annual transfer to society was set at 0.5 per cent of all operating expenses allocated over the national budget. In the following years, the budgets of all central government agencies have been cut by 0.5–0.7 per cent annually.

5 MINOR RESEARCH POLICIES AND INCLUSIVE EDUCATIONAL BECOMING DESIGNS

In this chapter we riddle inclusivity from speculative futuralist perspectives and what we conceive of as an immediate need to (re)design and/in diversity, creating inclusive research designs. Thinking with Ogden (2022) and unknowing again, we cannot escape our own contemporaries; we need to act and reshape them: “The world has mundanity, duration, bullshit. Many nonsense tasks must be completed; false spirits must be tried and rejected; long periods pass in which nothing illuminating happens” (Ogden, 2022, p. 2). In both research and education, inclusion and diversity are simultaneous coinciding processes, collapsing together, generating multiplicities that encounter other multiplicities. Referring to Camus (2018) again, “no justice first and coming to freedom later” and here we suggest, no inclusion first and coming to diversity later. There are always other ways of understanding, relating to and creating inclusive processes, catching a glimpse of constraining and releasing processes that might be happening elusively and differently, and, thus, increasing our sensitivity to the realities of inclusion. What is at question are relationships between all the actors in play – both human and more-than human; all the active materialities and agencies. Relationships that are totally different from hierarchical forms of connections, and where everything is a matter of becoming – simultaneously included and inclusive. Rodriguez (2018) introduces his book Against inclusion the following way: Nothing about inclusion is good for human diversity. Inclusion assumes that in order for us to thrive collectively, our differences must be tamed, sanitized, and harmonized. Inclusion must come first, meaning that diversity must

DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-7

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always yield to the demands of inclusion. However, in destroying diversity, inclusion protects the status quo by promoting conformity and homogeneity. (Rodriguez, 2018 p. ix) Multi-versing what we are expected to accept as ‘real’, and learning from/in the ever-present pauses, silences, hesitations, staggers, and slides at work in relational encounters, enables us – as thinkers, writers, actors in complex and multiple knowledge contexts – to stretch the limits of articulating diversity and inclusion. In this way hoping for a celebration of diversity and escaping the relentless drive for conforming in the name of inclusion. Following the more-than human agencies, not focusing on artificial oppositions we have built between, for instance, subject and object which is at the heart of positivist science and tends to insist that facts are just waiting to be discovered in an objective world and once discovered, become permanent. Everything is real and must be approached with a rigorously empirical and experimental attitude. Here, thinking with the things of the world, respecting their right to exist and act on their own terms. When the definitive properties of known words are gone, there is always the possibilities of invention, allowing us to associate rather than argue, to explore rather than define. Inventing research for and pedagogy of agency involving understanding the role of creativity in education. Art as a gap representing the difference between intention and realisation. The role of the artist, and nodding to Marcel Duchamp (1887– 1968), that of being attentive to difference (1957). Actioning situational movements in contexts of social, political, and cultural challenges and changes in our knowledge spaces – thinking with the challenge – riddling, the mysteries and philosophy again – not trying to achieve balance. Rather to be “academic other” (Reinertsen, Gajic & Thomas, 2020). Becoming researcher: taking the concept of agency as force and actionalising it through the concept of beyonding; making the familiar strange. Rodriguez (2018) continues: The diversity that inclusion champions is nothing but a caricature of diversity. It is diversity in name only. It has no capacity or yearning to disrupt or renew anything. Its only ambition is to be included and affirmed. I treat inclusion as a hegemon – a vast system of values, beliefs, fears, structures, and practices that imposes and sustains a certain set of supposed truths about the human experience. I aim to demystify this hegemon, specifically the implications and consequences that come with this hegemon. (p. ix) Continuing to think with Ogden (2022) ‘unknowing still being there regardless of having found a way to live that one can live with’, liberated singularities escaping the critic do not have one singular and well-balanced order, but creativity gives freedom of choice and freedom of action for self-expression.

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Truths are shifting; writing stories, however, suture up our parts, weave and knit our bodies and our worlds into shapes we can use and that make sense to us, shapes that can break and be repaired in sufficiently predictable ways to allow us to live. Advocating for research and learning enhancing – on the one hand – our abilities to describe collective productions of, for example, algorithmic accountability. On the other hand, however, when not to, and with reference to Garcés (2022) at the end of Chapter 3 again: the absolute urgency for research and researchers not to get lost in ‘solutionism’. Rather than seeking clarity, we choose to dwell in a state of indeterminacy, not focusing on our powerlessness but our de-comforted force to act. The shifting, and messy style suits our non-critical sensibilities. The style being both a way of making a work of research coherent – of maintaining ‘sameness within change’, simultaneously included and inclusive and an invitation to experiment, to play. Going via affect, as a threshold experience going beyond emotions and beliefs, our focus is to force the concept of inclusivity open to create just, fluid designs for knowledging. Affect being this “prepersonal intensity corresponding to the passage from one experiential state of the body to another and implying an augmentation or diminution in that body’s capacity to act” (Massumi in Deleuze and Guattari, 2004a, p. xvii). In this way, every act of language or conceptualisation involves an expression of affect. No risk and controversy are avoided; the possibilities/promises of knowledging and good governance in research and education emerge within the design itself. Ending our stories (our research; our knowledging) more often with unanswered questions than with conclusions. Turning freedom as speculative futurality and authoring agency into the signature pedagogy of education and educational science and research makes another type of positivism possible. A positivism without any trace of renunciation of freedom, no trace of surrendering to either condemnation or salvation in/of research and learning. Only learners labouring for transformation; writing in transition faces at the intersection of individual and social dimensions. A research and learning through the sensory reworking of surfaces in everyday settings and their experimental redesigns. Writing in which to sense the multiplicity of ‘other’; extending the concept of normality through avoiding categorisation; becoming weavers of complex and multi-stranded storied lives. A research practice and learning, an attitude and mentality of resistance against the colonising knowledge regimes of our time and their forms of oppression, avoiding the paralysing still-waters between “a defensive-nostalgic preservation of what is (our emphasis added) and a type of futuristic techno-utopian vision as a belief in the cognitive salvation of humankind thanks to connecting all of our knowledges in the global hypertext” (Garcés, 2022, p. 84, author’s own translation). Good governance, hence, PEG, we argue is in the current major conceptualisation of both policies and practices, understood as a system that is

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supposed to distribute power and make room for diversity, subjectivity, inclusion, and multiple perspectives. Based in predominantly cultural historical, cognitive, and socio-cultural theories of development and learning, PEG is built upon an educational culture and research that is thought to facilitate children’s/students’ opportunities to disturb the established ways of thinking through participation and voice, which in turn could pave the way for new practices. In short, a socio-cultural cognitive view of learning assumes that learning takes place through social language and the communicative function and importance of discourses for inclusion. Language is seen as both method and means to acquire voice and participation in social practices being the path to inclusion. Not in any way criticising or opposing any of these well-intended ideas as such, we seriously however doubt that PEG and the current rationales of PEG will fulfil their promises. In this book good governance, read inclusion, is expanded with affective and materialist perspectives, and minored to get the ideas moving and dynamic – adventurous, we hope, to force knowledge open and knowledging. It implies, and going back to Chapter 3, a move from distribution of power to possibilising freedom, facilitation replaced with the notion of collective procedurality, cultural perspectives connected with natural perspectives. The concept of governance turned into an affective concept. The personal and political collapsed together and effects of affects have become possible to evaluate. Garcés (2022) continues: “In the common fate of humanity, the most relevant epistemological fact of our time is the rediscovery of the nature-culture continuum” (p. 96, author’s own translation). This turns pedagogy and pedagogical research – ultimately where we hope to direct PEG – into a natural science as well as a social science and part of the humanities. That is, movements from language and voices, culture, and social practices, to the materiality and affective expressions of language, nature and sociability in immanence. Etymologically, the term immanence is derived from the Latin term immanere, which could be translated as ‘to dwell within’. In a new material natureculture perspective, immanence is grounded in the human and more than human subject and object as conscious life. Immanence meaning, for example, to be part of something, being internal to something, belong to or remain within. Being simultaneously preoccupied with what lies beyond what legitimately can be known, and since we write based in multiple philosophical approaches, the term ‘transcendence’ is equally important to understand what we attempt to move and write with in this book, the words that we invent, the de-comforting and re-authoring we constantly engage in. Transcendence is traditionally conceived as all that exists outside of, or independently of, consciousness. In a new-materialist perspective, transcendence means to ‘go beyond’ or ‘stand outside of or above’ in a rather generalised way. Thinking simultaneously with immanence and transcendence both, we move and write

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with words like minoring, beyonding and multi-versing. Minoring or a minor theory, policy and perspective questions majority perspectives and ideals, here PEG, emphasising the differences it produces from a society’s ideal and intended, desired policies, changes in construction and constitution of majority perspectives. A minor theorising, policy and perspective produces breaks in linear and instrumental presentations and helps move our reflections. Minoring is to recognise that subjectivities, spatialities, and temporalities are embodied, situated, and fluid. Through affect, minoring transcends majority perspectives and ideals without leaving them behind, revealing the limits of the majority perspectives when transformed along with the minor. More on this below. We promised in the preface to comment on environmental problems, and here we go. The limits of knowing might help us cope with the natural, social, and political disasters of our current moment. Not through being defensive of malign ignorance but through the vulnerability of not knowing yet and learning to think of the self from a mutual universality and a more than human humanity. Diversity and inclusion conditioning the creation of ‘solutions’ to a common crisis – e.g. a response to climate change requires a plurality of knowledges. Being a fool as an honest admission of the limits of one’s knowledge and abilities. For what are we if not ignorant, desiring fools? In this minor-minoring, re-authoring, beyonding and multi-versed education and research perspective, preventing exclusion and abuse, and what we ultimately write, inclusion is seen as a knowledgeable collective rightfulness established through experienced situated presence: making visible the intersections of knowledges and justice/injustice, inclusion/exclusion in the present while being oriented towards new research, educational and social futures. Creating inclusive research designs opening for moments as pure events of awareness and silence. In the dynamic and open-ended world described by Deleuze and Guattari in terms of becoming, these moments belong to the realm of virtual reality. A virtual event having the potential of assuming its actual existence, becoming-actual and actioning, as involving processes of actualisations qualifying as minoring processes of knowledging. Inclusive research designs thought of as a move and extension of a set of knowledges and rights located in the abstract future to political struggles integral to research and learning here and now: the right to rewrite and/or reauthor knowledges, asking who am I in my being- becomingness? Minoring, and going back to Chapter 3 and nodding to Derrida (2000) again: the burden or cost of inclusion is shared between learners within a ‘hospitality and forgiveness’, involving an ethical commitment to leverage guest/host relationships being replaced by a culture of disruption towards knowledges and justice, where modes of power/authority are collectively called in question towards co-constitutive equitable ends.

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As a component of our riddling some of the real and ridiculous features of our knowledge worlds, we take up Audre Lorde’s (1984/2007) warning that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” (p. 110). And picking up from this warning, Isabelle Stengers (2022) – reading Alfred N. Whitehead (1861–1947) – states that: But perhaps Audre Lorde’s warning … is what philosophy can add to life in the ruins, to the one who has tasted and abused all the poisons that create the masters, to the one who has explored all variants of “it is either this or chaos, arbitrariness, violence, treason”. We will probably never be liberated from the tentacular grip of the idea, from the idea that demands to be realized. Perhaps we still need philosophy to learn to taste, with a humour that does not mock the passions for what Whitehead called “adventures of ideas”. (p. 220, author’s own translation) Philosophy being our utmost challenge and comfort. Even the fool has an element of care. Agency and force becoming that of a constant ongoing reconfigurings of the world, not linked to meanings, opinions or attributes, but to what we can do. Actioning through writing theoretical thinking and knowledging prompting, mobilising, and allowing for flows of affirmation of values and forces which are not yet sustained by current conditions. Ultimately, we are giving up the sanctuary of any shared values, definitions, educational or research programs, to gain access to different worlds and different points of view. And with Camus (2018) again urging ourselves, researchers and educators to become fearless in creating new meaning. Even unafraid of creating a new society, one that may seem outside the one I/we were born into. In the Sami vocal tradition of Joik, everything and everyone can get a Joik dedicated to them or be Joiked, whether it being a reindeer, a bear, or a human being. One does not joik about a bear or a human being. The bear and the human are joiked. … perhaps it is not even possible to talk about disciplinary knowledge anymore? As professionals we must expect that of ourselves. Break up with language and throw every word away Sit down and sense The warmth Let every subject and object collide Keep the positive in relation to their negatives Take the words back and turn them into philosophies Observe where you are Allow yoking as in joiking – singing, dancing together Natureculture Governancedigitalisation

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Includedinclusive How to love and what to do Adventuring the idea of inclusion and becoming designs

The actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging, educational and research becoming designs is about designing educative and research processes and interventions in ways that bodies do not reduce each other’s room for manoeuvring. Rather, room for the manoeuvring of bodies should increase with/in becoming designs. Nothing can be reduced to anything else; nothing can be deduced from anything else; everything may be connected to everything else. And to underline, actioning is not about setting ultimate criteria for what is good or bad, right, or wrong, but about taking an interest in inter- and intraacting forces, where we do not know in advance the complexities of encounters between different bodies and how these encounters will turn out. Consequently, every program or research intervention – read becoming design – appears as open-ended inquiries. Action being, fundamentally, a methodological quality, we never know in advance what bodies can do, but over time they will methodologically show off their abilities and qualities. The realities of all human and more-than-human participants are thus valid, and our task is to intensify them with a view to becoming. What then needs to be made accountable and recomposed in a meaningful way are relationships between; the gaps, the frictions; the im/possibilities. And so, to come back to writing as a research method and methodology: writing is never seen as any sort of self-indulgent narcissism, nor any type of therapeutic technique or claim of being authentic. Rather, writing is just seen as a form of activism and aesthetics, allowing us to expand the empirical basis with which we perform research. All situativity theory – and elaborating on the immanence-transcendence mashup above and indirectly more on our word creation adventure of minoring, beyonding and multi-versing – argues that knowledge, thinking and learning are situated (or located) in experience. Minoring being the recognition of subjectivities, spatialities and temporalities being embodied, situated, and fluid. But to be clear, there is no writing and multi-versing that can determine other people’s positions and what they might want or need to do. Further, in the absolute immanent-transcendent situativity of Deleuze, Guattari, Derrida and Foucault that we commit to in this book – immanence being immanent only to itself – immanence is not dependent on something else and avoids all binary opposites and universals. Immanence is immanent only to itself. Nothing, any subject, object, or concept has any references outside itself. At the moment of force, intensity, and creation any it within it posits itself and its object simultaneously, re-created or reborn in (affective) experience. Or put another way, the concept of, for example, inclusion is showing itself in practice.

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To elaborate; in immanence virtual signs and tendencies have the potential of becoming actioned when unfolded “through differentiations of an initially undifferentiated field either under the action of exterior surroundings or under the influence of internal forces that are directive, directional” (Deleuze, 2006, p. 10). Affective forces materialise as points, arrows or lines traversing one’s former knowledge universe and enable unknown universes to appear and surface. One’s expanded perception in/of becoming constitutes an in-built epistemic access to that which would be otherwise inaccessible: “At the level of percepts, it is on the newly constructed surface that experience gets organized, and the construction of the surface is paramount” (Semetsky, 2009, p. 450). Reconstruction and reconstitution make every unit, concept and conceptualisation, every criterion and measurement, every norm, audit, and code ultimately – and with special focus on digitalisation, algorithms surface hence accountable through the “(re)design of their surfaces: the forms of appearance, documentation, and tangible devices accompanying their use in everyday life” (Cellard, 2022, p. 798). Such surfacing processes leave writers with an obligation of undertaking participatory constant (re)design projects and possibilise ‘thinking-to-elude-tanks’ – the not-knowing, the non- and unknowing always there – however, putting wings on our/their thoughts for making ‘good’ together. Making good governance and inclusivity together: allowing the contents of the concepts change every time they are used. Making good governance and inclusivity – returning to Camus again – through dangerous space creating, making and undertaking. The overall ‘objective’ (or non-objective) of becoming designs, becoming being affect, is to strengthen the quality of practice. To underline; we understand practice here as our empirical and non-transcendental methods to rehearse thinking with theory for knowledging: theory and practice as ­theorypractice (Reinertsen, 2012) (natureculture, governancedigitalisation, includedinclusive …) encounters and affective experience. Methodologies are empirical by virtue of the object of inquiry – here that being inclusion – regarded as “belonging to real albeit sub-representative experience, yet transcendental because the very foundation for the empirical principles are left outside the common faculties of perception” (Semetsky, 2009, p. 449). Experience, ultimately, subsisting in a virtual, as yet non-representative form, not physically extended, just as signs or intensive multiplicities. Empirical methodologies ultimately being that of reading, writing, multi-versing and creating signs abound in experience. By looking at something that does not imitate us back, we lift ourselves out of mimesis – out of any echo chambers, and allow liberation from mimesis’s grip of copying and repetition. Avoiding joining the rhythms of that or those we want to-, must- and need to continue- relating to. Not escaping our contemporaries but acting and reshaping them. Resistance in

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immanence-transcendence mashup seen as a force of life and a way out of what Guattari (2008) calls “pseudoscientific paradigms” (p. 30), science and research subsequently methodologies stifled by logics of discursive sets delimiting its objects. Immanent living in the ruins as a love for the now and not some idea: the idea of inclusion returned to life for life. A living of indeterminacy between, or a living with the ambiguities between not totally accepting or rejecting what is, between analogue and virtual foresight in education and research. Possibilising expansions into demanding exercises in valuing what we do not yet know, but which we constantly have to arrange again and again, without blocking opportunities to think and act differently. Unfinished aspects, risk, dissent, and noise being part of every reality. In Chapter 8 we riddle some examples for you to rewrite. For HE, actioning and knowledging means the need to develop inclusive (included and inclusive) internal structures, organisation, and governance where the main objective is to develop affective cross-institutional partnerships and arenas for cooperation, knowledge brokering, mutual competence building for research and learning, and jointly develop creative research interventions in research and educational methodologies and practices. Sharing and developing scholarships seen as dynamic developments entailing ongoing processes of practical, theoretical, and multi-versing engagement. Knowledging involving the risk of loss of what we can know, what we value, what we sense and consider reasonable. Not loss, in the form of disappearance, but as shifts into new contexts. Positioning the more-than-human condition as a condition of orientation and that of being human as a collaborative activity. Several dimensions and interweaving of time, place, and relationships possibilising changes that extend beyond the known and as we see it, towards professional renewal. Becoming designs, as that of offering affirmative and generative possibilities for learning, ultimately teaching us to embrace the intrinsic and poetic qualities of matter: our/selves, things, and materials. The actioning of theoretical thinking and knowledging as the unfolding of poiesis as we have tried to unfold and show throughout the book. A renewing a normativity of academic work and labouring as an embodied force for freedom. Normativity emerging or showing itself from poiesis understood non-reductively as the form of the self-organising body already transforming nature and itself toward higher qualitative relations of mutual flourishing. Morton (2021) writes: You don’t ever exhaust the meaning of a poem or a painting or a piece of music, and this is another way of saying that the artwork is a sort of gate through which you can glimpse the unconditioned futurality that is a possibility condition for predictable futures. (p. 65)

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Writing an inclusive becoming researcher design

Referring back to the report from the Norwegian Work Research Institute, Chapter 3 and the three separately studied lines of precision education governance making up an assemblage of traditional, linear, positivist, result- and solution-oriented conceptions, these are, in short, what is traditionally referred to as ‘evidence’ – and/or knowledge-based learning and development, and make up the prevailing research paradigm, patterns or perceptions of research in educational fields. Scientifically, these are phenomenological approaches in combination with hermeneutics (Reinertsen, in Thomas & Reinertsen eds, 2019). Traditionally, and according to this paradigm, the regular research process is construed through the following schematic steps: A) Development of (work) hypotheses, issues and/or assumptions as a basis and starting point for research. Furthermore, the development of more specific research questions that one wishes to elucidate in the best possible way or answer. This is usually referred to as the development of a research object, and in other words what we want to know more about. B) Empirical data and/or data collection. We divide into either qualitative or quantitative research methods, but to a greater and greater extent, the two are mixed. This phase is often also called fieldwork. Ideally, you choose methods for collecting data to find out as much as possible about the research object you have as a starting point, or what fits best in relation to what you want to find out something about. As a rule, methods are mixed to elaborate or confirm the findings one makes. Both qualitative and quantitative research are today considered to be value-based and that the researcher can never, in a subject/object perspective, be said to be completely objective. What we are nevertheless working on is an assumption that the methods chosen and the way in which the research is conducted ensure quality in the processes in a way that clarifies both the process and the relationship between the researcher and the research participants and sufficiently ensures the integrity of both. C) Coding or categorisation and analysis. In short, this alludes to the analysis of the data material and the way in which it can be understood and passed on. Dividing into categories, instances or groups of data is one way to do that. This requires an in-depth discussion and balancing of the choices/ assessments one makes in relation to what one is researching. What is considered relevant to include and important for understanding contexts, that is. The activity then rests on the positive assumption that it is both possible- and that there is actually something to understand: something fundamental, a phenomenon, a core, a basis, a context, an origin, or a root of something else.

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D) Verification of validity and reliability and/or triangulation. In short, validity is about how well one manages to measure what one intends to measure or investigate. It is the interpretation of the data however that is validated, not the measurement methods or tests themselves. A distinction is made between internal and external validity, where the first alludes to the content and basis of the assessments, the second to the function of the assessments in a larger societal and/or educational and research context. One checks against both theory and empiricism/practice or what can also be called the presence or perceived reality. In other words, it is a validity check to ensure that the categories you develop and the findings you eventually make, appear to be credible professionally and empirically. Reliability is thus that of checking that you measure what you have said you are going to measure. Triangulation involves checking the data material, where you also check with the participants (member checking) whether you have understood correctly or that the interpretations you have made are such that participants can recognise themselves. Or put another way, if you measure what you have said you are going to measure. E) Findings or research results and publication: Finally, through such a process you can present images of reality, evidence, facts or knowledge if you prefer that concept. While quantitative research here operates with concepts such as statistical significance and probability of what has been found out is correct or not, it is common in qualitative research to operate with various forms of generalisations be they theoretical, conceptual or naturalistic. Traditional science and research working through and along these steps builds on research communities’ own creative re-creations, and takes place indirectly, and under the protection of an overall meta-perspective. There is consensus and agreement ultimately turning present science and research into a system of its own. Thomas Kuhn (1962) described such processes as movement into and establishment of a paradigm. Further, he claimed that after some time paradigms turn into normalised sciences and lose force. We are fearful of a corrosive commodification of science and research, governance, education, and inclusion, and rather than allow ourselves to fall into ‘involuntary onto-epistemic servitude’, we work to force open knowledge in our research spaces: we resist, we challenge. New – or emergent – materialisms offer alternatives through seeing poiesis as normatively a creative act, hence another type of positivism. Every concept and poiesis surfacing and showing itself in practice. In emergent materialisms, material writing and research, the scientific (re)creation is incorporated into multiple/many paradigms and research networks, which then must carry themselves and fight for their own existence without an overarching epistemological or politically overarching and protective narrative. The difference is, however, not

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normative but associated with placing research in a more or less legitimate plurality. If research plurality is constricted by a metanarrative, the scientific production, and subsequent assessment, will be carried out in singular terms. On the other hand, if, as we present here, more messy, porous, and pluralistic research and research environments can legitimise themselves in constant dynamic processes, then everything has a capacity to be expressed in some form of dynamic plurality. Lyotard (1979) writes: The classical dividing lines between the various fields of research are thus questioned – disciplines disappear, overlaps occur on the boundaries between research, and from this, new territories are born. The speculative hierarchy of learning must succumb to an immediate and, as it were, “flat” network of research areas, the respective boundaries of which are in constant flux. (p. 39) Research then becomes not only a specific methodology and an organised collective, but also an intellectual drama (a story-telling): a becoming design for knowledging. A drama and becoming design in tension between tradition and its non-existence. The author’s own experiences between the long-term action, the wild thinking, and the sensible utterance. We might talk about a constant doubled standard for opening perspectives to make research relevant and interesting for more and others. A doubled standard to open to and for more and other dramas. A doubled standard for breathing life into research and making it relevant to our lives. And even a standard for thinking that the most valuable and interesting things there are, we might not be able to assess at all – just break; break to move forward, try more, try other things. Traditional science and research do not adequately challenge the ontological research space, nor the idea of possible other epistemological registers of understanding. Therefore, we are at risk of emptying our concepts and words of meaning and moving towards research uniformity and development of mono-cultures. Even more, there is a risk that we actually walk in circles in terms of research. If this potential risk becomes a reality (a real and ridiculous reality), it could mean that science and research will actually have, and earn, less significance for all: for researchers, academics, institutions and students alike. Not because of a general skepticism, but because it will actually become difficult to see what research is good for and how it is good, because as it stands, one might as well argue for or against research, because that is where (and how) research has positioned itself. To avoid such a stalemate or deadlock, the impression that education and research are stuck in old solutions, we suggest with this book that we try to avoid using the same words/terms, definitions and characteristics over and over again, or that through new material affective approaches open up to see and include more: experiment, explore opportunities, imagine and dream of

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more and thus learn to borrow from more and different sources of knowledges, learn and borrow from other people’s sources of knowledges. Moreover, to learn to use ourselves to see, hear and show our dramas in practice. This entails paying more attention to research philosophy and questions about what makes research into research and what constitutes – and nodding to Iris Murdoch (1975) – good research. And to put it bluntly: the problem with traditional phenomenology is a conviction that data can be interpreted. Data, however, and as any concept, can only be philosophised. Researchers can thus be made into philosophers and radical empiricists embracing many truths, none of which can be universal. By daring to write dangerously – as in using fabulative scales and symbols that point beyond that which seems immediately possible to achieve together – by adventuring and playing, research can be made into something historical and situationally constructed, rather than something inevitable and fated. The grounds for each way of being in the world, each ontology, must be described according to their unique capabilities. And through this, and simultaneously, it might become clearer for us what is not working for us in the now, and what might be changed in the future. Clarity lies in extensions, not in polarisations. Research and education are procedural projects. Knowledging: a co-constitutive co-production. A methodological festival and procedurality

Radical empiricism and absolute immanent situativity possibilise another type of positivism and hope: becoming designs offering opportunities for educators, researchers and research with different approaches to come together, create festivals of methods, forever interruptive and insecure (Otterstad & Reinertsen, 2015). Always learning through different lenses, therefore, different escape lines. Listening for many ontologies and epistemologies. All research only seen as “fumbling experiments” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1983) and, subsequent, mixed or hybrid presentations or so-called assemblages, where different subjects and disciplines, qualitative, quantitative as well as mixtures or mixes of different research and methods are included. All knowledge forced open. Concepts showing themselves in practice. Anything we might think of as a result of something turned into something we can use to think actively with and be active in relation to. Researchers as writers, who love to tell a joke and borrow a poem. Research conducted through emergent materiality, or research in which learning is inscribed. You might ask whether such thinking and philosophy are necessary in education and research, and whether we can require that our programs and systems contain and relate to demanding philosophical texts such as those of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. We might, however, turn that question upside down and ask: When difficult but important thoughts are thought, when they exist and are available to us, can we refrain from being challenged by them?

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Perhaps we can talk about procedurality as investigative research and pedagogy, investigative researchers, and educators for inclusion. Ultimately, turning our talk to making research and methods more interesting to more people. Making different methods interesting for more people. Making more data valid, and valid in other ways. Becoming researchers who research and investigate through own practices, but with a starting point in complexity and working in ways that ensure everything is complex and continues the complexities; not working towards simplification. In other words, no research is simplified. No research beginning in something simple is ever applied in other areas. Different ontologies, including political, economic, referential (scientific), reproductive (living), technological, fictional, legal, moral, and more. Each is equally real; each has its own ‘felicity conditions’, enabling it to proceed through the world in its own way. And again, this is research that is situated and applicable only in the here-and-now. Research and becoming design where the focus of research moves and is, therefore, always directed towards the next thing you must do, the next practice. In experimental thinking, hence insecurity and indeterminacy, the researcher seeks to aim to think without seeking recognition. On the contrary, to privilege what is different (diffèrance); the Other, and thus look for meaning that confirms life and creation. What is of interest is whether a given thinking confirms the diverse life and creation and, therefore, gives meaning to joint existence. This does not mean that philosophising researchers do not check interpretations and results against facts, various forms of criteria or evidence; on the contrary, but that one checks or tests against the most serious criterion of them all: does it work? which in turn means asking if what one is doing “promotes an initiative in relation to creating social justice?” (Denzin, 2010, p. 36). The personal and political come together. Research results, knowledge and evidence become something we can use to think and to be on the way with. No method or approach is rejected if it helps to shed light on a situation, process or case. In becoming designs we do not seek to study phenomena – social or otherwise – in isolation. Rather, phenomena are multiple, subjective, and produced from a series of complex relations. In moving away from empirical models of science that seek to determine causality, reliability and validity, we move towards material ways of thinking and being. In looking at research in terms of such complex relations, research is as much about what knowledge is, as it is about how knowledge comes to be. Such approaches to knowledge and knowledging are marked by difference, even within themselves. And, to continue to be a little systematic again, and summarise a bit too: A) In becoming designs, researchers start with what we know (or what we think we know) for now and use it only to learn more. This includes both that which is and is not. One cannot be reduced to another, or dominate another, without impoverishing the same world. Silence, or not presence,

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can thus be just as important as the opposite: the silence of a student, a colleague. What you write, at the same time, what you do not write about. You open up to other realities, but also other people’s realities. Nevertheless, we start with a question, because asking in itself can change things and have an effect. We can also say that the starting point is always problematised; it is decolonialised. This applies to assumptions about reality, the truth and what is real. Research and questions in tensions between presence/absence, real/virtual: research in and through paradoxes. We open up, sit down together, and use ourselves with others. This is the kind of co-constitutive collaborative research where researchers construct, deconstruct, co-construct research together or as we prefer in this book: researchers who gather around a text. That’s what life sciences is: Everything is text, everything is data, everything is always. Then we form groups in research and processes; groups and processes that open spaces and participants that can be changed by participation. The research object does not exist as a fixed entity or size but may vary and change along the way. B) Data ‘collection’ is turned into a procedural and relational relationship, and another way of thinking about the relationship between researching participants and a relationship with data where everything is data and opportunity to think more with. Theory as data, practice as data, me as data: Creations with data and or dataphilosophy (Reinertsen, 2014a, 2020). Without data, creation of data or – and with reference to Dewey: creata (Brinkmann, 2014). We look for what amazes us, something that does not let us escape or something that violates current perceptions: qualitative, quantitative and trembling; nothing is fixed, only for now, and that’s what’s good. Data as something we choose, something we construct, something we make and take, rather than something given. As we have argued, it is a science and research that has been given many names: post intentional, post normal, post human, post structural, post progress, post foundational; decentred, deconstructed and here demystified. Regardless of names, it is an abductive type of research where reality cannot be described. In turn, abduction can only be described as an eternal process. A type of research, then, that might say; do more with less data. “Abduction is not driven by data or theory, but by astonishment, mystery, and breakdown in one’s understanding” (Alvesson & Kärreman cited in Brinkmann, 2014, p. 722). C) Subsequently, ‘criteria and categorisation’ primarily involve questioning the same categories. Or rather, asking what categorising logics (don’t) create? What is a categorising logic? What does it produce? Categories can appear to be good, comprehensive, relevant, concrete, beautiful, but we must always remember that they are invented, created (made-up), and, thus can/must be created again. Coding and categorisation are specific, and perhaps researchers, and research teachers, use and also teach coding because

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it is possible to teach? It is much more difficult to use and to teach thinking. However, this book is an attempt to turn the research focus more towards thinking. Such a turn concerns poetic imagination and mental mobility. D) When it comes to checking ‘validity’ and ‘credibility’, in becoming designs we prefer talking about a movement from validity to relevance. At the same time, it is an exploration in relation to what is valid knowledge and also valid ways of doing research. Categories and standards are seen as possible opinions only. Becoming designs as research for shedding light on stigmas and what is taken for granted. Simultaneously exploring and working on the edge of own competences. The performative acts as a fulcrum, or perhaps rather as a place where knowledge is unfolded. But where the performative aspect in a theoretical perspective is often associated with the practice of research or practice, here we focus on the performativity of the concept. In this context, the performative is seen not only as a doing, but more as a life-giving force and as something that creates movement. The question then is what happens when the concept of inclusion is uttered or expressed. A becoming research: a researcher who acts like an origami artist and undertakes research like origami folding maybe – fold, fold up, fold again – a new way of seeing, listening, knowing, experiencing, doing. Triangulation is, therefore, not about checking with informants whether one has understood, but about talking/listening back to, discussing with and, thus, continuing together: “Art lives only on the constraints it imposes on itself; it dies of all other” (Camus, 2018, p. 28). E) In the view of ‘discoveries’ and ‘results’, we have chosen to call this knowledging as a sort of knowledge informed futurality. Any generalisations as those of movements from defining to open capacity-building languaging. Simply claiming objectivity, and in the process bracketing out all subjectivity, is not part of a realistic description of what goes on when science does ‘a good’. A realistic description must embrace a heterogenous array of agencies. A language that creates ways of thinking about research based on events rather than representing, commenting on, or explaining what research is, a language in which words and understandings of research are twisted, stretched and jerked out of their accustomed structure of meaning. Study the dictionary list in Chapter 2 again and add words to it. Language as action and words that do not steal anyone’s powers away, building trust for freedom in changing realities. It is a language of attention and concentration, paradoxically emerging through resting in difference. Further, that any research-based development and action (read inclusion) comes through difference. Action, but at the same time a repeal of the same action. This overview is what we present iteratively in this text, as a questioning of ‘scientism’ and a challenge to the influence of traditional ‘predictive sciences’

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in educational governance and research. We work more with a gesture to produce knowledge, knowledge brokering as knowledging more in tune with the real articulations of the world and research as processes accommodating justice-oriented futures. Returning knowledge to the stream of life from which it is drawn, knowledges and knowledging that are able to accommodate duration, change, and transformation. It concerns engagement and struggles in multiplicity, a multiplicity beyond the individual, before the person, something that is “indicating a logic of affect” (Manning, 2020, p. 101); a rethinking of normativity in a way that better grasps its emanation from the labouring body. Something that also asks of us different modes of writing: asks of us to write in more modes and styles than our habits teach us, that is to challenge the mediating models that are used to mobilise and strengthen existing forms of valuation, forms of valuation that tend to privilege those modes already in existence, modes too often leaked to the epistemologies of colonialism and the identity practices that colonialism breeds, including all the way how academia values the stance of objectivity and distance. We think of Lorde’s (1984/2007) warning again, agency and freedom, and draw hope from the words of Butler (2005): If there is an operation of agency or, indeed, freedom in this struggle, it takes place in the context of an enabling and limiting field of constraint. This ethical agency is neither fully determined nor radically free. Its struggle or primary dilemma is to be produced by a world, even as one must produce oneself in some way. This struggle with the unchosen conditions of one’s life, a struggle – an agency – is also made possible, paradoxically, by the persistence of this primary condition of unfreedom. (p. 19) Moving with our different stories of defiance and also thinking with Butler towards the next chapter about becoming technologists, there are at least two main reasons for elaborating the concept – and force – of digitalisation even further: 1) the technological speed, progress, and digitalisation of society in general, of precision education governance (PEG) in particular. Material consequences of harm done by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithms. We think of algorithms of oppression, reproduction of misrepresentations. However, unbiased algorithms of any kind are not possible. They are part of constructs we live by. We are therefore profoundly afraid of losing education as a ‘Public Good’ to ‘big tech’. We are afraid of losing ourselves as academics to ‘big tech’. We are afraid technology is not sustaining science and research, democracy, and democratisation of knowledge and knowledging. Intra- and inter-related with this:

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2) the urgent need for social and natural sustainability: the one cannot be separated from the other. Technology optimism and circular economies and thinking might – if not minored and developed with a sensitivity and depth of understanding – turn out to become part of a cruel optimism leading to yet more echo chambers and possible blind spots of understanding and inequity as we shall also see in Chapter 6. Relations of cruel optimism exist when something you desire is an obstacle to your flourishing (Berlant, 2011). Arguing that the historical (digital) present is perceived affectively before it is understood in any other way, we therefore try to trace our autoethnographic affective and aesthetic responses to the dramas of adjustment that unfold amid talk of digitalisation, innovation, learning, precarity, contingency and even crisis. Radical empiricism and absolute immanent-transcending situativity – minor policies – possibilise revisions of evidence-based governance models. Minor policies and sciences offer new possibilities to discover and explore that which emerges between, as well as the flows of affects that produce a desire to learn and a force for justice. Digitalisation and studies of inclusion in digitalisation and governance in which affective forces are actionalised and the effects of affect have become possible to evaluate. Or put another way, we are trying to understand the effects of digitalisation through the fuzzy and the techie (Hartley, 2017); the sciences and humanities both. “In this group I am the only one who is included”, said the girl with extra material on chromosome 21 We sometimes cry

6 BECOMING TECHNOLOGISTS Thinking grids and/of orientation

In Chapter 5, and with an attempt to locate our thinking at this point, we questioned the possibility that reductive invocations of the child and childhood that have tended to create global truths about capabilities of children and their learning by studying them, defining them, and confining them to specific performativities. And further to this, do such reductivisms suggest that children cannot exist without being pathologised or disqualified; or, at the very least, compartmentalised in the efforts of knowledge systems, policies, and practices to govern their learning. Taking this up as a challenge, we asked about possible consequences for education and research: the dangers of creating echo-chambers and normalised sciences ultimately losing force. We continued with a ‘mapping’ of boundaries between traditional qualitative research methodologies and more-than-human or radical empiricist research methodologies. While mapping boundaries of reductivity and colonialities of education and research is productive, insofar as it resists the naturalisation of colonial taxonomies, we are, in this book, even more concerned with how tracing such entanglements allows us to attend to the im/possibilities of doing education and research differently, with strength and value given to multiplicity, not conformity; affording different responses to what it means to become educator, researcher, academic. We give attention to the importance of keeping agency in digitalisation. Knowledging across divides in that sense as knowledging “across computers” so to speak as a heliotropic metaphor for writing within digitalisation. In short ‘heliotropic’ means turning and growing towards the light https://www. dictionary.com/browse/heliotropic (Retrieved 3 February 2023) Rooted in ancient Greek, “helio” refers to the sun and “tropism” means a turning or movement of a living organism toward or away from an external stimulus, DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-8

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such as light, heat or gravity. The heliotropic effect is about energy, or rather movements towards life-giving energy here conceptualisated as agency, and like plants, people gravitate towards energy-giving sources. Knowledging across divides includes the im/possibilities for what it means to do academia as well as which academic practices get marginalised in the process. Through minoring, ultimately asking how the child, the student and our institutions can become more than objects of universal ideas and major policies. Rather, children and students seen as decentred agentical forces and our institutions as places and spaces of becomings; becoming academic here technologists between. We riddle a taken-for-granted valuation of digitalisation. We riddle to make digitalisation strange. We riddle for digitalisation to be effective for knowledging. The chosen becoming design being autoethnography and /as storytelling exploring the mattering dimension of digitalisation, paradoxes in binary thinking hopefully strengthening our algorithmic awareness. Autoethnography-enabled writing attends to resistance and crossings between discipline and profession, science, and society differently than other theories and methods might. Stories are used as ‘data’ – as seen in Chapter 5, that prefigure and make possible all versions of life that comprise existence: stories reconfigured to transform existence into something ‘other’ (Reinertsen & Blyth, 2022, Blyth in review). Storying thus tuned into autoethnographic types of writing in a multi-versing way that is, not telling an autoethnographical story of oneself, but constantly multi-versing stories, our own and/with others, and knowledging open enough even if addressed through concepts such as inclusivity, design and technology. Stories going beyond cause and effect, rather stories of a beyonded nature. It implies a move from a mechanistic and technological approach to digitalisation to a more open, flexible, and inclusive one. Ultimately, this chapter is a call for exploration and experimentation constructing a continuum of variation around digitalisation, disrupting processes of reterritorialisation. As we ‘think-tank’ with digitalisation, and paraphrasing Brian Massumi (2014) when he treats the human as animal and asks: “What can animals teach us about politics?” – we ask What can children teach us about politics? How can a child become more than an object of policies? What kind of childhoods do we want to future? What kind of childhoods do children want now? What kind of education and research methodologies, academic digitalised practices do we want to future, in ways that value the here-and-now? And as Massumi’s politics is not a human politics of the animal, we do not want a universalised, major, or idealistic politics of the child, digitalisation, education, and research. In The Three Ecologies, Félix Guattari (2008) advocates for “ecosophy” as an ethico-political articulation between the environment, the social relations and human subjectivity: the ecologies being social ecology, mental ecology, and environmental ecology (p. 28). According to Guattari, ecosophy is working to clarify the questions concerning the threats to the

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natural environment of our societies, “not exclusively concerned with visible relations of force on a grand scale, but also take into account molecular domains of sensibility, intelligence and desire” (p. 20). Or as Marina Garcés (2022) asserts: “The western humanistic tradition must leave the expansive universalism and learn to think of itself from a mutual universality” (p. 92). Being human is thus seen as a collective and collaborative activity ultimately repealing any divisions between human and machine, subject and object, adult and child, nature and culture, body, and mind. Social and natural sustainability through becoming technologists between: digitalisation being a completely integrated part of the fabric of what we do and not a separate layer to add on. We aim for integrally child/student digital politics, freed from connotations of the ‘immature’, ‘innocent’, ‘lack’, ‘wants’ or ‘helpless’ construction of child/student – or academic for that matter – and the accompanying presuppositions about prevention, intervention, resilience, learning and even ‘help’ permeating modern educational thought and politics, policies and practices. The ‘not -yet-ness’ of children and youth speaks to a futurity that is already teleologically determined. Digitalisation concerns everybody and everything, and requires engagement in careful, dangerous, multiple, and creative fabulations. Spacemaking makerspace and/as this willingness to writing words and materials together. Making space and interacting with learners who are willing to engage in such re-authoring adventures together. We ask if digitalisation can be seen as a tool for opening spaces for engagement, becoming technologists, not simply for solving problems and providing answers? Throughout this book, we apply the concepts of writing, re-authoring, de-comforting and multi-versing for knowledging. We apply them to a number of challenges within research and educational contexts. These challenges are: inclusivity, governance, digitalisation (here becoming technologist), freedom, and justice. We apply them to a practice of knowledging as a prerequisite for possibilities within and across the concepts of inclusion, governance, and digitalisation for becoming designs. We do that through the practice of re-authoring, multi-versing, de-comforting and knowledging; as constant re-takes of practices for learning. At this point, you could re-read and re-author all chapters again with the lens of digitalisation on, thinking with the logics of automated futures contributing to new beginnings of inclusive and open-ended processes. Do our knowledge institutions become more effective through digitalisation? Or more entrenched in their own assumptions; in their comforting, comfortable-ness; their own sense of ‘right-ness’ – and reduced in the process. In this book we think the latter is more likely, if digitalisation results in governance, instrumentalism and reductionism: digitalisation governing knowledge out of us. Rather, we argue that if knowledge is reduced to the bottom line, we lose knowledge. We lose opportunities for knowledging. Of course, we still produce knowledge, but whose knowledge and for what purpose?

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With this book, we want to avoid a view of digital-inclusive learning spaces and digital pedagogies seen as being produced in technological isolation or in advance, but always because of multiplicities and/or bodies (read concepts) coming together in assemblages (Reinertsen, 2022b). We argue for strong theoretical foundations and thoroughness: a constant thinking with; developing agentic computing identities; and computational justice (Garcés, 2022). These theoretical foundations are processes of agentic computing through affect and/of algorithmic nonlife. That is, the ability to view oneself as an active participant in computing, with the knowledge and skills to enact learning and open future life trajectories. Heliotropically moving towards lifegiven energies. Reason, reconciling itself to its own passion tending to the relational future of creative co-operation for knowledging. Agentic computation providing opportunities to ground those skills in self-directed forms of personal and collective action (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8vfeiwtAU). We think agency as energy as life-giving force and passion is urgent to address and simultaneously fitting for the contemporary interdisciplinary and collaborative digital and pedagogical education and research culture of new and future generations of thinkers and makers. We want to play a role in these processes of becoming: becoming between and amid all the stickyness, sticky and sparkling messiness that makes up a ‘now’ and beyond. The greatest threat is not technology; it is our prioritization of technology at the expense of other subjects, the liberal arts, and how we ask the big question so that our tools are put to good use. We must nourish technology, not through exaltation, but by bringing to its development and application the diversity of thought. (Hartley, 2017, p. 108) Minor digitalisation practices; knowledging across computers

We articulate the paradoxes of minoring or practical philosophical method and research as writing. We do this through a history of the present focussed on shaping digital-inclusive learning spaces, becoming technologists in the in-between: exploring the mattering dimensions of digitalisation. Breaking through binary thinking, hopefully strengthening our algorithmic awareness, while, simultaneously, illustrating the difficulty of doing so. In this algorithmic awareness we are seeking possibility and potential in the spaces of both/and rather than either/or; and expanding our emotional registers in/for automated futures. We argue that in-between spaces of our current and future parts can be precarious, a source of uncertainty and fear, yet hope can also be found there. We are interested in the role spatial organisation, technology and material things play in shaping the way we interact with others, time, and space, but

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also how experiences of absence and the ephemeral become relevant. Our argument focuses on science and research as ‘an actor’ in governing. And as we argued in Chapter 3, governing in modernity occurs through the principles that order and classify conduct. Such governance can be indirect and silent, slowly corroding our educational systems and research if we are not careful enough; aware enough; thoughtful enough. And to underline and elaborate, the sciences of modern education are central in this governing. The current academic condition, and the fact that we are subjected to a tentative idealistic power-distributing view of knowledge, technology, and bureaucracy – a kind of democratic countermeasure to competing sciences and research traditions and strong bastions of knowledge and knowledge views – de facto makes our analysis weak theoretically and we play ourselves (and are played) out on the side-lines. When/if deep thinking for knowledging is not really valued, research analysis may not be sharp enough, and (or worse) may not even be relevant. When knowledge is commodified, exposed to competition, and digitalised, it becomes difficult to show complex and significant understandings of systems, organisation, and democracy. Academics have in a sense become a kind of children in search of good parents, steered into analytical stalemates, engaged in self-censorship afraid of being seen as troublesome, and that is disappointing. These are very uncomfortable insights, oh yes, but also in the absence of competing models (and that is where we place this book to amend), we create and show what we really want, and what are very real the implications of what we want. And referring again to Garcés (2022) when she argues that we know less about knowledge and freedom than about knowledge and power: we want knowledge and freedom, freedom to knowledge and knowledging. Such a desire is productive and interesting. The implications and commitment of such a stance being to dare, have patience, and be happy for what minor, little and ‘good’ we can achieve. We claim that digital practices need to be understood as existing in tensions with one another, as potentially contestable within and across contents and subject matters, and open to exploration, adaptation, and even rejection. Further, we claim that unless language – ultimately the algorithms we use and live by – is eventicised, digitalisation will polarise, hierarchise, instrumentalise, reduce, and, in the long run, create new divisions and discriminating practices, and with reference to Chapter 5, ‘blind spots’ of understanding (Reinertsen, 2021b). There is a growing notion that algorithms are dangerous and create divisions, subsequently that we need something new and other. But not ‘something new’ that will just replace one dangerous, dividing algorithm with another. So instead of asking what this ‘something new’ is, we ask what it requires as far as labouring and revaluation are concerned. Every word, algorithm – hence dichotomy – must be materialised through experience, and it is as paradoxical, hence im/possible, as being algorithmically unbiased.

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Algorithms are already ubiquitous, and they’re enhancing nearly every aspect of our lives. … The point is not that they are dangerous; it’s that they must be developed with a sensitivity and depth of understanding about how they can best serve our needs. (Hartley, 2017, p. 103) We write, multi-verse and knowledge. It is another model. Poems make you feel something. We write differently because different writing makes different kinds of people. Writing embodies desires about the potentialities of society, systems, and people that research is to actualise. Writing embodies comparative styles of reasoning that inscribe inequality in the search for equality, ultimately power distribution and democracy for freedom. Writing and multi-versing as becoming designs in makerspace spacemaking face at the intersection of individual and social dimensions. Escaping the imitation game – not, and if there is to be any talk of solution, such talk begins in the design process itself. Writing being a science and research without any romance or any easy ways out. Or referring to Ogden (2022) again: we might catch some fish, but for every fish captured “many more will escape the net” (p. 4). Writing is a moment, a revaluation of values, and the concepts of inclusion and digitalisation are showing themselves, and must again and again. Such is the unsteady dramaturgy of digitalisation between, mutuality and some sort of reciprocity for adding value to the processes in which we engage. Between

• the controlled and the unpredictable, knowledge and doubt, frameworks, and room for manoeuvring.

• the established and uncategorised, the conscious and unconscious, the closed and openness.

• descriptions and traditions, between the accustomed and unfamiliar, the communicable and unsullied.

• the imposed and the featured, between being scientist and spokesperson, not afraid to undo and redo again and again. Writing-between creates openings toward expanded, and always expanding, meaning fields, making it possible for us to talk about, for example, preliminary and approximate causality and logics, as well as about situated causality and logics, possible lack of situated causality and logics without panicking or resignation. Any storying or tale of inclusion and/or digitalisation articulation lingering in difference simultaneously labouring for transformation. Movements from matter to becoming materially identifiable subjects for one another, a constitution of subjectivity authorising the stories and the storying of all participants producing some sort of agency. The ‘goal’ – what we want – becomes to shape society collaboratively embracing the strife and conflict

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that knowledging requires. Massumi (2015) could be encouraging us to take on/up such a goal when he writes: Making a micropolitical commotion, and nudge it toward abductive action. Surrender yourself artfully, in a relation to others that is your self-­ relation to the future, in an activism of the event. (p. 95) Becoming technologist, writing/shaping digital-inclusive learning spaces are ‘dream laboratories’ of changeable texts, words and poems occasionally assuming metamorphotic and even anthropomorphic features, endless spaces; no one holy. In such laboratories we do not just encounter languages and technology, words and algorithms, metaphors and technical, or programmed options. But in addition, we are presented with images, symbols, numbers, paintings, pictures, bodies, subjects, objects and signs that point to the boundaries and limitations of both language and technology. Thus, opening new spaces for understandings: understandings of systems, organisations, ultimately, democracy and academics fearlessly writing and multi-versing contribute to a reorientation of digitalisation and digitalised education systems, programs, and pedagogies to a novel and continuous process of variation and diffusion. And so, we suggest there might be yet another ‘elephant in our room’ in addition to that of ‘quality’ mentioned in Chapter 5. We want our software and digital programs to be without flaw when we know that humans are not. If we expect artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learned software to be perfect right out the gate, we might however be let down. We talk ‘big data’ and the fact that AI and machine learning work best over time with substantial amounts of data to train on. But again, these are data harvested on us. AI may therefore be said to be overestimated in short term and underestimated long term and why autoethnographic becoming designs, storytelling between and good storytellers has never been more important … We sometimes cry … Good storytellers have never been more important

I think I agree or not with everyone or no one about everything and anything every time or anytime but not: The ‘but not’ being just a tool, a function, for letting go immediately. Everything I think I know. Every time I thought I found something; I did but not. Good storytellers about digital transformation, diversity and inclusion and sustainability have never been more important. Storytellers swirl together ontology, epistemology, political perspectives, and ethics, hence story the entangled relational contours of our situativity. Arguing, as we do in this book,

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that knowledge, thinking, and learning are situated (or located) in experience, storytelling enables us to attend to brokering and crossing between disciplines and professions, sciences, and society differently than other theoretical approaches and methods might. Through blending and mixing, change of styles and genres, we produce thought provocations or breaks, ‘ushering’ us towards experiences that more closely resemble the intensive level and desire in which such swirling, fluid storying operates; activating the inseparable affective, hence ethical, task in education, governance, knowledging, and opening up the possibility of continuity and sustainability in radical inclusive and collective differences; without the need to be always giving away (any) piece of ourselves (Owens, 2019). “Why’re you painting grass!” he asked one day in her kitchen. “I’m painting their flowers.” He laughed. “Grass doesn’t have flowers.” “Of course they do. See these blossoms. They’re tiny, but beautiful. Each grass species has a different flower or inflorescence.” “What’re ya gonna do with all this stuff anyway?” “I’m keeping records so I can learn about the marsh.” “All ya need to know is when and where the fish bites, and I can tell ya that,” he said. She laughed for his sake, something she’d never done. Giving away another piece of herself just to have someone else. (Owens, 2019, p. 177) Digital transformation requires a de-authorised and ontologically flat re-engineering hence storying of processes that involve people and matter: process innovations as nomadic journeying or writing. This involves writing and multi-versing new concepts of digitalisation, hence people engaged in mattering processes in which prioritisations possibilise new educational and operational models to transform operations, strategic directions, and the value proposition of education. In multi-versing practices, subjects and objects become relationally vulnerable, and the nature-culture continuum is fusioning the physical, digital, and biological world in ways that include all disciplines. The meaning and implication of digitalisation (and governance) emerge while evolving. Unpacking, ultimately, the ways in which our relative locations and historicised, accepted (taken-for-granted) ways of being and knowing conceive, enact, and normalise knowledges and practices. In her powerful article “The Reluctant Representative” (The Saturday Paper, 3.12.2022), Georgia Cranko (a writer and disability activist) shares her willingness to engage in media publicity opportunities and her unease with such engagements. While she talks of how she is aware that such

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media coverage provides her with “a modicum of control over the way disability gets talked about” and that “representation matters – you can’t be what you can’t see …” What we find most powerful in Cranko’s piece is the way in which she holds this in tension with her feelings of being objectified in this process. She sees this complexity as something she continues to wrestle with, and despite the angst it causes she continues to ‘put herself out there’. She provides us with the following from Audre Lorde: “some of the most difficult tasks of our lives are the claiming of difference and learning to use those differences for bridges rather than as barriers between us.” Cranko concludes with a hope: “I offer my image to the world because, although it can feed damaging social ideologies, it can also breed a sense of hope and belonging for other disabled people in a society that constantly tells us we are less. And who knows, maybe one day I’ll just be able to go to work, do my job and not be celebrated or belittled for just being in the world”. What is at stake is the meaning of human dignity and freedom by virtue of being mutual universalities of common life-engendering re/search. Our priorities and struggles are between that which is ‘necessary’, and that which appears to us as ‘imperative’. There is, therefore, no potential, or justice in digitalisation itself unless we question and ‘conquer’ it. ‘Conquer’ in the sense of considering complex relationships and matterings that shape shifting processes that organise and change, giving attention to broader institutional factors. If technology is given priority; it prevents knowledging, justice and sometimes it seems, even thinking itself. What kind of thinking does digitalisation require? How to think with technology? How do doubts and algorithms go together? Do they? What about dirty algorithms?…. Can we replace algorithms with iterative thinking? How? What is matter in digitalisation? What might agency and realism look like? What might activisms be? How do we build productive designs to avoid dopamine showers of the brain? How can we avoid paying with ourselves, paying with our attention? Can we reverse the digital attention crisis? What can/must we learn and how? The forming of technologies must, we would argue, be democratised for freedom. To achieve processes innovation, the technological and procedural framework of reference must grant operational freedom, necessary for the users to

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carry out activities with the capacity for innovation and creativity. That is, the storyteller – a leader, a teacher, a researcher – storying a framework of reference granting freedom to the other to engage in knowledging. In all knowledge/ learning contexts such storying and storied transformations must be comprehensive, affecting all of its missions, and must work from perspectives that entail redefinitions of our institutional models. A storytelling of agentic computation. I work with issues, themes, subjects, and the people I already know and like. And it does not always matter if I learn anything or not really. Easier I guess and what I do when – and if, I think I can choose between options. Smooth. Lovely. And I think a hiding place sometimes. But I constantly learn whether I want it or not. That is how my brain works. Vulnerability between is hard and sometimes I disappear in plain sight. Google has stopped using “Don’t be evil”as their code of conduct. Moving with the theoretical hub ending Chapter 3, agentic computation is neither online nor offline but actively storied and actioned between. As a joint community are we better at planning for the best than preparing for the worst, and do we often end up somewhere in the middle? The middle is seen as a compromise, a ‘give-and-take’ situation, a least common multiple, a result of dialogue and mediation, and again a tentative idealistic power-distributing view of knowledge, technology, and bureaucracy: democratic countermeasures in the middle to counterbalance between competing sciences and knowledge views. The middle, however, is passive and steals our powers away. We lose force. We lose knowledge. We lose momentum. We argue, therefore, that we need to tell the good stories and become good re-engineering and reframing storytellers in the productive between. There is always something new to tell. The only constant, it seems, is change led by technology development where the developers are so similar that diversity, let alone inclusion, in digitalised systems becomes a joke (a real and ridiculous joke!). I want a reframing of democracy, a deauthorised democracy. A democracy in which there is always something new to tell. Open up and take risks. But letting go of thinking that I know something and that there is something to know is dizzying and questions my authority. I think I know more about difficulties and how knowledging is not so lovely. There are no fast selves. “Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.” (Carson, 1998, p. 60) Not speaking against digitalisation per se, we still argue that we need to become more aware of the negative aspects and consequences of technological development, that we need to get better at precautionary measures. And,

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we are and do. Never have we talked and done more on regulations, prohibitions, user safety, user addiction, protection of privacy, ensuring supply chains and sustainability. And while we talk, the opposite happens. Our conversations are polarised, and algorithms steer us in the direction of people who are similar to ourselves. This means that we receive less training in interacting with those who think, speak, and behave differently. Therefore, we riddle. Conquering – as journeying – makes itself necessary. It concerns everyone’s interest versus the interests of today’s technological and economic systems that show that an ever-rising concentration of know-how and wealth is not self-correcting. This journey is, therefore, not an expression of a non-tech struggle against technology or non-profit’s struggle against profits, nor the struggle of the useless or nonsense against utilitarianism. These are also idealistic visions creating bifurcations or divisions only, between body and mind, the stomach, and the spirit. Today we cannot and will not distinguish these from each other. Much less from the millions of lives that touch the limits of the livable. We journey and risk the consciousness and dignity of human beings. Does what is genuine have to be real? Does it have to be physical? And if so, why? Can a virtual experience be real, or is existence measured only in the physical world? Can’t virtual reality also be real, even if it’s not physical? And if it’s not physical, does that mean it’s fictional? Must that which is genuine have an objective existence? And if the answer is yes, will it forever remain the correct answer? That question is no hypothetical. In fact, I am convinced that with the emergence of virtual realities, led by virtual worlds, metagalaxies of web 3.0 transformative technologies, quantum computing, and the metaverse, the virtual will have as much value and feel as real as the physical. A metaverse being a network of 3D virtual worlds focused on social connection. The ‘between’, also inspired by Diversi & Moreira (2009), implies a farewell to the promise of – and commitment to – dialogue and the dialogical mind. Dialogues, on the one hand, being about negotiations of meaning, social interaction and collaboration between participants in a collaboration process, but on the other hand, also a perspective on learning. The problem not being the concept of dialogue in itself, but a shortage of turning it into a labouring eventicising concept and keeping it that way: how a noology and ethology works. The ‘between’ thus implies, as we have presented iteratively, a farewell to all concepts and theory that have been turned into – hence act as monuments over themselves – de facto restraining freedom, and closing knowledging down. Betweener digital work is ultimately understood as an

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indexical, mattering, and intra-interactive practice that produces an ongoing spatiality of difference: spacemaking makerspace. Traditional concepts such as hierarchy, linearity, causality, and rationality therefore no longer fit, and digitalisation is rethought as relational and co-constitutive proceduralities. Every word becomes a search for what it (the word) looks like in practice right now, and the platform you build to think new becomes a space in which you deconstruct your own words and practices to fill them with new meaning over and over again. Time and space dimensions are opened and broken. Alternative cartographies and/of digital inclusive education become possible. Choice through this is seen as a worlding force and duty of collective becoming; a choice of expertise in context. There is no person without a world. More on this below. How do we become and sculpture our 3D worlds? How do we build our 3D futures? How do we 3D become in relation to others, to colleagues, fellow students, peers, to the family? How do we become in relation to subject, objects, devices and materials of which we are part? How do we become in relation to looking at ourselves but also being looked at by others? What do entities such as inheritance and lineage, experience, ethnicity, gender, class and age mean? How do we understand ourselves in the line of people and things, different media and subjects, traditions, and traces? How do we work with concentration and distractions, the intrusive, all-consuming, intense world in which one is to find one’s place. How do we understand ourselves in a ‘now’, coloured and influenced by the past and present, by family and by gaze, a gaze of others, and our own? What outsides do we have to explore to find out our inner self? It is the virtual and the multi-versing that here then leads us further towards what we call becoming technologist as a poetic practice and action. Becoming technologist as a form of pure creativity not necessarily tied to digitalisation itself, neither however, disregarding actual devises and technologies. Barad (2003) argues that quantum strangeness precludes rigid forms of normalcy and essential stability, separating the knower from the known: “We are not outside observers of the world. Nor are we simply located at particular places in the world; rather, we are part of the world in its ongoing intra-activity” (p. 828 italics in the original). Barad’s approach thus goes a long way towards overcoming the exclusive disjunction that would either give technology a distinct essence and priority that would ground a real digitalisation or that would simply dissolve subjects and objects in the general flux of becoming. Rather, what Barad possibilises is becoming visible active subjects and objects for one another in digitalising processes, which involves recapturing the traces of the events of creation without putting them into a specific logic or narrative aspect. It possibilises both the storying and exploration of how a

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poetic moment in which emotions, opinions and meanings are set free, and where sensory creations continue to work. The poem can transform one event into another event and allow talking about and/of navigation in life and po/ ethical digitalisation or simply innovation. Given this, digital practices are created by virtualities, events, and singularities. This does not mean a lack of reality, but that something takes part in an actualisation process. Digitalisation for inclusion where fabulating, theorising or poetising practices are key concepts for putting our technological tools to good use and for writing a new concept of digitalisation as a force in daily practice: Inclusive digitalisation based on movements concretised through procedural events. I tried Facebook. I did not have the stomach for it. I paradoxically lost visibility and turned into a product. The likes and the click-chase threaten both the ideal and other of democracy. There are, however, writing storytelling selves not caught between the tongue and the taste. Storytelling as a sort of personal branding, if you like. Or rather, asking what is the subjective or qualitative properties of experiences? What about this problem of un/consciousness and action, causality and teleology? A content marketing of oneself “selling” dreams, not products, thinking other thinking relevant: some version of non-reductive physicalism, dreams with nonphysical phenomenal properties. Writing life: My heart goes ash if I don’t. Time is made of ‘nows’ ‘betweens’. Can we speak of mental digital painting? I try to catalyse whatever events lie in my reach.

Storying fuzzy in the sticky sparkling now

Fuzzy logics is currently defined as a many-valued logic form which may have truth values of variables in any real number between 0 and 1. It is the handle concept of partial truth. It refers to a family of many-valued logics, where the truth-values are interpreted as degrees of truth. Fuzzy logics algorithm helps to solve a problem after considering all available data. Then it takes the best possible decision for the given input. The fuzzy logic method imitates the way of decision-making in a human which considers all the possibilities between digital values true and false. The general idea is that in real life, we may come across situations where we can’t decide whether a statement is true or false. At that time, fuzzy logic is thought and designed to offer flexibility for reasoning. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-fuzzy/ (Retrieved 3 February 2023). Storying becoming technologist, challenges any type of thinking grids and/of orientation. Rational logics and choice are jammed, and fabulatory elements are added. Storying becoming technologist challenges any given or received notion of knowledge creation and learning as programmed, primarily academic and linguistic, offering instead an affective, informal and/or ethico-aesthetic

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paradigm making the position and art of uncertainty – subsequent freedom – a transgenerational prerequisite and condition for activist digital living and learning here and now. Storying are oscillatory innovative processes as “a first and last and all-over instance: an irreducible multiple and relational fielding, at the inmost endpoint” (Massumi, 2015, p. 33) of digitalisation as at its furthest reaches. And building on Deleuze (2004): a fielding of the event as activism and freedom in multiplicity giving a micro-political force to the energetic life of affective relationality. The notion of affect, as elaborated earlier, bearing connotations of bodily intensity: affect as a passion, as pathos, sympathy and empathy, a threshold experience where a transition becomes possible in everyday life which is necessarily embodied. The moment thus being the only bearing structure. Moments stretching beyond and into eternity. Moments in which the timely and eternity meet. Becoming technologist thus implies being alert to the potentiality in/of the moment and moving between. Rethinking unplanned moments during daily work. Freedom as a “vague sense of potential, … not actually there – only virtually” (Massumi, 2015, p. 104). We are stumbling along, and with no subjective certainty. Everything being interrelated, intertwined and interdependent. Learning taking place in the whole body, within a person and between persons interacting in and with social and material here digital realities. Visible and invisible embodied learning: sensations, forebodings, affects and feelings. Indirectly, this is a much tougher form of reasoning, asking hard affirmative questions about and to digitalisation and life. Massumi continues: But maybe if we can take little, practical, experimental, strategic measures to expand our emotional register, or limber up our thinking, we can access more of our potential at each step, have more of it actually available. Having more potentials available intensifies our life. We’re less enslaved by our situations. … Our degree of freedom at any one time corresponds to how much of our experiential “depth” we can access toward a next step – how intensely we are living and moving. (p. 105, quotation marks in the original) We advocate for the development of enabling policies of diversity and inclusive digitalisation. But not in the sense of pre-defined and expected directions, but as enabling shifts/stumbles towards understandings that subjectivity – mine and yours – and the responsibility for digital inclusion is emerging and surfaces as a quest for fabulation. Fabulation being a practice of affirming and endorsing the speculative side of concepts and concept-making by bringing forth the affirmative aspect of fabulation which resonates with experimenting what is possible and with what effects are produced (Manning, 2016). Digitalisation being politicised in a micro perspective and sets differences in motion and creates equitable educational moments.

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To elaborate on riddling critical thinking and critique, we draw on a Deleuzian (2006) production of fabulation and subjectivity as folding and unfolding, connections between external realisations and inner actualisations of subjectivity. Deleuze refers to three aspects of the folding processes: inflection; position/perspectivation; and inclusion. (1) The physical point, the inflection point, is where folding happens: “We are moving from inflection to inclusion in a subject, as if from the virtual to the real, inflection defines the fold, but inclusion defines the soul or the subject” (Deleuze, 2006, p. 24). The next folding point (2) is a mathematical point. It is a positioning point but not final as a point on a line meeting another line, but rather as a continuum allowing the point or an object radical other properties – properties of hybridity, porousness, and liquidity: The new status of the object no longer refers its condition to a spatial mold – in other words to, to a relation of form – matter – but to a temporal modulation that implies as much the beginning of a continuous variation of matter as a continuous development of form. (Deleuze, 2006, p. 20) The object is therefore no longer defined through a form or an essence, but has become a functionality, a manner. The object becomes an objectile, and event. Such a change in the status of the object has consequences for the subject. Variations create a necessary perspectivation with/in the subject. Perspectivation, the place of folding and variation, is what Gilles Deleuze calls “position,” ultimately (3) the “point of inclusion” (Deleuze, 2006, p. 25). A point of positioning but only preliminary, already ready to change. Together, these are constant doubled folding processes and iteratively detailed to the extent that two perspectives can never be the same. However, all individuals or subjects, human or more-than human, express the same infinite world, but differently. Carrying the world in themselves, as a position not of the world, but the world being the position, different expressions are caused by individual points of views. Further, the world or point of view of the individual subject “expresses a world according to the relations of the other bodies with its own” (Deleuze, 2006, p. 110). The world and knowledge of the world are created and woven together in continuous procedurality. These are forceful, spiralling, diffractive, folding, and unfolding worlding processes of possible images of thinking and/or how we think and/or potentiality, ultimately nonpositional meaning making and inclusion. Deleuze (2006) writes: “To think is to fold, to double the outside with a coextensive inside. The general topology of thought, which had already begun ‘in the neighbourhood’ of the particular features, now ends up in the folding of the outside into the inside” (p. 97). The fold is matter, mind, and soul, inside and outside, real and virtual: it is a virtuality that never stops

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dividing itself, the line of inflection is actualised in the soul but realised in matter (p. 39). Fabulation performs. It has gravitational forces of attraction, pushing and pulling the unrecognisable object, the social and the mattering universe, as a sort of quest. It is thus a potential way of thinking relationally as affective thinking which functions as pre-subjective and trans-individual as it pertains to the event and what passes between subjects and objects. Knowledge, memory, justification, meaning and reference all seem to require the causal efficacy of what is known, remembered, believed, meant, chosen, or picked out. The problem is that our knowledge and our memories of and our talk about our mental states seem to be fundamentally different from the typical examples of knowledge, memory, or reference that are possible without a causal contact. There are various objections against epiphenomenalism, nearly all of which are based upon the claim that this or that undeniable fact would be impossible if epiphenomenalism were true. In response, the epiphenomenalist points out that the causal relation she says holds between mental states and their neurophysiological correlates ensures that whenever her opponents appeal to a mental cause to account for some apparently undeniable fact, she can appeal to a physical cause which is correlated with the alleged mental cause with nomological necessity and does the same causal job. How much consciousness is there in a machine? Intelligent machines, can machines make love? In philosophy, nomological denotes something resembling general laws, especially laws that lack logical necessity or theoretical underpinnings; they just are. Expanding our emotional registers in/for automated futures and eventicising algorithms

Make joy. Take joy in what qualitative surplus values of life are potentially ready for the living where you are. Make a micropolitical commotion and nudge it toward abductive action. Surrender yourself artfully, in relation to others that is your self-relation to the future, in an activism of the event. (Massumi, 2015, p. 95)

When reason in general and digital reasoning specifically enter into the closest of cooperation with abductive experience and eventicising, it becomes a fellow traveler of relational experimentations. When reason surrenders itself to co-operation with affectivity, it gains creativity. For Deleuze and Guattari (2004b) the concept of experience is love – is experimentation; that which one does to provoke a novel occurrence, to elicit a new event, to produce a new body. Love is complexity producing novelty, the very process of life. Love is, thus, the call to enter that virtual and open up to the actual, to install inclusive disjunctions so that ‘the roads-not-taken’ are still accessible, so that

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we might experiment and produce new: again and again. In other words, love is a war machine; but “war machine” of course, is another name for creativity. Only the failure of the war machine leads to war (Deleuze & Guattari 2004a, pp. 448–449). The memory of love is the rumble of “Body without Organs” (p. 166), the roads-not-taken in the virtual, that echo in the actual: the memory of the body they stole from us. Bodies lost in cyberspace; a virtual space, a virtual place, a becoming. Trying something new I do. I go down or up to the regressive endpoint of life and turning around from which life arises anew. Imagine the body. Dream it. What counts is that love itself is a war machine endowed with strange and terrifying powers and the production of so many “uncontrollable becomings” (p. 179), everybody/everything. And I am one. My identity is thus non–foundational opened up and my will is a will to love. Machines making love … Wanting is love not a lack. Dewey’s notion (1957) of a “self regulative experimental experience” (p. 94) – opposing that of a type of experience that is solely “empirical”, used to form customs that must “be blindly followed or blindly broken” – is parallel, or even prior, to Deleuze and Guattari´s process philosophy (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994). Dewey states that when experience becomes experimental, something of “radical importance” (1957) occurs: Reason becomes “experimental intelligence” (p. 96). And, we add love again. Rationality not opposed to passion. No need for combatting affectivity. The sticky, messy sticks. Love is intelligent, intelligence, intelligent reason, intelligent reasoning, practical experimentation trying to get to know something. Going on and on. Practice is movement, is rigour and a right to knowledge. This is, ultimately, a constant “iterative restaging of event conditions that progressively explore the reserve of potential in an event, as part of a continuing series of events, affectively interlinked at a distance” (Massumi, 2015, p. 100). When reason as experimental intelligence reconciles itself to its own passion, it can finally tend to the relational future of creative co-operation for knowledging. Reasoning processes through this convert themselves from limitative exercises into forces of becoming, in an immanent-transcending self-overcoming internal to its own worlding exercise. Thinking algorithms, hence digitalisation and automation on similar terms, admitting that algorithms’ love for generality and causality were always already passions, algorithms can figure as passionate factors of “3D becomings” (Reinertsen, 2015a). And paraphrasing Massumi (2015) above; iterative restaging of algorithmic conditions that explore the reserve of potential in an algorithm, as part of a continuing series of algorithms, affectively interlinked at a distance. Fabulating algorithms probe the limits of traditional education and research. They matter as they connect the relational materiality into the co-resonating

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event-encounters. Such is the practice and potential of an unsteady dramaturgy of digitalisation. Fabulation performs, it lives, is alive. And to move/ stumble along we have made a fabulation list. Fabulate with it. Live it. Love it. Art freely with it. Riddle unsteady mattering dimensions of digitalisation and/as a radical hope for importance. Freedom is not a compromise in a middle. It requires the bravest decisions we can make, and our courage must be constant and continual as our decisions must be made again and again … I fabulate at consciousness and the ability to sense, perceive and analyse the past, present, and future. Today we know that cognitive functions such as perception, memory, imagination, planning, and decision-making have their origin in the cerebral cortex. But we know little about how the neurons in the cerebral cortex work together. The reason is that they are connected by billions of tiny synapses that carry information between neurons. Are there algorithms in the cortex? Is it possible to uncover the key algorithms, or ruleset, for the cognitive functions of the cerebral cortex? What might technology and tools for large-scale data analysis and modelling mean for mapping what is happening simultaneously in thousands of neurons? Is it possible to fabulate over this and measure anything without some sort of affective approach to information and the event? Why are we doing these measures and what will we use them for? Here is a start to the fabulation list and you might want to bring it to the ‘think-thingumabob-tank’ exercises in Chapter 8. I) Algorithms as event hence as concepts in making: start by trying to frame equity as multifaceted. Then consider the data or information system at hand and how it is designed. Adventure with different temporalities. Use own experiences to imagine affect, and effects of affect. Give an account of yourself; possibilise yourself; the failure encounters that constitutes you. II) Events are pre-articulated thoughts in motion. Engage in a self-reflexive re/ search of own background stories and taken-for-granted conceptualisations of the main concepts on which you build your practices. This is to possibilise and create inclusive spaces and convexity effects, postponing definitions and avoiding the closure of processes too early, hopefully stimulating new thoughts. You might want to engage with students and colleagues in creating new words and gender mashups. Imagine the collective in the individual. III) If the starting point of your digitalising effort is an attempt to solve a problem, attribute the problem to systems, not people. Further, do not put technology first and people next. Try to think relationally flat. Imagine subjectivities not ideologies.

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IV) When managing data and analytics, emphasise your ability to philosophise data for indicators of inequities, subsequently freedom. V) When managing information systems, explore how local instructional systems and their embeddedness in instructional networks might foster knowledging. VI) When engaged in digital innovation, consider and discuss the importance, or not, of stories, random field notes, memories, hunches, processes, patterns, trial-and-error practices in/for research and education. From which ontologies and epistemologies do I/you/we draw sustenance? What do I/you/we extract from it? What does political positioning imply? VII) Sit down, close your eyes and feel the concept of algorithms in making. Think of attunement and awareness. What folds, critique and corrections, push and pull, formations and bodies, affects, connections and passions are there in the/your context of digitalisation that are heading towards mattering. Can technology smell? VIII) Fabulation being a practice of affirming and endorsing the speculative side of concepts and concept-making, fabulate or dream digitalisation. Pay close attention to yourself and count how many times you say ‘no’ to yourself. Why? IX) Fabulating algorithms matter and conditions process innovation. Consider how fabulation might assist you in envisioning futures differently. Consider how fabulation might assist you in envisioning management and governance differently. What does your stomach tell you? X) Fabulation as a passion, desire, quest, love, life … What might becoming technologist do to your knowledging? XI) Keep soft. Do not let knowledge, years and age harden you. Soften yourself with the yellow sun of the day, soak yourself with dew from a flower chalice. Tan yourself in the bitter brine of adversity. Be like a branch in the wind: a resting place for birds with blue heavenly scents in their wings. XII) Freedom is the commitment, creating dangerously is the tool, not being afraid of un/folding and listening is the ‘code of conduct’ (although we prefer ‘mode of conduct’). We are all responsible for conceptual innovation, or getting concepts to move, and storying. The non-positioning fluidity being our ethological force.

SECTION III

Futures governing presents New space-time domains for ‘tentative-isms’

Going via affect – having qualified all concepts as minor, and riddled speed and slowness of knowledge – knowledging becomes a multi-versing assemblage working for fugitive futures and pedagogies in education. Knowledging, thus, being an approach to governance that values uncertainties and possibilities at work in futuring education and educational research; resisting established structures currently governing education and research. We keep in mind our previous notion that a minor knowledge policy does not imply that something is reduced in size or importance; that some types of knowledge/ ways of knowing are reduced in size or importance. Paradoxically, it is the other way around. In minor knowledge policies, linear, hierarchical, and causal structures dissolve and level out. In such multi-versing knowledge assemblages, concepts informing education for fugitive futures – both the policies and the pedagogies – can continuously reassemble again and again, here and now; collectively actualised and situated. Throughout this book we have conceived of approaches to knowledge as processes of knowledge forced open; a view of knowledge as situated and entangled assemblages of both human and non-human actors; assemblages that are local, hence to be analysed as specific, designated spaces, places, interactions – and times – where something (everything) is at stake. We have worked with a goal of envisioning a modest but decisive view of learners as knowledgeable and connectable collectives in knowledging processes. We offer knowledging as a ghostly enigma of academia and as a paradoxical model for preserving the value of knowledge: to stop a de facto demotion or devaluation of knowledge, education and learning. Such a devaluation would ultimately create a knowledge world in which ‘the knower’ imparts knowledge to ‘the non/un- knower’. We suggest knowledging also as a response to our DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-9

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experienced fear that academia is turning irrelevant for students and society alike, with the embedded domination of current big-tech-driven knowledge policies, and the consequential restrictive educational practices. Therefore, we have worked with minoring, writing, re-authoring, de-comforting, and multi-versing as ways of forcing to the fore reciprocities and responsibilities – riddles of knowledging, being, becoming, writing, learning, and voicing academia. A driving force for us in undertaking the development of this book has been the opportunity to shift gears in how academics, teachers, and scholars can engage with knowledge and the restrictions imposed by unchallenged practices of knowledge. As academics/scholars, we are governed more and more, and yet our opportunities/abilities for observation, for deep fluid thinking, seem reduced. As academics we are expected to talk more and more; produce more and more, and yet affectively see less and less, listen less and less, feel less and less. Observation as research, observation of self as research is given less and less credibility. Feeling as research is given no place, no credibility in academic/learning spaces. The dominant, governing academic practices are – and referring to Garcés (2022) again – focussed on linear, single solutions and cognitive expectations. What is considered ‘real’ knowledge/ research is controlled and constrained by a limited few, by a constantly reducing few, and yet more and more academics are asking for/searching for something other in the research/learning space (Ball, 2013; Henderson, Honan, Loch, 2016): A riddle: a real and ridiculous riddle. In this real/ridiculous world of academia, what is it to be academic in a corporatised learning/knowledge environment, where individuals are expected to be intellectually/cognitively always available but are given minimal opportunities for depth of thinking/ contemplation in the relentless output/production cycle? We move with our thinking for the final section of the book and re-visit our concern that knowledge is being commodified and exposed to competition to an extent that we know more about the relations between knowledge and power than we do about relations between knowledge and freedom, even if freedom is our ultimate goal, and the most productive. In Chapter 7 we therefore take another turn to riddle our own thinking about knowledge and freedom and elaborate further how this has implications for what we have historically conceived of as critical thinking and ethics in the academy. The re-take brings us to a counter deficit space-time: the possibility of ‘tentative-isms’ in our fluid becomingness as academics, learners, and researchers without paralysing ourselves through our uncertainties. We re-author for multiversed assemblages of knowledging and bring these to our work as learning academics. The fugitivity of our futures governing the present. The machinic unconscious-conscious, playing in the ethical field of eternal consciousness. In Chapter 8 we invite the reader to engage through ‘think-thingumabob-tank’ exercises presented as opportunities – as reader/thinker/researcher – to take the intra-activity between writer and reader a step further: for you to re-author the

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methodological thinking of this book for yourself; and for your own knowledging. We come to Chapter 9 ‘hanging upside down’, for another re-take with words, storying, multi-versing, and knowledging, so that endings can become beginnings, or even middles or betweens. We do this with a hope to shake up/ down our perspectives and our assumptions. Both holding-on and letting-go in this shake up/down can bring together experiences of fluidity of knowledging, uncertainty in multi-versing, and continual beyonding in practices and possibilities of knowledge forced open: where knowledge is always becoming. Eternal consciousness

Learning academics begin where they are. Learning academics listen to the sounds and things associated with them in the compositions. Learning academics install themselves in the lives of those with whom they learn and research. Learning academics develop sensitivity to elements or people who are not in, or do not take part in, the status quo. This is what is called deterritorialization in process philosophy. Learning academics search for research aspects that are or have been ignored. Learning academics want a life of becoming rather than copying or reinforcing what is already there.

7 WORKING OUR ‘TENTATIVE-ISMS’ IN THE KNOWLEDGE ACADEMY Education for fugitive futures

Providing new hope for thinking which does not require, or even entertain, judgement, Baudrillard gives us a starting point which captures a paradox of knowledging. “Judgement is foreign to radicality of thought. This thinking has nothing scientific, analytic or even critical about it, since those aspects are now all regulated by machines. And maybe a new space-time domain for thought is now opening?” (Baudrillard, 2010, p. 127). There is a stark truth but simultaneously also hope. It is with such hope that we optimistically imagine counter-deficit space-time domains and ‘tentative-isms’. Through minoring we leave all concepts undefended and vulnerable, possibilising a free – as in non-restrictive – fabulating spaces with/in presence. Fabulating spaces where we can express our thoughts. Realising that knowledge cannot be used to assuage reality but needs to be multi-versed and re-visited every moment in history: knowledging as an accelerating and real, non-teleological life-giving insecurity and resistance for/of learning. “Learning taking place in and through the unconscious, establishing complicity and profound bonds between nature and mind” (Deleuze, 1994, p. 214). With agency lying somewhere between presence and foresight, our hope is for academic – HE and all learning – institutions working with new time-space domains to enable a continual re-creating of themselves, research and sciences, policies and systems, again and again; and always not to lose force in this knowledging. Liberating the human attention is the most important ethical and political fight of our times. And this fight involves building our capacity to look for something that does not imitate us back: getting to a place where no one has been. Research-wise and methodologically, liberation demands attention to

DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-10

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questions of frames, of the boundary work through which a given entity is delineated as such; a view of units of analysis as made, not given. In and through such liberation there are ethical obligations to constantly expand frames to wider views offering affirmative and generative possibilities for (Post)Anthropocentric futures. Such obligations can be worked through material thinking, embracing the intrinsic and poetic qualities of matter (selves/things/materials), and taking ethics (and research) beyond the compartmentalised of the present ethical and research regime(s) that simply add another layer to existing layers. Rather, thinking ethics with the things surrounding it; folding, unfolding; letting negative work; breaking habits and doing something new. Against the (digital) machines thinking is our weapon: affective thinking in which reason is reconciled to its own passions. The machinic unconscious-conscious about the play; playing at the ethical field of eternal consciousness. Ethics in general, and research ethics in particular, becoming a question of how “I can be worthy of the events that await me, how can I enter into events that sweep me up, pre-exist me, or that I cannot control?” (Grosz, 2017, p. 151). The fugitivity of our futures governing our presents. Freedom being the obligation and commitment, the non-positioning of force.

Positively against ethics

We wish to move from here by picking up on the claims of Rodriguez (2018) in Against Inclusion (see Chapter 5) – everything being a matter of simultaneous included/inclusive becomings; and continuing with Caputo’s (1993) work presented Against Ethics – the duty and obligation to resist. Our focus is on elaborating, deconstructing, and minoring both concepts – inclusion and ethics. We present an argument that minoring and minor policies work with all concepts as a tool for knowledging, moving with/in space and time. What is key is how engagement with space changes across time, and how our movements through time are influenced by the space. You might want to try to replace one with the other in the following: [T]o speak of being against ethics and of deconstructing ethics is to own up to the lack of safety by which judging is everywhere beset. The thing that concerns me, and that I name under the very protective cover of deconstruction, is the loss of the assurance, the lack of safe passage, that ethics has always promised. … The deconstruction of ethics is ethics’ own doing, ethics’ own undoing, right before our eyes. (Caputo, 1993, p. 4)

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Caputo also comments on the importance of, and reasons for, formal negation (keeping the negative or thinking through aporia), the im/possibilities of ethics: Deconstruction takes as its subject matter the task of making one’s way along an aporia, along an almost impossible road, where the ground may at any moment shift beneath our feet. Deconstruction issues a warning that the road ahead is still under construction, that there is blasting and the danger of falling rocks. Ethics on the other hand, hands out maps which leads us to believe that the road is finished and there are superhighways all along the way. (Caputo, 1993, p. 4) Such thinking is equally important in our consideration of inclusion, governance, digitalisation. Knowing about is an obligation to do. An obligation to resist, to walk the almost impossible roads, experiencing time-spacing to knowledge. Going/ walking beyond the mappings, taking up the knowledge space-timing experience. No defined concept or ethics can make the obligation safe. And – as we have maintained through our consideration of the ‘machinic unconscious’; ‘having unconscious we deserve’ – Caputo avoids, as do Deleuze and Guattari throughout their works, relying on the authority of any existing qualitative (or other) theoretical or methodological structures such as paradigms, methodologies, methodological concepts, methodological techniques, and methodological practices. Rather, all concepts are left undefended and vulnerable, possibilising a free – as in non-restrictive – fabulating space with/in presence where we can express our thoughts and inquire. Caputo (1993) continues: The deconstruction of ethics sets obligation loose from its containment or confinement or, better, lets that being-set-loose be seen, even as it exposes the vulnerability, the frailty and fragility of obligation. It lets obligation be even as it lets it in for trouble, exposing it to disaster. (p. 5) Moving with the ‘language of event’ and ‘creating dangerously’, obligation happens. Ethics is turned into something emerging in presence. Something which works there and then, whether that ‘something’ being negative or not. Obligation happens. Obligation happens to me, to you, to all. It binds me, and does not ask for my consent: It comes over me and binds me. That is why Lyotard calls obligation a “scandal” – to the “I,” to “philosophy”, to “autonomy.” Ethics which is philosophy, would just as soon keep this or any other scandal, any stumbling block to reason and intelligibility, at a safe remove. Ethics wants to keep its good name, to keep its house in order. (Caputo, 1993, p. 7)

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Obligation is a feeling, one can feel its force, but never come on top of it: Obligation has a kind of impenetrability and density that I cannot master, that neither my knowledge, nor my freedom can surmount, that prevents me from getting on top of it, on the other side of it. (Caputo, 1993, p. 8) As Caputo (with the help of Lyotard) asserts, there is both a logical and an ethical problem with any ontology of transcendence: ethics, possibly equally, victimising and heroising. The ontology of absolute immanence of Deleuze and Guattari however, addresses both these problems through the machinic unconscious of noological and ethological hence minoring machine. Immanence being immanent only to itself, and fully immanent-transcendence exploration and inquiry de facto reject all forms of methodological transcendence. For the machine to work, it needs not to work through resistance. Rather, propelling things/concepts/subjects/objects out of their comfort zones. Deleuze and Guattari (2004b) write: What is this point of self-criticism? It is the point where the structure, beyond the images that fill it and the Symbolic that conditions it within representation, reveals its reverse side as a positive principle of nonconsistency that dissolves it: where desire is shifted into the order of production, related to its molecular elements, and where it lacks nothing, because it is defined as the natural and sensuous objective being, at the same time as the Real is defined as the objective being of desire. (p. 342) Nature does not imitate. It has its own raison d’être. Nature is our creator and when we die it will outlive us. Noology – im/possibility, aporia, antinomy, none, against – is thus of value in itself, a professional and political message that everyone and everything is needed. A signal that everyone and everything is valuable. A value and pillar of ethics, science, and responsibility. ‘The against’ opens our thinking and increases the focus on collectivity and the collective responsibility we all have. Such responsibility holds together, as a strength, the vulnerabilities; the im/possibilities; the realities; the expectations of relational work of knowledging and the expertise expected of academic knowledge ‘experts’. Elaborating with Foucault, we embrace his idea of ethics or what he calls ‘his morals’, as a mode of acting that is conducive to resisting fixing realities, describing power as “anything that tends to render immobile and untouchable those things that are offered to us as real, as true, as good” (Foucault, 1988b, p. 1). For Foucault, behaving ethically has to do with how we respond to that which is purported to be and generally agreed upon as true, arguing “one must consider all the points of fixity, of immobllisation, as elements in a

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tactics, in a strategy – as part of an effort to bring things back into their original mobility, their openness to change” (Foucault 1988b, p. 1): I was telling you earlier about the three elements in my morals. They are: (1) the refusal to accept as self-evident the things that are proposed to us; (2) the need to analyze and to know, since we can accomplish nothing without reflection and understanding—thus, the principle of curiosity, and (3) the principle of innovation: to seek out in our reflection those things that have never been thought or imagined. Thus: refusal, curiosity, innovation. (Foucault, 1988b, p. 1) Foucault does not speak of erasing all possibility of a fixed sense of reality; rather his focus is on using that which is fixed as a point of departure, to offer opportunities to return to a state of mobility where new things can happen. We take up this focus on “openness to change” and embrace the value in mobility of thinking through “refusal, curiosity and innovation”. We work to apply this focus on processes of fluidity to governance and digitalisation, inclusion and justice, theory and practice in an ethical academy. As becoming ethical academics, such processes imply resisting the desire to be fixed in our idea about what or how reality is and refusing a fixed notion of defining what is ‘true’ and ‘good’. Rather, ethical processes in academia seek to focus on how ‘the good’, as continual ways of being, becoming and doing, can be imagined. Thus, activating curiosity that brings us into new times and places, extended experiences; innovation as the desire and ability to think of something new, something that has not already been thought of and established: There’s a terrible game here, a game which conceals a trap, in which the intellectuals tend to say what is good, and people ask nothing better than to be told what is good – and it would be better if they started yelling, “How bad it is!” Good, well, let’s change the game. Let’s say that the intellectuals will no longer have the role of saying what is good. Then it will be up to people themselves, basing their judgment on the various analyses of reality that are offered to them, to work or to behave spontaneously, so that they can define for themselves what is good for them. What is good, is something that comes through innovation. The good does not exist, like that, in an atemporal sky, with people who would be like the Astrologers of the Good, whose job is to determine what is the favorable nature of the stars. The good is defined by us, it is practiced, it is invented. And this is a collective work. (Foucault, 1988b, p. 13) The approach to morals presented by Foucault resonates well with what we call ‘tentative-isms’, as that of being open – through our openness to

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uncertainty – to creating new, uncertain futures and knowledging. It resonates well with what we try to speak against and what we want writing to become. And, referring to Baudrillard (2010) again – the tensions between power and freedom in governed and digitalised practices, research, and education – it resonates well with what we are afraid of: The concept of power eludes us today because it is no longer the effect of a dominating will but of this digital automated and, it seems, irreversible mechanism. Mechanisms of disaggregation of such powers escape us and are difficult – and perhaps even impossible to stop. This system should worry less about revolution than about what is developing in the void, at the heart of the anthropological fracture. (Baudrillard, 2010, p. 103) We sometimes cry… In their book What Is Philosophy (1994), Deleuze and Guattari claim that all philosophy is “geophilosophy”, and if philosophy has not recognised that it has always been geophilosophy, this is because philosophy has not been immanent. Philosophy has begun from various terms – mind, truth, reason, subjectivity, matter – but what is not given attention is how it is that focus on such philosophical concepts, and the questions they can raise, is possible. In A Thousand Plateaus (2004a), Deleuze and Guattari in their plateau on a geology of morals ask: “Who Does the Earth Think It Is?” (p. 44). What is life, such that questions are possible? How has this Earth generated such complex events as philosophical questions? In doing this, they take – as we do in this book, revolving around immanence, knowledge and (geo)philosophies of education – their questions beyond the human to the very emergence of life, and life’s capacity to compose questions regarding life: philosophy to be to think on thinking. Compositions of thinking as material geophilosophical thinking created in and from intensities of the earth. Intensities from both human and non-human elements on a plane of immanence, creating fundamental encounters that force us to think. These encounters may be grasped in a range of affective tones such as wonder, love, hatred, and suffering – they can only be sensed (Deleuze, 1994, pp. 182–185). And to apply this composition to the plane of learning for/from life: learning in and through the unconscious, “having the un/conscious we deserve” (see Chapter 3), or going back to Caputo again: “Life is justified not as an aesthetic phenomenon but as a quasi-ethical one” (Caputo, 1993, p. 248). Searvelatnja and the taxi driver

Searvelatnja is Sámi for shared rooms, first used by Sara (2004) to describe a traditional knowledge setting in a Sámi context of upbringing. Balto and

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Østmo (2012) brought the concept into an educational setting, using it in a group context when students talk about experiences of being in Sámi and Norwegian areas. Searvelatnja means rooms for different stories, in different languages and from different places, and becomes a vital element in the situation of doing differences together. A concept taken from one knowledge practice to another, but still having the quality of being a relevant concept of interrelations through moments of shared, but different, experiences: the collaborative aspect of being inside and outside, doing inner and outer conversations, makes the voices continuing in/as fluent dialogues. Activism, or to bring forth the moment of activism, might occur if we are able to create a searvelatnja. There is support in de-comforting, in the mild, indirect, and sublime corrections conscious about the play and options that are there. I was back in my hometown after many years. I came by plane and went for a taxi ride just to get an impression of what the place was like. The taxi driver was very nice, and he guided me around. We talked about many things; drove past the houses I had lived in and so on. On our way back to where I stayed, he said: “I almost think we are cousins you and I”. But one cannot almost be cousins just like one cannot almost be pregnant or something like that. But in such comments, there is the possibility to acknowledge or deny the relation. One can decide for oneself if one wants to be cousins or not. I am looking for ways to phrase- or phrases that opens possibilities for mild, sublime, and indirect corrections in searvelatnja. (Story retold with permission from e-mail correspondence with colleague, August 2022) As Caputo asserts that there are logical and ethical problems with ontologies of transcendence; Deleuze and Guattari (2004a) assert that there are moral problems if philosophy is not immanent. In line with this, Williams (2019) claims that there are problems with the Kantian sublime not being anarchist enough, hence leading to universal moral laws suffering from problems of inequality. And, as we therefore stress in this book, anarchism must be eventicised and response-abilised to open thinking about the sublime and knowledging. We tend to think about the sublime as the best but as with everything that we take for granted or don’t minor, the sublime might encourage the worst and lead to inequality and exploitation. Williams (2019) argues for an anarchist sublime: multiple, self-destructive and temporary, opposed to any idea of a highest value to be shared by all, but imposed on the powerless: “if there is to be an egalitarian sublime, it will have to be anarchic: multiple, creative, self-critical, and self-destructive (p. 1)”. He continues: If the sublime is to survive its own negative legacies, it must lose its claims to universality. There are no justified and universal superior values communicated by the sublime. Intense experiences, driving existence beyond its

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limits according to new values, must be part of an anarchic and chaotic multiplicity, constantly reminded of the dangerous temptation to impose false distinctions and inequality on others. (Williams, 2019, p. 7) To create saervelatnja we need intense experience with inclusive sublime, governance sublime, technological sublime, learning sublime, ecological sublime, democratic sublime. … In saervelatnja there would have to be ‘an against’, an aporia, an insoluble antinomy, a non-dichotomous antinomy between. On the one hand between, The law/The name of unlimited hospitality (to give the other, the new arrival all of one’s home and oneself, to give him or her her one’s own, our own, without asking a name, or compensation, or the fulfilment of even the smallest condition), and on the other hand, the laws (in the plural), those rights and duties that are always conditioned and conditional, defined by all of law and all philosophy across the family, civil society, and the State. Creating dangerously is where the antinomies are. Placing the ‘me’ at the heart of action. Creating dangerously is about the law (nomos). Asking how things are, and how things can be: always seeking to nurture possibilities. Not to stop at pointing out problems but to move with actioned creativity. To search for the activistic aspects in the small implicit sublime acts, as well as the bigger, louder, and explicit ones. All our doings have ethical implications and are, always already, ethical actions and political engagements (Alaimo 2014). Conflict does not oppose a law to a natural or an empirical fact. It marks the collision between two laws, at the frontier between two regimes of law, both of them non-empirical. The antinomy of hospitality irreconcilably opposes The law, in its universal singularity, to a plurality that is not only a dispersal (laws in the plural), but a structured multiplicity, determined by a process of division and differentiation: by a number of laws that distribute their history and their anthropological geography differently (Derrida, 2000, pp. 77, 79). “Don´t go thinking poetry’s just for sissies. There’s mushy love poems, for sure, but there’s also funny ones, lots about nature, war even. Whole point of it – they make you feel something.” His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what´s necessary to defend a woman. (From Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens, 2019, p. 48) Our ethical obligation is to think and work with education and educational research in scientifically profound new ways. Not as a civilisation critic of, let us say, Western philosophies and policies as such, but as a break with views of education and sciences as purely goal oriented, causal, and teleological, views of knowledge as representational and corresponding ways of

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telling stories of science and research as constant improvements, ever increasing productivity, constantly higher levels of rationality. An obligation of undertaking participatory constant (re)design projects, creating experimentations, opening theoretical and practical opportunities to reimagine more capacious and just futures – this is the ethical obligation we must give our attention to (or at least we must try). This is an ethical obligation, one which implies engagement in common conflict situations, ultimately allowing life’s inflections to work directly on our bodies. Bringing us to the place of sensations when we sense; allowing infinite sums of minute perceptions that destabilise macro perceptions that are already there, while preparing the possibility of future perceptions. We engage in novel collaborations and modes of interdisciplinarity, engage with multiple stakeholders, and addressing diverse temporalities of anticipation, imagined futures, and possible worlds. And as researchers, we design speculative thingumabobbing research-creation frameworks that privilege the professional expertise and capacities of both the researcher and the researched. Ultimately, strengthening the impact of practices as a prerequisite for research in general, educational research in particular. Bringing us to a counter deficit space-time: the possibility of a ‘tentative-ism’ without paralysing ourselves through our uncertainties. Or, as Pink (2022) expresses it, being primarily engaged in methodologies for researching automated futures: “It means researching about, with, alongside, and relationally to automation as it evolves in continually changing worlds” (p. 747). Leaving us to deal with the paradoxical structure of complexity and the limits of collective intentionality. If we want to develop the strength to stay de-comforted (and we do!), an open research ethics and “think-to-elude-tank” insists that we must find ways to work these paradoxes and limits. Without judgement, between trust and mistrust, writing formulations of – and in – languages that express material-linguistic reconfigurations inhabiting the interface in the inbetween. Placing the me at the heart of action with you. Continually asking how we have arrived at the present, and thinking about who we are, who we should be, and the possibilities of change: Criticism is a matter of flushing out that thought and trying to change it: to show that things are not as self-evident as one believed, to see that what is accepted as self-evident will no longer be accepted as such. Practicing criticism is a matter of making facile gestures difficult. (Foucault, 1988a, pp. 155–156) Agency – riddling with the concept and practices of agency, as agentic, energetic, force, becomings, beyondings as we have done throughout the book – is in criticism, what cuts into what seems self-evident, challenging the habitual ways of working and thinking in constituting society and people. Agency, thus

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disturbing the present and the self by engaging in conditions of unfreedom. Freedom being the obligation and commitment, the non-positioning of force. The fugitivity of our futures governing the present. The machinic unconscious conscious about the play, playing at the ethical field of eternal consciousness, our constant redesigns and attempts to re-author and multi-verse over and over. Extending the possibilities of the role of education and research in societal change and futures. ‘Tentative-isms’

Placing the me at the heart of action with you Who do we blame for missed opportunities? Who is to be ashamed of wanting implementation of public policies? No offence None taken The consciousness we deserve Intense experience with and poetry Riddling our own thinking about knowledge and freedom, re-authoring for multi-versed assemblages, we know only that change as becoming processes rather than position states or statements. Living quasi-ethical, non-empirical academic lives of no conflict; obligation being as ‘safe’ as hospitality – both concepts (and ideas) are taken down from their pedestals and left undefended and vulnerable. Riddling in a tone of positivity, in intense experience with no ‘either/ors’ – there are ways, there are places, there are searvelatnjas. If any problem; a problem of formulating the mild, sublime, and indirect corrections in searvelatnja, as a colleague put forward. Or, as we indirectly try in this book: if any problem; create new words for taking thought seriously in minor or rather thingumabobbing academic practices and knowledging. One of Anne´s intense experience with sublime story

My colleague and I continued to e-mail. We had been writing an article together with several other colleagues from Norway and Russia as an assemblage of autoethnographic stories. “I have just heard that children from Ukraine are sent to Russia for denazification!” “What!! … No way, that is out of this world. How on earth are we going to talk with them about that?” “I have no idea. I have been thinking about saervelatnja and that we need words to express something like what I experienced with the taxi driver.”

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Reading their stories and doing response-ably what is necessary to support and defend a friend, you can read and think with one of the stories in the next chapter. (Story retold with permission from e-mail correspondence with colleague, August 2022) In Chapter 8 then, you can read other stories, write, multi-verse and re-write your own stories, and continue rehearsing, riddling with stories.

8 RE-AUTHORING METHODOLOGIES

We might have called the content/activities of this chapter workshops/workshopping. In fact, in an early draft we did! But as our thinking flowed and shifted, we were less and less convinced that ‘work’ and ‘shopping’ were what we were happy with at the end of a book focussed on uncertainty and riddling; multi-versing and de-comforting; knowledging and beyonding. Our proposed tasks to foster inter/intra-active engagement with the ideas of this book are to focus on possibilising of knowledging and to resist locking in a focus on solutions. In this chapter we present – for your participation – three exercises, and to maintain our focus on non-judgemental, non-binary engagement in shared thinking and knowledging, we have identified these exercises as ‘think-tank’ exercises. Not the traditional notion of ‘think-tank’, what we propose is a ‘think-thingumabob-tank’(TTT): where ideas and thinking, ways of becoming remain indefinite/uncertain; a constant re-authoring of thinking in your becomingness (we could also have called these sets of exercises ‘thinkto-elude-tanks’ – slip back to Chapters 1 and 2 for more on this riddling with words). This participation is an opportunity to take the intra-activity between writer and reader a step further: for you to re-author the methodological thinking of this book for yourself and your knowledging. The first two TTTs are pre-designed and provide a structured format. Both sets of activities come together in their focus to multi-verse for knowledging. The third set provides less structure and, with only minimal guidance, encourages you to take the practice of re-authoring to your own contexts. Through the progressive stages of the first two TTTs and the riddling practices of the third, we put to work the keywords that have developed throughout the book, and the challenges they contain. As we indicated earlier, in keeping with the intent of this book, our focus in these exercises is not solution oriented. Rather the elements of the DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-11

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exercises provide opportunities to shift, shake-up, and open to possibilities: to engage in practices which embrace de-comfort and open thinking for multi-versing and re-authoring. And to underline; what is afforded through these practices is to move beyond binary divisions of right/wrong, good/bad, certain/uncertain in our knowledge practices. Through such beyonding we strive to resist polarised, tunnelled thinking and action that such binaries can potentially cultivate. Rather than a constriction of knowledge through such binary thinking, there is value and opportunity in practices of forcing knowledge open, out, onward, shifting backwards and forward, always on the move. We present opportunities to force knowledge open through the practices of knowledging, re-authoring, multi-versing, de-comforting, riddling. Before introducing the TTTs, we give some perspective to our thinking regarding binary divisions that can exist in knowledge contexts and that can play out in research practices. Polarisation can develop when binary opposition takes hold in knowledge practices and filters through particular research groupings (theoretical, onto-epistemological, disciplinary and more types of groupings). Such groupings can contribute to identifying a sense of place and belonging in research work. However, such groupings can also constrain the capacity to be/think/do ‘other’ when/if the privileging of ‘group’ expectations have been internalised and universalised. There are both opportunities and threats associated with a universal notion that in the academic world scholars, researchers and learners are expected, and at times driven, to find places to ‘fit-in’, to develop a sense of belonging to ‘a flock’ where they will feel supported and understood. While this might, in one way, provide a useful component of knowledge work, it is also important to be cautiously hesitant in regard to such expectations, and the ‘gifts’ such ‘flocking’ may offer. The sense of belonging to a group comes with a gratitude to the group that you have been accepted but when the cost is the sacrifice of your-self, there is tension in holding together the collective and the individual. There can be value in moving from uni-versing to multi-versing to avoid academic flocking, where the notion of ‘flocking’ can imply moving with/in a group without thought for the limitations as well as the opportunities; without thought for the possibilities of being other/wise; being multi – both belonging and stepping-out into the multi-versing uncertain flow of not-just-belonging. This can require taking up/on the challenge not to settle for comfort in, nor to lose your-self in the comfort of a likeminded ‘tribe’. Another way might be to de-comfort yourself through practices of opening up your-self to the possibilities of always being ‘other’; re-authoring yourself and your knowing through practices of multi-versing. When taking up/on the challenging tasks of researcher and knowledge worker, rather than finding (or losing) your-self (our-selves) in a like-minded ‘tribe’, there is also value in risking uncertainty and de-comfort, through constant practices un-selfing, de-selfing, re-selfing, – always ‘dis-join(t)ing’ self. Working your-self not to be only and always inward

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focused, but with an agentic force to engage externally. It is in the de-comfort that we hold together (in constant tension) the seemingly opposites of belonging and being distinct – working with/in collectivity and independence – being part of your group and maintaining your self. Novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) borrowed the term ‘attention’ (1970, 1992) from Simone Weil (1909–1943) and worked with the idea of being attentive, that is holding “a just and loving gaze directed upon an individual reality.” The notion of a “just vision” (1970, p. 82) further requires what Murdoch called ‘unselfing’, a practice/a process of dismantling of oneself in a quantum space “realizing that something other than oneself is real” (Reinertsen et al., 2022, p. 875). Turning my/your attention outward and away from my/yourself and on to the world, the Good (Murdoch, 1970) is what allows me/you to think about moral virtues as something whose reality is manifest in everyday educative and research encounters, in concrete cases of moral virtue – for instance, in acts of vulnerability, honesty, and kindness. Such thinking therefore leads to high-flying speculation but always a return to our sensual worlds and everyday worries. Such is the Murdochian “two ways” philosophical movement. It implies an unlearning of me/you in me/you, a de-selfing, re-selfing, un-selfing of my/yourself: an un-selfing of me /you in the real contexts of my/your worlds. Paradoxically everybody needs an I, a self and a me but through the idea of Good. I try. I method, I listen, I trust. I knowledge. (link back to Chapter 4). To link this thinking – this ‘two ways’ movement, this unlearning self – back to collectivity and independence in research practice, we turn/re-turn to the notion of continual becomingness (re-authoring and multi-versing). Resisting ‘flocking’ does not automatically privilege an inward-focussed approach to knowledge work and research. To work with Murdoch’s notion of ‘un-selfing’, it is not about being ‘in’ or ‘out’ of a particular research grouping but rather being engaged in a constant dismantling, unlearning of oneself, to constantly be re-authoring and multi-versing realities outside of your own-self and your knowledging practices. What we suggest is a collectivity in research/knowledge work – stepping out/away from a reliance on an inward focus, while holding on (often with a sensation of powerful uncertainty and de-comfort) to your own self. Remembering back to our ideas of freedom in relation to knowledging – knowledge and freedom, not knowledge and power. We are interested in what happens when we can step away from any emphasis on power focussed on defending research positions and researcher identities. Does this stepping away allow us to take up a freedom of uncertainty/possibilities of knowledging as a relational intra-change: where there is value in the individual and the collective. When we can conceive of our knowledging subjectivities working individually and collectively we are able to engage research methodologies focused on the constant flow of becomings in research work. Stepping outside self requires practices of creating dangerously, risking

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(Photo taken by Louise Thomas)

ourselves, re-designing ourselves, gaining ourselves as we work ourselves both individually and collectively, but never limiting one for the other. Now we ask you to hold on to the thinking in this book but step out of the frame (the Möbius strip) to re-author and to multi-verse your engagement with the contents of the book. Your participation in the ‘think-thingumabob-tanks’ presented here is an opportunity to feel your own academic sensations of self, through actioning/re-actioning the theories and concepts of this book. These TTTs open up sensations and materialising that go beyond a one-dimensional, linear engagement with experiences: sensations possibilising ‘other’, spurring something else, and materialising that folds back and forwards to multi-layer your intra-actions with your everyday worlds. Experiencing a space in a single point in time allows you to know your space (your-self) only in that moment. And, while there is value in that, there can be so much more. We offer the thought that you can be always beyonding your knowledge experiences through actioning/re-actioning sensations of unease – spurring possibilities. We offer a further thought that you can materialise your knowledge experiences through overlapping layers of time and space as you move back over

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previously covered ‘ground’ and the shadows and footsteps of your ‘coming/ going/moving back and forth’ blend your multi-versed intra-actions in knowledging your worlds. We encourage you to trust your capacity to re-step, think other, to riddle, to multi-verse your writing/reading – and open up to sensations this trust can provide. The first TTT is about openings and putting wings on our thinking. A Möbius strip for openings and wings. The second is about action, taking our thinking through multiple spaces and times in/through which it may be possible to respond to the disruptions experienced in the real and ridiculous worlds of academia as agentic and sustainable self/ves: Multi-versing for sustainable actioning. The third is to give attention to and riddle a de-comforting experience of your own. A ‘riddle of your own self’ exercise: at once being in the moment and becoming other, in a moving, flowing, agentic de-comforting – waiting for opportunities in your own contexts for re-authoring: Riddling for re-authoring as learning academics. Stopping right now with the academic blah blah blah, and embracing sensation possibilities provided by poetry, we step with you into these exercises in uncertain thinking and knowledging. It’s just the way my brain works. Put to work your own realities Real and ridiculous realities Propelling out of comfort zones What cost if not? Embrace your own uncertainty. Dance free from expectation of certainty Beaconing you to join the crowd, to fit in, to follow the rules, Who says you must? It lures with promise of acceptance, a place to belong, with rules to follow A cosy place with like-minded … But wait, not so fast, not so sure … What cost to belong? A space to not? Find your own space Take up, take on, take hold, hug tight your own uncertainty. There is no romance, no paradise-place to lull with false security So, what to do in knowledge spaces, constraining with their belonging promises? Trouble with your questions, double trouble to resist solutions The ‘unreal’ trouble is to question not Make trouble for sure Certain (or not) of your own uncertainty.

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Reading dangerously, Writing dangerously, Creating dangerously ‘Danger, danger, danger!’ but fearing not so much, only if we do not ask, more and more; question, more and more Re-author with your own uncertainty. But Eros is not completely lost, as we riddle the enigma of academia Embrace the passion, move with desire, give your thinking wings For method is attending, possibilising, futuring and multi-versing For method is to un-self, with agentic freedom of de-comfort Passionately purposeful in our knowledging, beyonding, never settling Live, love, fly with your own uncertainty. It’s just the way your brain works. A Möbius strip for openings and wings

We ask you to think about relations between power and freedom. The Möbius strip is at once a tool, a practice, and a symbol for knowledging through/with a knowledge/freedom relationship, not a knowledge/power relationship. Remember Aion (refer back to Chapter 1) holding on, stepping out – with the real and ridiculous design of the strip his stance is shaking up what we may take for granted (what we might not initially fully see). Going with a Möbius flow, you can never be certain whether you are inside, outside, upright, or hanging upside down. It is in this way that it is also possible to shake up the power/freedom relationships at work in knowledge. Take up an engagement with the Möbius strip and put your own knowledging experiences through the strip, shaking up what you may have taken for granted, what you might not initially fully see. As you engage with the following TTT stages, consider what knowledging possibilities might present themselves. 1. Attentions and Concentrations – Drawing from your engagement with the concepts of deep thinking and affective entanglements presented in this book, ask yourself the following questions: What are you attuned to or attentive towards in your line of work or practice? What do you need to concentrate on in your line of work or practice? Speaking for yourself, what concepts or terms require/draw your attention and concentration? 2. Productive distractions – Cut a paper strip, draw a line through the middle of this strip on both sides. Alternating above and below the line on one side write down keywords from your responses to the above questions. On the

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other side, again alternating above and below the line, write words that represent interruptions, hesitations, contradictions, un/certainties that find their way into your practice of deep thinking. Twist the paper strip and glue/tape together to form a Möbius strip. 3. The hovering lab 1 – What happens with the keywords and distractions that you have put into play in the Möbius strip? Choose one keyword and one distraction and write to each of them in terms of your attention and concentration. What multi-possibilities can you open yourself to through/ from such a distraction as a way of re-authoring your knowledging. 4. Fabulations, speculations and futuring your ideas and ideals; imagine and speculate what you hope for as knowledge forced open. Re-author how this might look or work in your context. 5. The hovering lab 2 – Look now at how the attentions and distractions you have identified can become intertwined. Cut your Möbius strip horizontally all the away along the drawn line. Follow the words through the strip and read what has happened with your keywords and distractions. Using this Möbius strip exercise, reflect on ways in which your thinking has been stretched and deepened. How might this be identified as experiences of beyonding as presented in this book? How might these experiences of beyonding contribute to multi-versing your knowledge practices: your practice of knowledging? How might you weave and twist (shake up, shift, open out) your required attention and concentration into multi-attentions and fluid concentrations – in ways that force open your knowledging and deepen your thinking? Think back to how agentic becomingness was presented in Chapter 4 6. Working with the micro-politics of knowledging. Take up your agentic capacity to ask, what do/can I do with what knowledging does? How do/ can you build in agency as a force and trust into knowledging systems? Trust must include acceptance of difference – without fear. 7. Forcing knowledge open – How can you agentically respond to disruptions/ruptures that find their way into your knowledge contexts? What kind of deep thinking do you need to force knowledge open in your professional/learning settings? What will it take for you to be more dangerous and daring in your re-authoring and knowledging? What will creating dangerously look like in your learning/research/academic practices? Consider what this might do to your multi-versing of time and space. Take this with you into the next TTT. Multi-versing for sustainable actioning

We have shaken you up, and you have exercised your wings. Has this been enough to welcome into your knowledge work provocations as a possibility and a pathway to creating, thinking, doing dangerously. Provocations can

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give the most to think about. Provocations can provide the disruptions to rupture locked-in thinking pathways, enabling new pathways to open up. This will be of most value if it can have a built-in element of the sustainability in actioning and re-actioning the provocations. We respectfully invite you to provoke, disrupt and possibly rupture your own thinking and knowledging pathways. Trust yourself to take a leap beyond, to shift gears and yet, more than this, to stop self-automated, perpetual flows – the never-ending machines of our thinking. Through this exercise we create a rupture, an opening, necessary break to enable creating dangerously along shifting thinking pathways. Here we ask you to think, read, respond one way and then, with an intervening break, and a shift in time and space, to then rethink, re-read, respond again – taking your self beyond the time and space of your immediate professional work/learning expectations/assumptions. And through this experience of re-selving, through this experience of beyonding, bring with you the sustainability to venture into new possibilities to respond, to action with a multi-versing approach to knowledge work.

(Photo taken by Louise Thomas)

1. Attentions and Concentrations – Read this/a picture in the here and now. For a moment in time give attention to/concentrate on the space presented via the picture. Focus on how you view the picture in a moment in time. What could a change of time and space do to extend and expand your

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own knowledging of this picture? Move yourself – physically, mentally away from your reading of this picture (look at something else, think of something else). . Exploring possibilities – Now, coming back, flip the picture and read the 2 same picture again. Change the space and time of your attention: take up a new point of concentration. Read, in this new space and time (a new here and now), the picture for newness and/or other/wise. What has shifted in your attention to the picture – what difference is there in your concentration in reading the picture anew? What does a shift in space and time do to you to enable you to read your experience of the picture differently and force open the knowledge you have of this picture?

3. The hovering lab 1 – hover over your space (learning, personal, professional space) in a chosen point in time. Bringing with you your experience from the ‘flipping picture’ exercise, we ask you to now give attention to how you view yourself in a moment in space and time. Identify and acknowledge an object, a subject, a thought, experience or feeling of your choice that is of interest to you. Pause/take a moment, with your mind’s-eye look for the shifts/the disruptions/the flips that rupture your focus/your attention/your concentration. Bring it with you through shifting time and space, and read the experience of the subject or object you chose again for

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4.

5.

6.

7.

newness/other/wise as if in another point of time, another space. How might these ruptures ‘gift’ you opportunities to look, think, do, be ‘other’ – opportunities to create dangerously as you re-author your knowledge. With this re-authoring you have the opportunity to pause, shift gears – to find another way, an additional way … to multi-verse your knowledging … so you can bring more sustainability to your practices/to your personal and professional thinking. Fabulations, speculations and futurings - Imagine and speculate the possibilities of creating dangerously with/for that on which you chose to focus, and what such possibilities could/would involve as you re-author (think fugitive futures for/through) your knowledge and knowing experiences. The hovering lab 2 – Hover over your current professional learning space (workplace, etc.) to view and read how you can action your speculations for yourself and with others. How might you identify and flow with the hesitations, contradictions, disruptions, in ways that enable shifting to be other, to speculate for dangerous creating through your multi-versing self and knowing? Multi-versing and moving – With focus on your professional/learning spaces, take up your agentic capacity and relate your speculations from stages 4 and 5 of your own professional writing documents or practices with a view to multi-versing. What might new space domains do to/with your re-authoring at this particular point of time? What might be the possibilities in another space or time? Sit with moments of de-comfort across uncertain spaces and times, events – and accept that sometimes just watching, listening or standing still is enough. Forcing knowledge open – In order to do the reauthoring what kind of spaces do you need and what spaces shake you up, shift you to open up for you and more sustainable way of actioning in your professional and learning settings?

Riddling for re-authoring as learning academics

To introduce the third exercise, we start with a series of stories. These stories provide reflections on the storytellers’ experiences of academic unease, uncertainty; moments of instability and unrest. What we ask you to focus on through these stories is not the potentially troubling nature of these experiences and moments in time but rather the agentic force at work in the responses. Responses which are not paralysing or diminishing, but rather it is exactly the moments of agentic de-comfort that give us a place/a space for re-authoring. Be inspired, be shaken and stirred, be de-comforted by the short stories here. Look for, wait for, be open to, an experience, a moment in your daily life/ professional or learning context that has or will trigger unease, uncertainty, instability and unrest. Move with/step back from such an experience or

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moment and look for ways it can give you opportunities to force knowledge open. Riddle your story to take up de-comfort as an agentic force. Use that sensation of de-comfort as a power/a force to re-author and actionalise academic unease, uncertainty, instability and unrest; to multi-verse your constantly becoming realities as a learning academic. So first our stories, and then we leave open space for your story/ies (take your time). Forgetting myself

Another story from Louise. While it tells of an experience while undertaking her PhD, it reflects her ongoing embrace of the value and power of uncertainty and de-comfort: During my time as a doctoral student I was fortunate to have several opportunities to present my work-in-progress research at international conferences and seminars. On most occasions there were colleagues and mentors in the audience, providing support, encouragement and helpful feedback at the end of the session. Although I have always found public speaking a little nerve-wracking, I also relish opportunities to share my thinking with others. (Remembering some wise words from my late father has always helped me embrace my nerves – his comment to me was: “If you are nervous about a presentation then it usually means that the content is important to you. So, acknowledge this and draw on it to help you share what you value with others”). Whenever I do a public presentation I consciously ask myself “Am I nervous? Is this important to me?” My nervousness usually lasts only a few minutes after which I have embraced the passion I (usually) feel for the topic and the process of sharing with others. In addition to this, I am also aware that my style of presenting does not always fit with expectations. (I once received student feedback as a university lecturer along the lines of: “You ask too many questions and don’t ‘give’ us the answers!!” While I can acknowledge their frustration, I don’t apologise and I’m still asking questions/not giving answers in my presentations). It has not only been students who have shared with me their responses to my presentation delivery style. I particularly remember one time that a mentor approached me after a conference presentation, with the intention of providing ‘helpful’ feedback, and expressed their concern that I, at times throughout the session, appeared to have lost my train-of-thought. They seemed surprised when I responded that, that had not been the case at all – in fact I had been deeply ‘in my train-of-thought’ throughout the whole presentation. But reflecting back on this experience I can understand the mis-interpretation of the situation. My experience of listening to other presentations demonstrated to me that the expected style of delivery was to have a fluent ‘speech’ which I could ‘perform’ with an air confident, almost

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robotic detachment – no pauses, no hesitations, no reflective pondering. So I could/can see why this mentor would interpret my style as concerning – I think they could even have been feeling embarrassed for me. However, for me such a ‘polished’ style of delivery would be requiring me to detach myself and my thinking from the audience, and as such devoiding me of what I believe to be the key purpose of presenting my ideas with others – that is to think with others; to move outside my own thinking into the spaces between myself and others. The pauses and reflective hesitations (interpreted my mentor as forgetting my content) was in fact purposefully ‘forgetting myself’, placing my uncertainty out in the open to force open the possibility of thinking ‘other’. Such experiences are what give me opportunities to engage purposeful de-comfort: an experience that gives me the freedom to multi-verse my thinking and actionalise my knowledging. The clown and the princesses

Story from letter written to researchers in a project on creating more inclusive practices in schools and kindergartens (2020–2022). Writing letters being the project’s data generating method. I’m lucky. I was brought up in a good home… Imagine being so lucky! I always felt included, and an important part of my surroundings. Apart from the one incident … That day I didn’t feel welcome. That day I felt excluded. It was just once. I was going to a carnival in kindergarten. I was dressed up as a clown. I opened the door to what we used as a silent room, and almost all the other girls in the kindergarten were already there, everyone dressed up as little princesses. They looked at me laughing. “You’re so ugly, you don’t get to play with us.” Imagine if there had been a grown-up person there. I could have needed one. Someone who could have defended me, helped me, supported me, comforted me … Or, imagine if I had a good friend who could have defended me, invited me into the play. Because I could have needed one. I’m grown up now. But I remember it very well. How it made me feel is what I remember best. Imagine how an experience like that can leave such a mark, and those who have many such experiences. Think of those who experience similar events often or perhaps even every day. I would have liked science to be interpreted objectively… and my PhD in a different situation

(Rewritten and anonymised with consent from the author.)

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I had just finished my PhD thesis and was about to submit it for approval. The thesis is about how teacher training can facilitate student mobility in a better way. I have argued passionately about bilateral cooperation between teacher training courses as I believe it will benefit everyone, both students and institutions. I have therefore tried to understand how dialogue can be created and maintained over time between two teacher training education programmes from two different countries, Russia and a Western European NATO country. The project has been inspired by the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s understanding of dialogue in which the idea of response is central both in the method and the methodology. The collaborative project between two specific educational institutions was therefore organized and carried out as a chain of responses that the participants gave each other. Data from this project would provide answers to how the students’ ideas about learning in kindergarten and schools are constructed in a chain of responses to practices in kindergartens and schools in another country. Everything was going well. The thesis was finally ready for being submitted. And then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The world was turned upside down. Suddenly, within a few days, all cooperation between the two countries broke down and was stopped. I became uncertain and had to ask my supervisors and managers if I was allowed to defend a thesis about Russia as an employee at an educational institution in a NATO country? I became unsure whether such a disputation was politically correct in the new political situation. I became uncertain whether the knowledge I had acquired had any value in this ‘new’ world. Why should, however, the question of my dissertation’s value come up? Is it so that the value of knowledge that is ‘packaged’ in the form of a doctoral thesis is dependent on the political context? How long does knowledge last? When does it expire? Is there eternal knowledge? What – if so, characterises this knowledge? According to Bakhtin, the goal of knowledge is to provoke new responses. But what response could I give to and get from my Russian colleagues in the new political situation? According to Bakhtin, every individual is simultaneously holistic, unique, and universal (Bakhtin, 1979). Every ‘Me’ depends on ‘the Other’ to act and to create meaning about ‘Myself’. In another word, ‘Me’ creates ‘The other’. ‘The other’, in turn, creates ‘Me’ (Bakhtin, 1979). It is only through ethical actions with a response to each other that it is possible to understand both the Other and Myself. In the new political situation, research and researchers became political and the political parts or sides of us overshadowed professionalisms. ‘Researcher’, ‘college’ has stepped aside. Suddenly there were ‘us’ and ‘them’ and new sides of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that became more important to respond to. We could now only respond to each other as members of NATO, those who are for the war, or those who are against it.

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There is no eternal knowledge. Yes, there are classics (as for example Bakhtin), but their ‘classical’ knowledge gains value through interaction with concrete people in concrete historical situations. We use their ‘classical’ knowledge to create our own meaning in our own time. Without us doing so, the ‘classical’ knowledge is worthless. Moving on with re-authoring practices …

Now taking the languaging and sensating of these re-authorings with you into your knowledge places and spaces, trust yourself in your knowledging: trust yourself to create dangerously in response to the multiplicities and complexities in the form of disruptions, hesitations, contradictions, and the like, that materialise across the space and time domains of your professional/learning practices. Be vulnerability, embrace the diversity and difference of other; work with rather than oppose, or try to ‘fix’ uncertainty; live passionately with/through the risk of uncertainty – to de-comfort yourself; agitate to step out of your circle, your Möbius strip – step out even as you hold on, move outside your ‘tribe’ and look in, allow yourself to sit outside your assumed comfort zones, stretch your self and snap your self back again and again to light a spark that, from time to time, might blaze a fire; a fire that can take you into new places and spaces – giving you possibilities and opportunities for multi-versing – always allowing for beyonding in your knowledge/research work: your re-authoring.

9 HANGING UPSIDE DOWN FOR ANOTHER RETAKE WITH AION AND EROS BOTH

Hanging upside down so that our attempts at ending might just as effectively be beginnings, we re-enforce our focus on fluidity of knowledging – never-ending, spiralling storying. We are conscious of our desire to hold-on and let-go of our part in this writing adventure. But our overwhelming desire is to hand-over to you, the reader, to take our knowledging and thinking beyond this space, and multi-verse to make it as your own. We asked Mackenzie, one of our writing collaborators and already a talented story writer at the age of ten, what was the hardest part of writing a good story. Without hesitation she replied, “the ending!” Why is that, we asked (eager to tap into her expertise)? “Because you do not want all your great work in making a story to just fizzle out with a bad ending”. And so, in the hope to avoid ‘fizzling out’, we flip ourselves back to the beginning of our writing, to the spark that fired us up as we took on this writing project. Our desire for this writing endeavour was to demonstrate the possibilities to resist limitations imposed on our academic pursuits, in particular constraints driven by ever-increasing duplicitous reduction of knowledge to no more than just a searchable commodity. And, in addition to this resistance, we were driven by a concern that knowledge is constructed as a power when individuals concede to institutional conformity. Our efforts and our focus through this book have been to riddle these knowledge-limiting notions – to minor and multi- and de-comfort – so that thinking is flipped and flopped, stretched and shaken, and knowledge is forced open in all its complexities. Complex practices need complex theories. Knowledging is a complex practice and is complexity in itself; and it must be accompanied by complex theories and theories for complexities. Knowledging starts in complexity and ends in complexity, or rather, knowledging is complexity in the middle of everything, everywhere. Having worked to possibilise new complex time-space domains DOI: 10.4324/9781003273707-12

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for thought and presence, we take the next step as we write and dance and riddle – as we choreograph thinking/theory/philosophy to ensure the dance/the riddle/the writing is continual and never forced into an unforgiving uni-stance – is to give ‘thinking’ life, and give it purpose; give it force. Freedom beings the commitment, the non-positioning of your force; a resistance of limitations in the form of conformity to any particular position. With reference to multi-versing, practicing versing as writing, the concept of verisimilitude is intriguing – synonyms are truth, credibility, authenticity, legitimacy reliability, plausibility, likelihood. Working such a concept through our writing accepts the complexities of knowledge and acknowledges the necessity of both reasonableness and reciprocity between the reader and the writer … for what are we without each other? Knowledging through multi-versing verisimilitudes as flows between minds, not as a positioning or stance but, as a multi-d/st/ancing. The concept of knowledge as requiring the taking of a particular stance can be challenged. To do so we think of all concepts being qualified as minor; knowledge brought down from the pedestal – hence enabling such a concept to be put to work as knowledging for freedom and justice through difference. Through the practice of minoring we hope to enable resistance to any engrained expectation to engage in critiquing or critical thinking, where such critique implies engagement in power struggles over knowledge, an approach which, ultimately, results in complicity in dominant and performative knowledge discourses. Our goal is not to engage in attacking directly what is up there on the pedestal, but rather to ask what generated ‘the pedestal’ as a way of presenting what it is that we think of as knowledge and what it is that knowledge does. Critical thinking in itself does not bring anything qualitatively new into the equation with which to think. Resistance or creating alternatives to the current situation of knowledge practices requires us to force the limits of ourselves. Knowledging with eternity as the limit, and with a focus on a dance rather than a stance, enables us to create a Searvelatnja (remember from Chapter 7) to spiral with and through moments of activisms; to riddle the foundations of any/all pedestals with a focus on the architecture, construction, the material and co-constitution of the pedestal itself. Asking in regard to the pedestal – how come it has been built so high, what is it made of, who made it and for what purpose, who did not take part in the planning/building processes, and why/why not? It is an anarchist subtle, productive, and indirect resistance, through which we can co-construct theoretically and practically stronger analytical understandings of the knowledge architectures, structures, and systems that have been built and the institutions that have been organised; built and organised with a Frankenstein nature where those providing the fibres of the framework become increasingly oblivious to the workings of the systems and the organisations – what are increasingly becoming machine-like. Our wish is to both work with and resist in ways that enable a constant riddling of

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the perspectives from our disciplines, to develop qualified but always flexible (as in complex) opinions about power and the exercise of power; freedom, and the exercise of freedom; difference, and the exercise of difference. Creating dangerously, risking ourselves gaining ourselves. Not being afraid of creating something with which you have no former experience. “C-a-b. You can write the word cab.” “What’s a cab? she asked. He knew not to laugh. “Don’t worry if you don´t know it. Let’s keep going. Soon you’ll write a word you know.” Later he said, “You’ll have to work lots more on the alphabet. It´ll take a little while to get it, but you can already read a bit. I´ll show you.” He didn’t have a grammar reader, so her first book was his dad’s copy of Aldo Leopold’s A Sand Country Almanac. He pointed to the opening sentence and asked her to read it back to him. The first word was There and she had to go back to the alphabet to practice the sound of each letter, but he was patient, explaining the special sound of th, and when she finally said it, she threw her arms up and laughed. Beaming, he watched her. Slowly, she unraveled each word of the sentence: “There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot.” “Oh,” she said. “Oh.” “You can read, Kya. There will never be a time again when you can´t read.” “It ain’t just that.” She spoke almost in a whisper. “I wadn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full”. He smiled. “That´s a very good sentence. Not all words hold that much.” (Owens, 2019. p. 103) And not to fizzle or sizzle out about the big canvas of war, trafficking, migration, climate change, new imperialism, abuse, the 99% community – ultimately, revisiting Audre Lorde (1984/2007) about ‘the master’s tools’ that will ‘never dismantle the master´s house’ – we stress the importance of riddling the ridiculous features and echo-chambers of our knowledge worlds, the importance of riddling the foundations, and in Searvelatnja there are ways to riddle, if we want. Ways to tell again in new ways, to look again in new ways, show again in new ways, read and write again in new ways and not to be paralysed by either power or complexity. Ways to support and defend a friend; but not take away their own self. The thing to learn from it all is not to judge, just share. Avoid judgement, attributions, characterisations and problemsolving because they are paralysing, if not re-authored and multi-versed. So, what to do? … Step into another story. Tell a joke. Build up trust and tolerance also for imperfection and uncertainty. Allow for adequacy in action, our knowledging subjectivities actioning individually and collectively: knowledging the beautiful and the vulnerable; and without a binary reduction to what is good/bad, true/false working always with the complexities in our knowledging of what might be good and true. Riddle what is presented to us as obvious and incontestable.

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There was this man driving to London. His car was very old and looked like a wreck. Suddenly he was waved to the side by traffic police on duty to perform random technical vehicle inspection. The man on his way to London pulled over to the side and rolled down the window. The policeman asked him about the status of his car and if he could open the hood? The man did so, and the police started to ask about everything, and when was the last time he had taken his car for maintenance? Probably what the police saw was not so good. What is this, the policeman said holding a loose wire in his hand? The man explained and promised to get it fixed. Eventually after having gone through and asked a lot of questions, the policeman put his head through the window and then he realised that the car was without a floor. There was a big rusty hole where the floor should have been. What is this he exclaimed! Oh, that is the road to London, the man said calmly. Saturday, 28 January 2023 we could read in The Saturday Paper (Manuel, 2023, https://www.pressreader.com/article/281612424535314) that a confidential briefing paper warns that Australian academics are at risk of harassment, harm and intimidation from foreign governments and corporations. As presented by Manuel, this discussion paper also warns that “foreign actors and their proxies have become increasingly assertive in seeking to discipline universities, academic staff and students who act, speak or write outside the bounds of what the foreign actor considers to be acceptable” (para. 2). On the backcloth of current geo-political and social situations, especially regarding the war in the European mainland, we regard this risk of intellectual intimidation and threat to academic freedom as global. Instead of universities being places for talking about human rights and politics, and being places for having difficult conversations, in extreme cases “individual academics risk being subject to direct threats and intimidation within the University setting, suffering harm or incarceration if they travel to those (foreign) jurisdictions or being excluded from the jurisdiction” (para. 3). Manuel goes on to articulate that taking up to concern with a risk of foreign interference in academic work, the briefing paper (prepared for Melbourne University) states that such risks “come from a very wide range of jurisdictions, and they are not limited to foreign state actors” (para. 5). And, that according to the briefing paper, A range of other influential non-state actors such as corporations, political parties, nongovernment organisations, think tanks and pressure groups, either acting as proxies for governments or government interests, or in their own interest, all have the capacity to interfere with academic freedom. (para. 5) The threat to academic freedom, however, is made even more complex and severe

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because of the power of these actors to punish universities: financially, by withdrawing students, constraining, or making teaching and research collaborations difficult, and through causing reputational damage to the institution as well as individual academics both in Australia and in the foreign jurisdiction. (para. 6) A present-day threat to the academic freedom of individual academic and academic institutions can be transparently seen in context outlined in this report. However, a less blatantly obvious threat could be lurking in a form claiming to focus on the cost-effective delivery of knowledge. University courses are being outsourced to for-profit companies. Third-party online management companies (OPMs) are becoming increasingly common in the delivery of university learning experiences (Davies, 2023). Is this streamlining education or potentially misleading teachers and students and charging excessive fees? The university, as an institution, is a thousand-year-old institution of affirmative reclaiming of knowledging and charity. The ‘corporate’ institution and model is young, reclaiming to a large extent money (para. 2). Why should the university adapt to the corporate model? What is lost/what is at risk if/when they do take on such a model? The details presented in the above discussion paper and in the referenced newspaper articles identify potential attacks on academic freedom which send chills down our spines. However, as we stated at the start of our book (and revisited from time to time throughout), our focus is not to critique the current university sector nor to argue the pros and cons of a corporatised, performative knowledge sector (this has been done eloquently by others). Rather our approach has been to riddle, to question, in our ultimate efforts to think other, to think multi, to think again and again; and through thinking (always thinking) not to lose force with freedom: to force open what knowledge is/can be – because what is knowledge without the freedom to think! Louise:  Good morning, Anne I hope you can open the link for this article from this weekend’s Saturday Paper. We might not necessarily use it, but I think it supports the need for our book!! Anne: Absolutely! It might be what we have been looking for to end with in Chapter 9. Louise: Yes, good idea … and, reflecting on all the recent hype in the media regarding use of AI text generation, we could even use ChatGPT to write it for us (joking) (E-mail exchange 29 January 2023)

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Again, we riddle our deepest academic fears as a way of opening up our thinking on topics which challenge our knowledging practices. To give some context to our collective fears we present some coverage of this response to AI texting: A few days in the Norwegian Broadcasting Cooperation (NRK) newsfeed on ChatGPT1 3 February 2023: ChatGPT becomes a payment service: The popular robot ChatGPT will become a payment service, says OpenAI, the company behind it. The text robot has quickly become very popular. Both companies and private individuals have used it for things like writing short stories, compiling reports, and writing screenplays. The robot understands a wide range of languages, including Norwegian. However, with the increased popularity, it has become more difficult to use the robot, and OpenAI is now launching a plus service for people who want quick access even when many people are using it at the same time. (NTB2)

23 January 2023: Microsoft invests heavily in ChatGPT: Microsoft is extending its partnership with the company behind ChatGPT. The deal is worth several billion dollars. ChatGPT – an artificial intelligence (AI) language robot – has attracted attention with its ability to deliver significantly better texts than we are used to machines putting together. (NTB)

21 January 2023: Danish universities ban ChatGPT. Several Danish universities fear that students may use artificial intelligence to cheat and are now banning the use of the chatbot chatGPT on exams. The popular but rather controversial chatbot can write texts, including entire exam questions, which are so good that even the most experienced teachers and examiners can be fooled. Therefore, several Danish universities have now banned the use of artificial intelligence during exams, writes broadcaster Danish Radio (DR). “You have to write your exam paper yourself. And you haven’t done that if you use artificial intelligence. It’s about testing what the students can do,” says Anna Bak Maigaard, Deputy Director at Aarhus University. The Technical University of Denmark, Roskilde University and the University of Southern Denmark have also banned the use of artificial intelligence. The University of Copenhagen states that a ban depends on the individual exam. In Norway, no ban has yet been introduced, but the Education Association has decided that the internet will be closed during high school exams.

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We have argued throughout this book that writing is important for developing deeper insights, moments of intensity and occasional whims, writing being essential to our perception of knowledge production or rather knowledging. The threat from AI text-generation programs then becomes serious. If we lose the slow, reflective writing, we lose an essential contribution to new knowledge and knowledging, and it is precisely that deeply thoughtful, often painstaking, writing that AI text generation threatens to replace in the first place. Under such a threat, what knowledge workers all over the world risk is losing what is a primary tool for knowledging – that is, writing. Thinking thinkers writing

Technology might however make it possible to learn/to know in new ways if we continue writing. Academic learning institutions cannot back down when accessing new technology. Rather, what is required is to understand technology (taking up the concept of thingumabobbing) to use it with reasonableness and reciprocity, in spacemaking makingspace for our own multi-versing. Moving beyond simplistic discussions about possibilities and challenges of digitalisation – we wish to take a different perspective and ask about what it does, what we want, or even further, we can ask what what we want does or can do? Discussing the premises of knowledging that is, instead of that of technology, becoming technologists across computers discussing what to become? And as such, any idea and ideal must be always ‘thingumabobbed’/‘riddled’ to avoid (or at the very least be mindful of) producing unintended and unthought-of effects and consequences. The same goes for research and science, governance, education – ultimately inclusion. Writing: re-authoring inclusion as inclusive becoming designs, every concept being seen as labour, and ideas having to be put to work to work, thingumabobbing, thinking about thinking to think is the matter and fabric of our on/offline worlds, the fabric of our knowledging practices. Systems, programs, policies, and pedagogies created for inclusion might possibly create unintended and unthought-of consequences if we do not write, re-author, minor, riddle and work as a thingumabob. In a worst-case scenario, we might create self-reinforcing exclusive educational systems and policies in which more and more participants’ well-being is at risk, learning is pathologised and reduced to compliance because that is what we can measure. A rhetorical question we might ask ourselves is: is it possible to learn something in kindergartens schools, and universities today without having set a goal and a constructed framework through which to ‘measure’ that goal? We might think so, but what are the realities we live? What does a learning goal do to what we want to learn? What does a requirement to ‘measure’ every learning do to the passion in/for learning? Is it possible that we one day might view learning as a pathologised matter and, if measured scores are low, a disease? We put all our energy into resistance to such a catastrophe. Another question we, as

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educators and researchers, might ask ourselves in relation to our knowledge ‘goals’ and measurement frameworks in our performative driven academic institutions is: how far we have gone in making research and scientific opinion into a peer review, international publication activity and citation metrics, presenting such practices as the bedrock of decision-making and evaluation in what is knowledge? And, how does such a state of practices stop/limit us in our knowledging? These practices are exclusive and excluding – working as traditionally closed systems of rules and sanctions; systems in which the demand for ‘impact’ is close to absolute and controlled by ‘the powerful few’, and competition is brisk and brutal – creating an equation of winners and losers, a possible constituency of beneficiaries and defenders, and, eventually, a commodified philosophical and educational rationale. In a global perspective this might be a continuation of the imperialist age all over again. Dominant parties might have changed a bit, but all in all it is the same old colonial story. A new indoctrination of the system, and, we argue, there is a need to assess what it produces. If not careful enough, academic practices and practitioners might end up in involuntary onto-epistemic servitude despite thoughts we have of our academic selves as inclusive and thinking thinkers. Mackenzie’s story: “As long as it does not stop you”

As we attempt to finish this book, and in an effort to force our thinking about knowledge out into the realities of educational institutions, we share Mackenzie’s3 story about her experience with learning and her love of creating stories. I like to make stories, I get stories in my head … I think about my ideas and I have so many stories – I can just remember them because I have a good memory. I focus on what I want to say and forget about the paper because on the page the letters just stare at me, the words just look back at me. My teachers focus on what I say not about what I write on the paper. But when there are things in class that I have to do I have worked out that I’ve basically got two options: I can do it fast and try to get it done in the time I have but the words are going to be wrong; or I can try to get it right and know I’m not going to have enough time – I will run out of time. So, in school, there are times when I have to decide: do I want to get it done or do I want to get it right. Just because people do things a different way doesn’t mean that they are doing them wrong. My best friend is not judgy, my teachers are mostly ok with it, and my family tells me not to let it worry me if I do things differently with letters and words, and reading and writing. But I say – ‘Why should I be worried: it’s just the way my brain works!’

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I like stories, I can take in the ideas and my stories are in my brain, so I remember them – it’s all about the story. I have a really good memory and I like that about myself. I don’t care about all that jibber-jabber stuff, the stuff on the paper, it doesn’t stop me having lots of great ideas and making great stories in my head. You have to be whatever you want to be and not worry if you do things a different way because different can be good – as long as it doesn’t stop you. Mackenzie’s words remind us that acknowledging diversity in the inclusion practices and policies of educational institutions is not an end in itself, it is just a starting point and should not be used as a barrier or mechanism to stop an individual being whatever they want to be. This also takes us back to our riddling of critique: critical thinking is not an end in itself, it is just a starting point for action, for change, for hope, for freedom. We link this to the words of Mahmood Fazal (2023) writing about artists in a Belarus Free Theatre resistance group: “It is our obligation as artists to move people out of their comfort zones – to think.” (p. 19). Surely the same obligation applies to academic writers, to educators, to researchers? Our hope is that through a constant riddling of the real and ridiculous of academia that we can resist the pull to comfort and conformity and continue to have hope in/through knowledge forced open. We end this book hanging upside down in a Möbius Strip with Aion. Aion who holds on but steps out. Aion with/in the Möbius strip who challenges the chromonormativity of time im/possibilising other. Re-authoring and multi-versing with Aion, and nodding to Murdoch again, we hold on and step out with Eros, another figure from ancient Greek philosophy. The concept and image of Eros refers to sensual or passionate love, from which the term erotic is derived. Eros, however, has also been used in philosophy and psychology in a much wider sense, almost as an equivalent to ‘life energy’ (https://www.britannica. com/topic/Eros-Greek-god; retrieved 11 November 2022). The life energy of knowledging that is; the agentic force of knowledging that is; the life sustaining force for knowledging that is. So, when we ask: “Has Eros left the building?” We are clear in our response: Eros must never leave the buildings we design and build; Eros (a passion for/in learning) must be in the fabric of the architectural processes of all our structures (policies, procedures and practices). Eros as our ‘life energy/force’ must be the beginnings, the ends, the middles and the betweens of all our knowledging, as we riddle on, always beyonding. We are two, we are other, we are

We are two learning academics, Two ageing, ageless academics, So far apart, so close together, so rich in our difference.

154  Futures governing presents

We are two crafty ladies, Two crafting women, We knit our yarns, we craft our texts, We pull apart if they do not work, and work again. We are two desiring thinkers, Two passionate thinkers, Deep thinking our knowledging, lusting for freedom spaces, Embracing possibilities of always knowing other. We are two multi-versing authors, Two re-authoring, de-comfort authors, Always beyonding, always, riddling, always to force knowledge open. Notes 1 ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence-based text generation model from the company OpenAI. It can be used to generate answers to questions, write conversations, or to complement text. https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/chatgpt-1.16283115 (retrieved 4 February 2023). 2 NTB – The Norwegian News Agency is Norway’s leading provider of text, images, video and graphics to the Norwegian media. We also deliver a wide range of services, such as distribution of press releases, production of visual content, storage of images and language training courses. https://www.ntb.no/about-ntb (retrieved 4 February 2023). 3 Mackenzie is ten years old and has recently been informed that she has dyslexia. She sees this as just the way her brain works, not as something that will stop her being what she wants to be. One thing she sees herself as being is good at creating stories.

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INDEX

academia xiv, xvi, 6, 10–11, 26, 28, 35, 37–38, 56, 62–63, 117–118, 135, 153 academic xv, 4, 6–7, 9–11, 26, 28, 31, 37, 55–56, 62–63, 76, 80, 89, 95, 98–99, 101, 103, 118–119, 124, 129, 132, 134–135, 140, 148–150, 152–153 academy xiv, 17, 55–56, 118, 120–130 actionalise xvi, 7, 17, 25, 57, 64, 96, 141–142 affect/ive xvi, 4–5, 9–10, 12, 16, 26, 34–35, 39, 42–43, 46, 50–53, 59, 62–65, 67, 71, 81–82, 86, 95–96, 100, 104, 110, 112, 114, 121, 125, 136 against ethics 121 agentic computation 100, 106 agentic forces 3 algorithmic awareness 79, 98, 100 anarchist sublime 126 assemblages xv–xvi, 3, 8, 35, 43, 91, 117–118, 129 autoethnographic 14, 56, 96, 98, 103, 129 autoethnography 98 automated futures 78, 99–100, 112, 128 axiologies 9, 20, 23 becoming design/s 12, 14, 85–87, 90–92, 94, 98–99, 102–103, 151

beyonding xii, 7, 12, 14, 19, 26, 62, 71, 80, 83, 119, 128, 131, 134, 137, 144, 153 body 3, 42, 49, 51, 81, 87, 95, 99, 110, 112–113 collective writing 8 collectivity 53, 123, 133 complexity xii, xv, 9, 14, 17, 20, 22, 38, 52, 75, 92, 105, 112, 128, 145 constituting 128 cracks 3, 20, 22, 29, 61, 67 dataphilosophical 9, 27 dataphilosophy 93 de-comforting xii, 7, 17–18, 59, 64, 82, 99, 118, 126, 131, 135 Deleuze xii, xiv, 4, 6–7, 10, 29, 34–36, 43–44, 49, 51, 57, 64, 71, 73, 83, 86, 91, 111, 113, 120, 123, 125–126 democratic ontologies xiv, 3, 32 Derrida 5, 83, 85, 127 difference 3–4, 7, 17, 40–41, 51, 78–80, 83, 92, 94, 102, 104–105, 108, 110, 126, 137, 144, 147 digitalisation 37, 43, 86, 97–98, 103, 105, 108, 110 entanglements 9, 18, 20, 27, 59, 61, 97, 136 epistemology/ies 9, 21, 46, 103

162  Index

ethics xiv, 6, 8, 14–17, 29, 31, 43, 46–47, 67, 103, 118, 121–123, 128 ethnographic 9, 27, 62 ethology xiv, 4, 6, 15–17, 26, 34–35, 67, 107 fabulation/s 7, 98, 137, 140 flow xiv, xvi, 4, 6–7, 10–11, 13, 16–17, 20, 24, 26, 29–32, 35, 47, 50, 56, 60–61, 63–64, 68, 84, 96, 132–133, 135–136, 138, 146 flux 90, 108 Foucault 5, 24, 56–57, 61, 63, 67, 123–124, 128 freedom xii, xiv–xv, 10, 18, 23, 25, 34–35, 37–39, 41, 43, 45–46, 50–53, 64, 71–73, 79–82, 87, 94–95, 101–102, 105–107, 110, 114–115, 118, 121, 123, 125, 129, 133, 136, 146–149, 154 fugitive futures xvi, 4, 16, 26, 39, 55, 117, 120, 140 governing/governance 8, 10–12, 14–15, 18, 34–40, 45–48, 50–51, 56, 75–76, 78, 81–82, 86, 88–89, 95–96, 99, 101, 104, 115, 117–118, 121–122, 124, 127, 151 Guattari xii, xiv, 6–7, 29, 34, 36, 43–44, 49, 64, 71, 73, 83, 87, 91, 98, 112–113, 122–123, 125, 127 higher education xvii, 7, 10, 87 hope xv–xvi, 10, 13, 17, 20, 22, 28, 32, 34, 36, 44–45, 48, 55–56, 65, 71, 78, 82, 91, 95, 100, 105, 114, 120, 137, 145, 153 im/possibility xiv, xvi, 3–5, 7, 10, 12, 21–22, 24, 26–27, 29, 31, 33, 55, 57, 63, 67, 78, 87, 97, 100, 104, 118, 123–124, 128, 137, 142 inclusive 4, 6, 10, 14, 17, 30, 35, 37–39, 47, 54, 66, 76, 78–79, 81, 83, 88, 98–99, 103–104, 108–110, 112, 114, 121, 127, 142, 151–152 indeterminacy 10, 14, 23, 26, 35–36, 38, 45, 50–51, 53, 64, 72, 81, 87, 92 in/justice xv, xvii, 10, 34–35, 37–39, 43, 45–46, 52–53, 73, 79, 83, 92, 95, 100, 105, 124, 146 iterative affective force/s 4, 10, 12, 51, 59, 64–66, 111, 113

knowledging xi–xvi, 3–4, 7, 9, 11–12, 14–16, 20–21, 23, 25, 35, 38–39, 41, 46–47, 51–53, 55–57, 59–63, 65–69, 72, 81, 83–84, 86–87, 90–91, 95, 97–100, 105, 107, 113, 120, 126, 131–133, 136–137, 140, 142, 145–147, 149, 151–153 language of event 10, 35, 42, 46, 49–50, 123 languaging 6, 17, 49, 94, 144 listening 3–4, 21, 31, 67–68, 91, 94, 115, 140–141 messy xv, 9, 12, 26–27, 34, 64, 73, 81, 90, 113 metaverse 75, 107 methodology/ies xv, 12, 18, 33, 46, 56–57, 64–67, 77, 85, 90, 143 mimesis xiv, 7, 86 minor xii, xv–xvi, 6, 10, 12, 14–15, 26, 35, 39, 41–42, 49, 52, 65, 83, 85, 100–101, 117, 126, 129, 145, 151 minoring 7, 10, 16, 26, 33, 35–36, 42, 44–47, 49–52, 83, 85, 100, 118, 120–121, 123, 146 minor policy xii, 14, 16, 33, 35, 38, 43–44, 53, 96, 121 multiplicity 3, 23, 31, 35, 50, 56, 59, 81, 95, 97, 110, 127 multi-versing xii, xvi, 7, 17–18, 23, 25, 38, 41–42, 46, 58, 63, 78, 80, 85, 87, 98–99, 102–104, 108, 117–118, 132, 135, 137, 140, 146, 151, 153 nature-culture 4, 82, 104 new public governance 10 noology xiv, 4, 6, 15–17, 34–35, 67, 107, 123 onto-epistemic 4, 89, 152 ontology/ies 10, 15, 32, 46, 51, 64, 91, 103, 123 pedagogies of immediacy 51 pedagogy/ies xvii, 5, 14, 16, 31, 33, 43–46, 51–53, 73, 77, 80–82, 92, 100, 103, 117, 151, 153 philosophy xii, xv–xvi, 7–9, 17, 23–24, 27, 41, 45, 48, 52, 84, 91, 113, 122, 125–127, 146 play 3, 5, 7, 12, 15, 48, 52, 79, 81, 91, 100–101, 118, 126, 129, 132, 137, 142 poem 32, 87, 91, 102–103, 109, 127 poetics xvii, 9, 23–25

Index  163

poetry 29, 52, 72, 127, 129 possibilising xvi, 7, 29, 34, 41, 43–44, 51, 55, 82, 87, 120, 131, 134, 153 re-authoring 6–7, 9, 12, 16–17, 20, 25, 35, 44, 57, 63–64, 72, 83, 99, 129, 131–133, 135, 137, 140, 151, 153 redesign 10, 14, 35, 81, 129 riddle/riddling xiv–xv, xvii, 3, 6–7, 9, 12–15, 18, 24–25, 36, 48, 55, 62–63, 69, 79–80, 84, 98, 111, 114, 128–129, 131, 135, 146–147, 150, 153 ridiculous xiv, xvii, 7, 9, 11, 16, 55–57, 62, 64, 84, 118, 136, 147, 153 searvelatnja 3, 125–126, 129, 146–147 sensating 17, 144 space/spacing xiv, 3, 9, 12, 17–18, 20–21, 23, 26–29, 35, 55–56, 60–63, 99–100, 103, 108, 120–122, 128, 133–135, 140–141 subjectivity 11–12, 36, 39, 41, 49, 51, 55, 64, 82, 94, 98, 102, 110–111, 125 sublime 11, 20, 36, 126–127, 129

technologists 7, 14, 78, 95, 98–99, 108–109, 151 teleology/ies 9, 20, 23, 101 text-ing 9, 31 thingumabobbing 18, 128–129, 151 ‘think-thingumabob-tank’ 18, 114, 118, 131, 134 un/certainty xi, xiv–xv, xvii, 3, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17–18, 20–29, 33, 35, 50, 52, 56–58, 62, 64–66, 73, 78, 100, 110, 119, 125, 132–133, 140–141, 144, 147 un/real xiv, xvii, 3–4, 6–7, 9, 11, 13, 17–18, 29, 40–41, 49–50, 53, 55–57, 61, 64, 68, 72, 80, 84–87, 89, 92–94, 101, 107–109, 111, 118, 120, 123–124, 127, 133, 136, 152 writing xvi, 3–4, 6, 9–10, 12, 17, 20–33, 38, 47, 50, 56–57, 59–69, 77–78, 81, 84–85, 97–99, 102–103, 109, 125, 145–146, 151