Us-ing: Producing Qualitative Inquiry Pedagogies With/in Lively Packets of Relations

An Us-ing: Candace-Becky-Assignment

Sit down at table.

Turn on audio recorder.

Get out lunch.

Open teaching notebooks.

Discuss. Pause. Think. Discuss again.

Candace-Becky-Assignment us-ing. We met together prior to the semester and then weekly during the semester to plan upcoming class sessions and debrief past sessions. We were a part of the course be(com)ing in the decisions we made regarding textbooks and readings, learning engagements, and use of class time. The conversation above happened during week three of the semester. The students were about to read a portion of Jackson and Mazzei’s (2012) book on thinking with theory in an effort to disrupt a methods-first QI pedagogy. We were in the process of introducing students to a TwT assignment where each would choose one theory to read deeply about, articulate schematic cues, and consider how this theory might work (i.e., become analytical questions) with data they produced over the semester (e.g., fieldnotes and interviews). Putting these readings and assignment early in the semester was intentional as we wanted to begin with thinking—thinking with theories—before jumping into conversations on method(ologies). However, as we read more post-scholarship, we wrestled with how to embody these theories in our pedagogies. How do we provide space(s) and invitations for students to think-with ideas, materials, theories, data, and the politics of inquiry? In other words, these are not simply theories we read and put to work in our research; we also wanted to put them to work in our pedagogy. We start with this us-ing: Candace-Becky-Assignments, as a packet of lively relations to illustrate that as instructors we are very much a part of the material-discursive be(com)ings of courses. And to articulate that the us-ing doesn’t belong to Candace or Becky or the assignment, as individual parts, but as lively be(com)ings of all together—entangled.

This unfolding conversation, the us-ing, was the catalyst for us to bring in materials such as glue, scissors, tape, paint, tissue paper, discarded library books and invite students to bring in physical copies of theory readings and their own TwT assignment to physically cut, tear, move, rework ideas during a class session. We believed, along with Barad and others, that knowing/be(com)ing/doing—in our case QI—happens in the intra-active relationships of people, theories, ideologies on inquiry, textbooks, assignments, scissors, glue, digital tools, and so forth. Us-ing.

However, we often found ourselves wondering, why does it matter that we think-with materials-time-space-peers-teachers-theories-data-literature in an introductory QI course? Will giving students space to work with/in these ways really produce anything new—new insights, understandings, questions, relations—or will it be a “waste of time”? It was a risk to carve out an hour or more of class time to invite students to think-with ideas and artistic materials, as some noted they had not touched paint and/or glue sticks since elementary school. We decided to take the risk—believing theoretically in relational ontologies—and after students worked with their TwT assignment and artistic materials, after the chills we felt being a part of these intra-actions, after reading students’ reactions to the hour, we knew something different happened. We knew this us-ing of Candace-Becky-Assignment needed to continue as we planned future assignments and class time. As one of the students shared in a focus group, students need permission to not only think-with theories but to also think-with things. Intra-acting with (art) materials is messy, complicated, unplanned, and uncertain—but needed—especially if we are claiming post-QI ways of being and doing with/in the world. As we’ve written about elsewhere (Kuby & Christ, 2018a),

Creating an ethico-onto-epistemological pedagogy was not about adding art materials to a graduate class, choosing a disruptive textbook for the sake of disrupting, or even privileging theories over methods. However, these choices stem from a paradigmatic belief that we come to know from being and doing in the world. Therefore, if we wanted to produce emerging scholars that not only knew about ways to examine and respond to neoliberalism in the academy and imagine socially just research practices, we had to also create space(s) for them to wrestle with (and try out) ways of being and doing inventive, disruptive, and/or non-traditional QR [qualitative research]—and the politics of these engagements. (p. 143, emphasis in original)

Therefore, as we thought about ways to facilitate students be(com)ing qualitative inquirers, we found it helpful to think with the concept of us-ing, to explore the concept in relation to the planning of a QI course to illuminate the ever-changing, intra-active, multiplicities of pedagogy(ies). Pedagogy is never stable as new realities and relationships are produced with each pedagogical decision or agential cut as Barad (2007) writes.

Interlude: Relational Inten(t/s)ions

We believe that within posthumanism, the human is not removed and is very much part of entanglements. So, our intention in creating assignments and course activities was never to discount or remove the human. We also struggled putting to work a pedagogy inspired by post-theories without being dogmatic with our students. We didn’t expect or assume every student would align with posthumanist theories; that wasn’t our goal. Instead, we wanted to create space(s) in the course for students to intra-act with materials-discourses that could disrupt how they think about QI and the learning of it. We tried to create invitations for students to think and create in ways they perhaps had not been invited to do so before in research courses.

We also acknowledge that adding (art) materials in and of itself does not “make” a pedagogy inspired by relational ontological perspectives; rather, the pedagogy we are describing is rooted in a philosophical stance of how the world comes to be. Therefore, the adding of (art) materials has to be conceptualized in relation to philosophical assumptions of knowing/be(com)ing/doing. In other words, one could read an assignment guide or invitation posed in class and read it as humanist. It could also be read as posthumanist. ¹⁶ The point is that the invitation to students only existed in relationship to us-ing at the moment in time that night of class when students thought-with their TwT assignment and (art) materials. The assignment in class came to be through the lively relations of students, teachers, the assignment guide, materials, and not just the ones visible in the classroom, but also materials-discourses unbeknownst to us. In other words, the words of the invitation were one piece of the whole; however, in the entanglement, they are inseparable from the new reality(ies) produced through lively intra-actions. The assignment was a territory claimed by the lively relations; therefore, the assignment could not be the assignment it was without all of these pieces of the whole entanglement.

An Us-ing: Candace-Becky-Assignment-Gigi-Barad-Csíkszentmihályi-Plato-Paper-iPhone-Tape

Cut a long strip. Twist. Stand it up on table.

Cut a small strip. Twist. Cut a slit.

Try to secure on top of piece of paper standing up on table. Small paper falls.

Leave it on table.

Cut long strips. Accordion fold one. Stand it up on table.

Accordion fold more.

Pick up phone. Snap a few pictures in quick, various positions.

Put phone down.

Pick up paper. Roll. Tape. Drop.

Pick up paper. Roll. Tape. Push, nestle into other rolled papers.

Pick up phone. Snap a few pictures in quick, various positions.

Put phone down.

We continued to watch the video recording of Gigi thinking-with her paper from the TwT assignment, data from interviews and field observations, and (art) materials (see Figures 1 & 2). Gigi found a space at a table, collected scissors, a copy of her TwT paper, and her iPhone. She also found a book about Plato in a stack of discarded books that Becky brought to class. Overall, Gigi’s research interests were to study the improvisation of preservice art teachers and ways of supporting them to improvise in their teaching. In her TwT assignment, Gigi chose to read Barad’s agential realism theory and specifically focused on concepts like intra-action and performativity. She also drew on Csíkszentmihályi’s notion of flow, as she was already familiar with this literature and saw connections to Barad’s work.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Gigi’s paper sculpture side view.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 2.

Gigi’s paper sculpture aerial view.

As an art educator, Gigi’s thinking-with materials such as paper, scissors, and glue before the course was positive, and she seemed comfortable when we invited the students to create as she jumped in without hesitation. As Gigi stated later in a focus group, she thinks best with her hands. While it didn’t seem that Gigi had a preplanned image of what the final artifact would be, it did seem that putting to work the discarded Plato book—this creating-with, tearing-up of Plato’s book and intertwining it with rolled pieces of her TwT paper with her thinking of/with Barad’s ideas—was intentional. Perhaps a part of this us-ing were prior experiences, memories, and/or readings of Plato that became-with Gigi and . . . and . . . and . . . The end product—the outcome of this night in class—could be thought of as the paper sculpture. This is what Gigi made, right? We could assess and evaluate this to determine what Gigi learned about Barad’s theory, right? Well, perhaps. But inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, we are more interested in Gigi’s thinking-with ideas and materials rather than the final outcome (knowledge). Smith (2012) helps us to see how Deleuze and Guattari distinguish knowledge from thinking:

Knowledge is only the result of outcome—it is the establishment of a territory, a competence or specialization; but thinking is a process of learning or apprenticeship that is initiated by one’s encounter with a problem. (p. 143, emphasis in original)

Perhaps Gigi’s in-process understandings of Barad encountered a problem—Plato. This discarded book (i.e., the material book, but also the ideas of Plato) was a problem that entangled with her wrestlings with Barad and her research interest in improvisations of art teachers. This is thinking: unpredictable, messy, in-process—lively meetings and packets of relations. An us-ing of Candace-Becky-Assignment-Gigi-Barad-Csíkszentmihályi-Plato-Paper-iPhone-Tape-and . . . and . . . and . . . There can be no thinking or knowing without be(com)ing and doing—or us-ing within the lively packets of relations. How different would Gigi’s thinking-with be(come) if she had not encountered Plato? We will never know, because the phenomena of thinking and knowing are contingent on these relational meetings—not on some preestablished, external objective. The materials with which we intra-act, matter in our knowing/be(com)ing/doing in the world; material entanglements are us-ings.

Interlude: Relational Inten(t/s)ions

We acknowledge current conversations in post QI that are questioning taken-for-granted-assumptions of QI (St. Pierre, 2011; St. Pierre, Jackson, & Mazzei, 2016). We too are inspired by these conversations, as they force us to pause, discuss, and reimagine our researching/pedagogical practices. ¹⁷ It would be remiss of us to not acknowledge the tensions inherent in doing posthuman research (and teaching) with humans, especially when we used some methods of data production that could be categorized as originating in “conventional humanist qualitative inquiry” (St. Pierre, 2013b, p. 654)—audio-recording, video-taping, and focus group interviews, among other data production methods. However, we don’t claim that video can “capture” relationships so that we can know something.

Within post QI, the definition of data is opened up. It is not something out there to collect and classify; rather it is lively, contingent, transgressive, and . . . and . . . and (St. Pierre, 1997; 2013a). Similarly, a data-recording apparatus cannot capture a reality to recount later; rather, the recording apparatus intra-acts with the data, the researchers, the researched, and . . . and . . . and . . . to produce something altogether different. These recording devices also intra-acted with the pedagogy of QI, as they were present as students (and us) were knowing/be(com)ing/doing during class. In this way, “[r]ecording devices are no longer innocent, mute entities that can be taken for granted. They never were innocent or mute” (Nordstrom, 2015, p. 398, emphasis in original). Recording devices are part of the entanglement, the lively packet of relations. That is why it’s the relational stuff of the research (the intra-action between recorders and people, for example) that makes post qualitative practices, not the stuff itself. This is the quantumness from Barad’s writings; whether or not the physical objects (the stuff) are close or not (in terms of physical distance), their relationship is still a/effected by one another. It’s not about having an interview or not, or a video or not; it’s the becoming-with that matters. This is the us-ing.

An Us-ing: Candace-Becky-Assignment-Gigi-Barad-Csíkszentmihályi-Plato-Paper-iPhone-Tape-Instructors-Space-Time-Peers

Pick up discarded book about Plato.

Read. Turn pages. Read.

Tear out page.

Roll. Tape.

Pick up phone.

Snap a few pictures in quick, various positions.

Put phone down.

Roll more. Tape more. Push, nestle into other rolled papers.

Open Flow by Csíkszentmihályi. Read.

Pick up phone.

Flip pages while snapping a few pictures in quick, various positions.

Put phone down.

Open book about Plato.

Flatten on table.

Leave table.

Here, many bodies are working-with one another: Gigi, theory, the assignment paper, the iPhone, papers, tape, discourses on inquiry. Us-ing was happening—and not just with the physical materials but also with Candace, Becky, peers, and a virtual community. Unbeknownst to us, Gigi used her iPhone to snap photos of her thinking-with theory and materials as a way to produce a virtual, intra-active space for others to participate in the unfolding of the paper sculpture. She used the photos to create a short video that continuously looped on her Instagram page, which produced another community to intra-act with her thinking-with-theories-materials. Us-ing is all of this (what we could see in the room and the yet-to-be bodies and . . . and . . . and . . . that would intra-act with the video on Instagram), plus her peers around her—watching, waiting (and becoming with the entanglement) to see what would unfold.

The us-ing was also Becky approaching and asking “Oh, are you finished?” as she watched Gigi using her phone (Becky thought Gigi was “off task” and “playing” as she walked by, not realizing how the phone was intra-acting and being used in thinking-with). What did this question from Becky produce for Gigi? For Becky, it produced a feeling that she had accused Gigi of being done with creating when she really was still thinking-with-iPhone-and-other materials. It seemed for Gigi that there were “not even properties but only relations” (Deleuze, as cited in Smith, 2012, p. 267) in the sense that she used whatever was provided by us ([art] materials, discarded books) and also sought other materials (her iPhone, a virtual community on Instagram) to intra-act with her thinking. It was a surprise to us how Gigi thought of the us-ing beyond our classroom into the virtual. However, this also helped us to see how proximity in a physical space isn’t necessary for intra-actions to happen. Barad’s theory, drawing on quantum physics, articulates that the pieces of a whole entanglement a/effect one another even if they are separated physically. This moment, this creating-with, helped us to see that there were many more “pieces” a part of this entanglement than what we could see in the physical classroom. For example, from Becky’s original perspective, the iPhone was a distraction to Gigi; to Gigi the phone (and all the functions it is capable of doing) was an integral piece of the whole—the entanglement—of her thinking-with. This is an example of the process of relations forming. The phone is relational-with; it is made known (i.e., what it is doing, producing) in its relations with others (in our classroom and beyond), a relational ontology of be(com)ing with theory, peers, a virtual community, and . . . and . . . and . . . New relational territories are being formed. As instructors, we have to be open to the possibilities of relationships; relata-within-relations that we can’t predict.

During this night in class, after students had time to create with materials and theories, we invited them to participate in a “museum walk” of artifacts so they could touch, play-with, read, and experience the material artifacts their peers created. After this experience, students talked in small groups about their processes, feelings, intentions, uncertainties, and experiences of working with the materials and theories. Finally, we asked students to write to share with us about their experiences creating (even though we acknowledge their writing wasn’t the representation of the experiences in class; writing is one mode of communication). Below is Gigi’s written response (emphasis in original):

My creation exists of and outside itself. It and I have made each other felt and allowed to be transformed by welcoming a transcendent moment. Through our intra-action which did create new meaning, two more communities of humans [peers in class and online, Instagram community] were able to share in the (re)construction of the theory of posthuman performativity. My piece messes/disrupts spacetimemattering. ¹⁸ It loops continually, but only when it is chosen to be viewed online.

This piece could have been pushed further if an image of the matter of the thing could have been projected upon itself, then videoed with its dual existence. Also, I entangled the writing of Plato with the way I understood Barad. Creating meaning with materials is what I do and who I am. Theory, thinking, experience, texts, voices, etc. are also materials that “matter” (post-humanist pun).

As Gigi’s writing indicates, her creation (the artifact) exists, yet the paper sculpture and Gigi have made each other felt. They have come into being together; the relationship did not preexist each other. The materials, ideas (from this course, previous experiences, readings of Plato and Barad, and discourses on inquiry), and Gigi intra-acted with each other producing newness; newness of ideas and newness of a/effect. The artifact wasn’t finished to Gigi—it is always be(com)ing through an online venue. The final product was not the “product” (the paper sculpture), but rather an entanglement of Gigi’s continual thinking, flowing in/out of liminal, spiritual, and virtual spaces—as she shared later in the focus group—and new relations produced with other bodies unbeknownst at the time. This is us-ing. This is a relational ontology of lively (re)configurings (of understandings of theories) through us-ing.

Interlude: Relational Inten(t/s)ions

We also acknowledge that voice has been privileged in QI for too long as a pure representation of a subject’s experience of the world (Jackson & Mazzei, 2008). St. Pierre (2011) writes that the “words we collect in interviews and observation—data—are always already products of theory” (p. 621). Absolutely, we agree. However, we are not advocates for completely getting rid of interviews and/or focus groups with the communities we are researching. Again, posthumanism isn’t about getting rid of the human, but (re)thinking the relationships of humans to other bodies. For us, posthumanism is about (re)thinking what it means to be human in a relational ontology.

The focus group interview, for us, is one data source, if you will. However, we also bring our feelings, memories, analysis sessions (often by thinking-with data and physical materials), artifacts made by students, assignments, textbooks, and so forth into our analysis. For us, creating a binary of interviews vs. not interviews works against the spirit of posthumanism which seeks to resist binaries. It isn’t so much about a human voice in an interview, but how one chooses to view the voice in relation to the whole or the other bodies (both material and discursive). Voice is one aspect of knowing/be(com)ing/doing, but we don’t choose to privilege it as the vehicle of Truth or knowledge. We also don’t believe voice is a pure representation of a subject’s experience, as if they are able to stand outside of the object(s) they are discussing (this creates a Cartesian divide). For us, focus group interviews were space(s) to continue thinking together with students, materials, ideologies, and so forth (Barad’s notion of material-discursive), not an attempt to have students answer our questions in a search for Truth. While some posthumanist scholars might intentionally choose not to interview humans and instead use other sources of data production, for us, humans are very much a part of doctoral research courses. As stated before, as instructors of QI, it is a matter of ethics for us to consider how we (humans) entangle with other bodies (materials such as assignments, classroom spaces, textbooks, and so forth and discursive bodies such as politics of inquiry, neoliberalism, and so forth) in QI courses. Therefore, we chose to have conversations with students but did so with relational ontological assumptions at work regarding how knowing/be(com)ing/doing are inextricably linked together with humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans.

An Us-ing: Candace-Becky-Assignment-Gigi-Barad-Csíkszentmihályi-Plato-Paper-iPhone-Tape-Instructors-Space-Time-Peers-Manuscript-And-And-And

Watch video.

Type words into Google docs. Edit.

Read. Create. Write. Discuss.

Us-ing.

Watch more.

Type. Edit.

Read. Create. Write. Discuss.

Us-ing.

Smith (2012) discusses Deleuze’s writing of (vital) concepts and states that concepts “create their corresponding object, since the object does not preexist the formation of the concept” (p. 128). Therefore, us-ing creates the corresponding object (us), because the us-ing of the class and pedagogy does not preexist the formation of the concept us-ing. Just as “‘[m]atter’ does not refer to an inherent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects” (Barad, 2007, p. 151), neither does us-ing. Us-ing is not an object waiting outside of us to examine. We aren’t trying to define us-ing to create a stable idea (or to develop a theory of us-ing); rather, us-ing is always becoming. We, Candace and Becky, are not the us-ing, but we are part of the us-ing—actually many us-ings—with/in the entanglement of the QI course (both what we could see and feel and materials-discourses we weren’t even aware of—but that were always already a part of the class [be]coming to be).

And just as “‘matter’ refers to phenomena in their ongoing materialization” (Barad, 2007, p. 151, emphasis in original), so does us-ing. We aren’t just trying to go back and look at us-ing that happened in the past (in our class, for example); but us-ing is still happening, becoming, creating us (Candace, Becky, students, materials, and . . . and . . . and . . .) even after the course is over—as part of the continual (re)configuring of the world in lively packets of relations. For example, two years after the semester was over, we participated in another set of focus groups with students. They shared how experiences in this course created new ways of thinking about being/doing inquiry which they were not able to let go of in future classes and/or research experiences. New relational territories were created from the entanglements from our course. In a similar fashion, as we plan instruction for new courses we teach, we often think through experiences and memories from this particular introductory QI course. The relationships of us-ing are continuing to produce new relationships and ways of knowing/be(com)ing/doing QI instruction. And hence, us-ing isn’t about a “collaboration” during the course, but rather ongoing relational ontologies be(com)ing produced in a past/present/future spacetimemattering. ¹⁹

Because we come to know of the world from our be(com)ing and doing in the world (Barad, 2007), us-ing and its lively packets of relations cannot be separated from the knowing/be(com)ing/doing of Candace-Becky-Assignment that conceptualized a night of class to create, nor can it be separated from Gigi-Barad-Csíkszentmihályi-Plato-Paper-iPhone-Tape-Instructors-Space-Time-Peers that created that night in class and “appeared” in our data, nor can it be separated from the Manuscript-and-and-and . . . that produced this piece you are reading. Us-ing does not exist without knowing/be(com)ing/doing, and likewise, knowing/be(com)ing/doing does not exist without us-ing. ²⁰

Interlude: Relational Inten(t/s)ions

Above, and here again, we acknowledge the humanist orientation of most pedagogies; one cannot discuss pedagogy in conventional circles without the human, nor can you deny that human beings wrote this article. We also acknowledge there is a lot of “human” written into the us-ings we discuss throughout the article. As stated before, we don’t see us-ing equal to the concept of collaboration nor even the idea of arts-based pedagogies. Us-ing helps us to (hopefully better) live-out posthumanist concepts and a theory of relational ontology in our pedagogies, meaning, us-ing is a philosophical (re)orientation to how we see the world coming to be which we see as different from the concept of collaboration or arts-based approaches to teaching. Us-ings are not human-specific, nor are they human-centric: “Intra-actions are not the result of human interventions; rather, ‘humans’ themselves emerge through specific intra-actions” (Barad, 2007, p. 352). Humans, nonhumans, and more-than-humans are all part of the us-ing:

Human practices are not the only practices that come to matter, but neither is the world (at least as it currently exists) independent of human practices . . . [H]umans are part of the configuration or ongoing reconfiguring of the world—that is, they/we too are phenomena. In other words, humans (like other parts of nature) are of the world, not in the world, and surely not outside of it looking in. Humans are intra-actively (re)constituted as part of the world’s becoming. Which is not to say that humans are the mere effect, but neither are they/we the sole cause, of the world’s becoming. (Barad, 2007, p. 206, emphasis in original)

We humans are a part of lively packets of relations . . .