Concepts in science education such as “science identity” and “science capital” are informed by dominant epistemological and ontological positions, which translate into assumptions about what counts as science and whose science counts. In this theoretical paper we draw on decolonial and antiracist perspectives to examine these assumptions in light of the heterogeneous onto-epistemological and axiological values, cultural perspectives, and contributions of nondominant groups, and specifically of those who have been historically marginalized based on their gender, race, ethnic, age, and/or social class identity. Building on these arguments, we critique deficit-based approaches to science teaching, learning, and research, including those that focus on systemic injustice, yet leave intact dominant framings of the scientific enterprise, which are exclusionary and meritocratic. As an alternative, we offer a design of science teaching and learning for the pluriverse—“a world where many worlds fit”. This alternative allows us to reconstruct science and science-related “outcomes,” such as identity, in the service of cultural, epistemic, and linguistic pluralism. We close the paper with the idea that because mainstream theories reproduce deficit framings and educational injustices, we must engage with decolonial1 theories of pluriversality and discuss different onto-epistemologies to be able to grapple with existing social, racial, environmental injustices, and land-based devastations.
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Rearticulating theory and methodology for perezhivanie and becoming: Tracing flat CHAT assemblages and embodied intensities
Taking up Lemke’s (2000) critical questions of how moments add up to lives and social life, we articulate theoretical and methodological frameworks for perezhivanie and becoming, challenging binaries that splinter entangled flows of perezhivanie into frozen categories. Working from a flat CHAT notion of assemblage to develop an ontology of moments, we stress consequentiality, arguing it emerges in intersections of embodied intensities (not only affective, but also indexical, intra-actional, and historic), the dispersed bio-cultural-historical weight of artifacts and practices, and dialogic resonances across moments. Methodologically, we take an ethico-onto-epistemological perspective to systematically study perezhivanie. The bio-ecological model of rich environments (centered around meaningful complexity, agency, and individual optimization) offers both a key framework for understanding becoming and a design framework for transdisciplinary realizations of ethico-onto-epistemological practice. We illustrate these frameworks with examples from four research projects: a university physics lab group doing and writing an experiment, a former pastor managing bipolar disorder and rejecting faith, a sustained social justice education program at a university, and intersections of aging policies, media representations, and stroke survival in Brazil. Finally, we argue that an ontology of moments centered on consequentiality can illuminate perezhivanie's relationship to becoming and that the model of enriched environments offers metrics to assess and design environments.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2013443
- PAR ID:
- 10570078
- Publisher / Repository:
- University of Copenhagen
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Outlines. Critical Practice Studies
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1399-5510
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 4 to 44
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- affect dialogic semiotics enriched environments ethico-onto-epistemology perezhivanie
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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