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Éducation et didactique

15-1 | 2021
Varia

Antidualisms in maker literacies research: process,


materialities, mappings
Pour un antidualisme de recherche sur le mouvement bricoleur en sciences de
l’éducation : processus, matérialités et cartographies

Amélie Lemieux

Electronic version
URL: https://journals.openedition.org/educationdidactique/7996
DOI: 10.4000/educationdidactique.7996
ISSN: 2111-4838

Publisher
Presses universitaires de Rennes

Printed version
Date of publication: 28 April 2021
Number of pages: 9-21
ISBN: 978-2-7535-8283-5
ISSN: 1956-3485

Electronic reference
Amélie Lemieux, “Antidualisms in maker literacies research: process, materialities, mappings”,
Éducation et didactique [Online], 15-1 | 2021, Online since 01 January 2023, connection on 02 January
2023. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/educationdidactique/7996 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/
educationdidactique.7996

All rights reserved


ANTIDUALISMS IN MAKER LITERACIES RESEARCH:
PROCESS, MATERIALITIES, MAPPINGS

Amélie Lemieux
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Mount Saint Vincent University.
Identifiant ORCID : 0000-0002-0701-4638

This article returns to the centrality of craft-making as a push to consider ontological antidualisms and further
considerations for materials, humans, nonhuman, and more-than-human bodies. The research seeks answers to the
question: (where) is theory enacted when human actors craft? Part of the answer to this question resides, as exemplified
in this paper, in recent methodological innovations that emphasise affective snapshots of mattering through cartography.
Building on a one-year study with seasoned teachers taking a graduate studies course on maker literacies in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, the author presents alternative methodologies for inquiry in maker research, speaking to relational
mattering. Insights into antidualisms, and breaking with binary thinking, are explored throughout this inquiry.

Keywords: literacy, teacher, teacher training, makerspace, posthumanism.

Pour un antidualisme de recherche sur le mouvement bricoleur en sciences de l’éducation :


processus, matérialités et cartographies
Le présent article porte sur le rôle de la fabrication matérielle, immanente au mouvement bricoleur, comme tremplin à
des questions d’ordre ontologique. Ces dernières mettent en lumière la notion d’antidualisme pour envisager les fonctions
des matériaux, des humains, des non-humains, et des corps plus qu’humains. Pour ce faire, nous réfléchissons à l’enjeu
suivant : (où) la théorie se concrétise-t-elle lorsque les acteurs humains s’adonnent à la fabrication matérielle ? Cette
étude s’appuie sur des données recueillies auprès d’enseignants inscrits à un cours sur le mouvement bricoleur du deuxième
cycle en littératie à Halifax en Nouvelle-Écosse, et propose des pistes de méthodologies innovantes qui mettent en lumière
des moments matério-discursifs grâce à des cartographies affectives. Une approche méthodologique novatrice axée sur la
relationalité im/matérielle y est proposée en vue d’effectuer de futures recherches sur le mouvement bricoleur. Cette étude
offre un aperçu d’une méthodologie antidualiste dissidente de la pensée binaire en sciences de l’éducation.

Mot-clés : littératie, enseignant, formation des enseignants, atelier de cocréation, posthumanisme.

This research is funded by a New Scholar’s Grant from Mount Saint Vincent University /
L’auteure a reçu une subvention Nouveaux Chercheurs de l’Université Mount Saint Vincent pour ce projet.

Éducation & Didactique, 2021, vol. 15, no 1, p. 9-21 9


ANTIDUALISMS IN MAKER LITERACIES RESEARCH: PROCESS, MATERIALITIES, MAPPINGS

Amélie Lemieux

INTRODUCTION: WORKING TOWARDS Drawing on postqualitative ways of knowing


ANTIDUALISMS IN MAKER LITERACIES through making, this article provides pathways to
understand antidualisms, which can be concep-
This article builds on theoretical and empirical tualised as the conscious disruption of traditional
positions to explore alternative methodologies for binaries in maker literacies. To do so, I explore the
maker education research and design. It investi- following question: What happens when teachers, as
gates the progressive dimensions of self in relation adult learners, share relational transactions with mate-
to making and the world, with specific attention rials (i.e., sense-laden socio-material reciprocity) in
to an expanded and pluriversal notion of engage- maker literacies research? Drawing on postqualitative
ment in education research (Lemieux, 2020). Maker feminist scholarship (Dernikos et al., 2019; Lather,
education is best defined as an educational move- 2016; MacLure, 2013; Ringrose et al., 2019; St. Pierre
ment, historically based on constructivism, nurtu- et al., 2016) and makerspace research geared towards
ring learners’ creativity and innovation through affect theory (Rowsell, 2020; Rowsell & Shillitoe,
hands-on, DIY inquiry-based projects using tech- 2019), this article contributes to overarching conver-
nology, craft, or both (Peppler et al., 2016). With sations by providing research insights that work
the many research developments this movement against dualisms in maker literacies research.
has generated, paired with the exponentially rapid
technological rise of Silicon Valley innovations
and maker-oriented curricula worldwide, studies WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT MAKER
have also been concerned with both complexities LITERACIES RESEARCH FOR TEACHERS?
and affordances inherent to maker education. Such
complexities involve researching maker education Located in educational spaces such as school
and its closely related cousin, Science, Technology, libraries and classrooms, makerspaces are commu-
Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM), from nities of practice that focus on the development of
inclusive, equitable and diverse perspectives in youth’s maker literacies (Marsh et al., 2017; Rowsell
maker education (Ireland et al., 2018; Joseph, 2020; et al., 2018; Wohlwend et al., 2017) through craft-,
King, 2017; King & Pringle, 2018; Sengupta et al., technology, or hybrid inquiry-based learning. A
2019; Sengupta-Irving & Vossoughi, 2019; Thomas, large part of antidualist work resides in exploring
Howard, & Shaffer, 2019; Vossoughi & Vakil, 2018). what is already known in maker literacies research
Complexities also involve looking at maker activities, for teachers to see how findings might or might not
such as digital composition and craft-oriented maker travel across sites, and explore their ever-changing
compositions, from relational perspectives using pluridiversity. To foster maker literacies develop-
posthuman inquiry and affect-laden theories (e.g., ment, studies have found how design, inclusion,
Ehret et al., 2016; Keune & Peppler, 2019; Lemieux and civics were important features of engagement.
& Rowsell, 2020a, 2020b; Marsh, 2017; McLean & In applied maker research centred on the constructi-
Rowsell, 2020; Pahl & Rowsell, 2020;Peppler et al., vist concepts of effectiveness and productivity, Bower
2020; Rowsell, 2020; Rowsell & Shillitoe, 2019; et al. (2018) used reflections, focus groups, lesson
Sheridan et al., 2020; Thiel & Dernikos, 2020). Much observations, video screen recordings, reflective jour-
of this work involves disrupting, dismantling, and nals, and post-questionnaires to report on Australian
deconstructing binary frameworks (e.g., “engaged” primary teachers’ experiences with 3D design and
vs. “disengaged” learners, “productivity” vs. “passi- printing. The authors found that makerspace peda-
vity,” “motivated” vs. “unmotivated” students), and gogy facilitated higher levels of learners’ engagement
sheds light on larger considerations for dimensional due to design-oriented learning. In a study presen-
multiplicity in maker education. This article looks at ting teacher candidates’ maker research projects
how postqualitative inquiry facilitates that dialogue from Finland, Norway, and the UK, Marsh, Arnseth,
by working towards antidualisms in maker literacies and Kumpulainen (2018) found that makerspaces
research drawing on a study where 20 teachers enrol- in early childhood settings (e.g., nurseries and pre-
led in a graduate literacy course were called to “think primary classes) created positive environments in
with” (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) materials and mate- which teachers could develop civic engagement
riality in maker education. and inclusive pedagogy. The two teachers from the

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Amélie Lemieux

pre-primary Finland case study stated that teaching ning is needed for pre-service and in-service teachers
maker literacies in their class was emancipatory for because, from a constructivist perspective, they often
their students. After reading Finnish literature on lack the confidence, ability, and knowledge to engage
beliefs around nature, students in the class created with technology-oriented activities (Blackley et al.,
their own “spirits of the forest” and composed digi- 2017; Cohen et al., 2018; Kjällander et al., 2018;
tal stories about them. The project not only made Otterborn et al., 2019). Testing design in inquiry-
students feel that their voices were heard (e.g., based STEAM learning and promoting research-
they chose what they designed and how) but it also based inquiry for teacher knowledge development
heightened their appreciation for, and awareness are examples that foster educators’ STEAM content
of, nature. The students then designed an exhibit of knowledge (Vossen et al., 2019). Though makers-
their collective art, which was displayed in a public paces are increasingly popular in P-12 and postse-
library. The authors developed the human-oriented condary schools, there appears to be little formal
concept of agency (individual and collective) in training for teachers who want to explore these spaces
students, highlighting that maker activities “trans- (Rodriguez et al., 2018). I address some of challenges
formed the status of the children from a typical posi- through a maker research project with experienced
tion as a consumer of literature and library services teachers in a graduate course, ultimately leading to
into active agents and makers who contributed to the the theoretical considerations outlined in this article.
life of the library and its offerings to the community” The study contributes to the growing body of maker-
(Marsh et al., 2018, p. 11). Such observations have, place research and provide tangible evidence showing
in turn, expanded the focus on the agential roles of how making is a rhizomatic, open-ended, and
children in applied making and specifically makers- process-focused activity. Participant map-making is
paces across research sites. proposed to focus on maker process, allowing makers
Makerspace activities prompted maker citizen- to see that committing errors should be normalised in
ship practices because students developed an unders- maker education to alleviate maker-related anxieties.
tanding of one or more of the three key areas of Map-making helped makers visualise and value their
citizenship: rights, belonging, and participation. The making process, highlighting the realisation that they,
latter considerations are central to maker pedagogies along with their students, are likely to experience
in higher education, for they emphasise civic engage- early frustrations when engaging in new uncharted
ment and basic awareness of “what is,” i.e., the matte- territory. Frustration is a normal part of the making
ring—or recognition of significance—that unfolds, process, though one that is frequently devalued and
in what circumstances, and for what purpose. In punished in schooling systems. Normalising the
tune with discovering “what is” and “what might anxieties inherent to maker activities might help
be” (Ringrose & Coleman, 2013, p. 125), the drive teachers be more prepared to design their own maker
towards affective practices in maker education and events in their classrooms, and bring learners to
postqualitative inquiry is a viable way of conside- conceptualise both anxieties and mistakes as normal
ring antidualisms through the knowledge of how parts of the process rather than indicators of failure.
materials influence educational research in maker One way of attending to the normalisation of failure
contexts, while still considering (and not erasing) involves critical attention to materialities and design,
the concept of human identities—a crucial dimen- as outlined in the next section.
sion to understanding the human intersectionali-
ties at play—that drive making. To acknowledge
the many “what might be’s” in maker education is TOWARDS ANTIDUALISMS IN MAKER
to acknowledge the pluridiverse complexities of EDUCATION FOR TEACHERS: CRITICAL
teacher-makers, realities that bring about multiple ACCOUNTS OF MATERIALITIES AND DESIGN
novelties through teaching or making.
Recent scholarship has outlined the need to Rooted in posthumanism and agential realism
pursue research on maker education in higher educa- (Barad, 2007; Braidotti, 2013), recent maker lite-
tion, especially in teacher education programmes racies scholarship has shown how materials play
internationally (Cohen, 2017; Karppinen, et al., 2019; a relational, distributed agency between humans,
Marshall & Harron, 2018; Ryu et al., 2019). More trai- nonhumans, and more-than-humans (i.e., humanoid,

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Amélie Lemieux

cyborg, or human-augmented technology)—highli- can be applied to making, a process where makers—


ghting how makerspace projects, whether conduc- whether adolescent or adult—become part of these
ted with children or teachers, are always permeated synergies to produce societal change, especially when
with unpredictability that form dynamic becomings1 partaking in maker design (Ingold, 2013). These
and relationalities in maker research (Lemieux, 2021; synergies result from a call to action towards making.
Lemieux & Rowsell, 2020a, 2020b, 2021; Peppler & If design exists in the mind of the creator (Ingold,
Keune, 2019; Sheridan et al., 2020). Maker literacies 2013), then following the same logic, makers are
research has shown how anchoring affect theory can de facto designers answering a call to materialise ideas
be. In studies investigating the stances of adolescents and affects into the world. To be a maker is to be
who created self-portraits, affect theory played an a designer, regardless of whether the title is granted
important role in shifting perspectives, moving across to or associated with the human who makes. These
modalities and dynamically responding to multimo- situated affects, unfolding through time, are “minia-
dal design (Rowsell, 2020). As Rowsell and Shillitoe ture universe[s]”, to use Hickey-Moody’s (2016)
(2019) have argued, making always involves design: term, that drive making as an activity. These making
to consider design in maker processes inherently activities extend beyond the realm of the linguistic,
involves design as an affective quality fo materiality the analytical, and the cartesian.
considerations that provide an expansive, non-dualis- While it can be argued that “language has been
tic view of maker research. Postqualitative inquiries in granted too much power” (Barad, 2018, p. 223),
maker education often lead to interrogative and inqui- and representationality can be problematic for many
sitive becomings in the form of questions like “can reasons in postqualitative research (MacLure, 2013),
materials choose humans to channel their existence?” the tensions between these theoretical inclinations
(Lemieux & Rowsell, 2020a, p. 7). These types of are meant to be constantly tangled and untangled,
considerations fuel the centrality of affect and disrupt territorial and deterritorialized, modelled and remo-
traditional and binary conceptions of learning. delled. For example, craft is a catalyst for modali-
Maker literacies are messy and sticky (Rowsell ties of personhood, and the concept of personhood
et al., 2018), and findings highlighting youth’s crea- is constructed through different affects mobilised
tivity in maker education focus on craftivism with an through time, space, and place. Making involves a
active recognition and awareness of bodies and affec- series of mobilised ephemeral actions, and ever-chan-
tive intensities (Rowsell & Shillitoe, 2019)—that is, ging moments (Burnett & Merchant, 2020). These
the non-representational responsiveness and affecti- create fragile tensions. That is, gestures shift litera-
vely-charged ontological processes of becoming-with. cies through people’s movements, and these actions
Specifically, Rowsell and Shillitoe (2019) push us to are either intentional or unintentional. Classrooms,
think about making as an activity that “calls to varying like the one where my graduate students engaged
degrees on affective states that surface as stories come in making and those where they teach, are layered
to be with people and materials” (p. 15), a disposi- environments where more-than-human and human
tion that prioritises process over product, and allows forces clash daily. The disposition of fixed materials
for necessary tensions that materialise in “productive (e.g., restricted windows, wooden brown doors with
puzzles” (Dutro, 2019, p. 76). Affective tensions can commercial handles, projectors, white boards) and
occasionally be untangled through language, though movable objects (melamine desks, plastic chairs,
not always. For example, some affective states can pencils, notepads, and so on) creates entanglements
hardly be described by humans, while the expres- where these materials collide with humans. In these
sion of such states might flow easily for some and not socio-material assemblages (Burnett & Merchant,
others, depending on situational circumstances. 2020), literacies are situated and shaped by humans,
Posthuman inquiry can privilege relational aesthe- nonhumans, and more-than-humans, ever-chan-
tics as long as there is central attention to matter, ging dynamisms in posthumanism (Braidotti, 2013).
at least in the arts and arts-informed education. To They are not simple, individualised performances
this end, Anna Hickey-Moody (2016) explains how that are assessed through standardised testing. In
artworks “hold power” as well as “affective potential” this sense, maker literacies are not only situational,
(p. 264), and situates how art provokes synergies of but always dependent on, and a result from, plural
change through affective encounters. These notions authorship, in which meaning is always deconstruc-

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Amélie Lemieux

ted, dismantled, rearranged, and territorial (Deleuze French), this unfolding assemblage matters because
& Guattari, 1980) in contextualised (meta)physical the entanglements between voice-text-researcher-
learning flows. The theories and interpretations arti- reading-writing-thinking is mediated by two texts
culated here not only build on those entanglements, instead of one, thus diffracting matter and territo-
but also expand on previous scholarship on material rialising it at the same time. In other words, I adopt
culture and teachers’ abilities to “make” in pedagogi- a diffracted view of these concepts, paired with a
cal settings, which provided insights into their incli- PhEmaterialist outlook that Ringrose, Warfield and
nations towards materials (White & Lemieux, 2015). Zarabadi (2019) offer, to get at the nuanced intra-
Research avenues taken in this article are actions of in-service teachers making projects that
influenced by posthumanism, drawing on the body matter to them and their students. Mattering is
of research explored here. Of importance is a focus concerned with phenomena that acquire meaning
on risk-taking in research (antimethodologies) and materialise through agential possibilities that
and on ways of disseminating research otherwise. are ever-changing, unpredictable, yet dynamically
Such risk-taking, an academic restitution for ideas, networked (Barad, 2007). These complexities shed
implies embracing modes that seek to disrupt tradi- light on the nature of antidualisms; where knowing
tional empirical structures (e.g., introduction, litera- involves being, at times and sporadically, conscious
ture review, methods, results, conclusion), to instead of mattering, and whereby mattering is an infinite,
radically privilege data deconstruction and recons- unfolding process of materialisation of phenomena.
truction, as well as inductive ways of being with An antidualist approach acknowledges this positio-
the data (Kuby, Spector & Thiel, 2018). This work nality in entering reading and writing as scholarship
nurtures the concept of antidualisms in maker educa- activities; to revisit texts and their translations is to
tion research, which I define as the social justice radi- recognise (re-cognise, or to continuously engage in
calness inherent to making for making’s sake, and knowing) pluriperspectives in literacies research.
researching with the aims of rendering this process Because qualitative research has academically
alive beyond the traditional literacy frameworks. conditioned researchers to produce sense-making,
Posthuman feminist consciousness and work fore- I engaged in silencing the impulse to define and
grounding PhEMaterialisms (Ringrose et al., 2019) are explain data with such wording as ’the data makes
useful here. A PhEMaterialist perspective is concerned sense.’ As part of my praxis for writing this text, I
with dissolving binary logic, attending to what data replaced many seemingly representational words
produce, considering the politics of ethics, as well (e.g., capture, track, interpret) with more flexible,
as critically looking at positionalities within educa- open-ended ones that reflect mattering. I watched
tion research (Ringrose & Niccolini, 2019). This things unfold as I wrote the article. This helped me
approach is particularly useful in antidualist research, shift my thinking of theory as I decentred myself
for it generates ways of reconceptualising notions, like when conceptualising how to convey research with
maker education activities (and the affects these acti- these considerations in mind. Part of this process is
vities provoke and generate), as becomings. accounting for an “entanglement, a knot of forces and
Working with materials in maker education, I intensities that operate on a plane of immanence…
co-researched how materials exerted a relational an enactment among researcher-data-participants-
autonomy between humans, nonhumans, and more- theory-analysis” (Mazzei, 2013, p. 736). Decentring
than-humans, and simultaneously operated as entan- the reflexive and assumed human-centric “eye/I”
gled matter (Lemieux & Rowsell, 2020a, 2020b, was also instrumental in that process (Lenz Taguchi,
2021; Sheridan et al., 2020). In so doing, I had to 2013; Ringrose & Zarabadi, 2018) as it required
revisit both Deleuze and Guattari’s (1980) Mille staying entangled and close to that which is imbued
Plateaux and Massumi’s subsequent translation2, not with meaning, to that which matters. Foregrounding
only as a comparative reading act, but as a clarifying that perception is a very human condition that needs
one. While I can dissociate the languages and the to be constantly decentred or dampened, and one
authors’ voices in each language (that is, when way to write with ontological responsibility includes
reading the translated English version, I am engaging providing data multiplicity. Viewing transcripts ↔
with Massumi’s (1987) interpretation and rendition of researcher ↔ discussion ↔ data ↔ participants as
Deleuze and Guattari and not the “original voices” in forces colliding (Mazzei, 2013), the driving ethos

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Amélie Lemieux

for this inquiry was embracing the unpredictable postqualitative assemblage focuses on rethinking
in research while attempting to both comfort and methodologies to present maker processes and the
disrupt the unknown. Looking and pausing with in-betweens of what happens when teachers make, in
data, taking breaks from theory, walking around my ways that question structural thought, logical predic-
neighbourhood to think with ideas—such actions tion, and determinism.
push researchers to be vulnerable in posthuman
inquiry. Documenting this process through pictures
(Figure 1) is an attempt to portray the atmosphere THINKING WITH THEORY AND GEARING
inherent to a process of thinking with theory and TOWARDS A NON-METHOD IN MAKER
which is often hidden or effaced by the editorial RESEARCH
process of writing and analysing data.
After taking this photo, I took a walk in the rain Antimethodologies align with research that articu-
towards Spring Garden Road in Halifax, Nova Scotia. lates the disruption of traditional qualitative metho-
Six days passed between the moment I took this dologies centred on the human cogito and subject/
picture and the time I wrote this paragraph. Fifteen object binaries (St. Pierre, 2016). Working towards
more days passed before I reworked the sentences. antidualisms implies resisting traditional humanis-
tic methodologies that “strangle” us, St. Pierre main-
tains, by radically acknowledging how qualitative
Figure 1. Writing and thinking with theory research, through its structural organisation, has not
given space to—or rather has dismissed—the value of
postqualitative inquiry. According to St. Pierre, philo-
sophical considerations should precede any type of
postqualitative inquiry, for to omit this is to “reduce
inquiry to conventional empirical scientific method
that is saturated through and through with the huma-
nist subject and, in large part, with logical empiricism,
which denies the speculative, exactly what these new
turns ask us to engage” (p. 28). These “new” turns call
postqualitative researchers to engage with the specu-
lative, as is exemplified here with maker research.
Embracing antidualisms does not disqualify nor
reject the integration of key research aspects (e.g.,
location, situatedness, initial map-making, demo-
graphics, and ethnographic-laden information). To
This brief acknowledgement of process and time, long provide more context, this research project took
embraced by reflexivity in methods, is suspended place in fall 2018 in a graduate literacy course that I
in spaces, places, and materials. Moving away from taught at Mount Saint Vincent University, in Canada.
interpreting interview transcripts as data and working Half of the 20 students were primary in-service
towards what agential realism (Barad, 2007) affords, teachers, and the other half ranged from learning
the following sections find ways to account for affec- centre specialists to secondary school teachers and
tive rushes, surges, and fluctuating waves through international students pursuing a graduate degree
more-than-representations through the materia- in literacy education. Their coursework comprised
lity of paper or the word processing software. In so of readings on maker literacies, and the research
doing, photographs are intertwined with conver- portion of the course spanned over five weeks. In
sation excerpts and snapshots of a MakerMap, as groups of two to three, they were asked to design an
ways to bend the stillness of publication and extend Activity Development Plan, produce a maker project,
thinking with research methods. While the map- and share their work with their peers at the end of
making3 process followed a tighter framework in the the course. The objective was for each teacher to
mapping continuum developed with literacy collea- leave the class with a maker toolkit and examples
gues elsewhere (Lemieux et al., 2020), the following of activities and lesson plans to explore with their

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Amélie Lemieux

own students. Teachers had the liberty to engage in small “eclosions”—that is, moments where making
material, digital, or hybrid making. Material making “bloomed” in the makerspace. It was important to
is defined as the process of crafting with found, record stills of the research project in order to convey
recycled, or store-bought materials, while digital process and to capture atmospheres en devenir. The
making can only be produced through software ↔ purpose of proceeding this way echoes Ingold and
hardware play. I refer to hybrid making as the playful Hallam’s (2014) rationale for making things, which
back and forth entanglements between the tangible “often feels like telling stories, and as with all stories,
(material) and the intangible (digital). though you may pick up the thread and eventually
The making process included drawing a map cast it off, the thread itself has no discernible begin-
based on a previously researched mapping metho- ning or end” (p. 13). This open disposition further
dology seeking to record moment-by-moment reac- speaks to concrete pedagogical and research applica-
tions to a phenomenon (Lemieux, 2020; 2021), this tions of the intersections between literacies and the
one being making. These maps are geared towards arts (Barton, 2018; Barton et al., 2018; Chabanne,
non-descriptive phenomenology (Valentine et al., 2018; Richard & Lacelle, 2020; Rowsell, 2018).
2018) with an emphasis on participants’ processes The exploration of processes shown through the
of making to convey matter related to their feelings, multiplicity of data below (Lenz Taguchi, 2013) is
ideas, and reflections towards making as a pedago- meant to be read as a non-linear story informed by
gical activity. Vagle (2018) explains that pheno- relational entanglements. As such, the transcript
menology and post-structural inquiry are closer to excerpts come from two of the teachers pictured
each other than they appear, and these maps build below, and the map was produced by a third teacher.
on post-intentional phenomenology momentum This is a deliberate attempt to engage in mattering
through reported states of making. Therefore, these rather than sense-making, and conveying the entan-
maps are simulations of the post-intentional pheno- glements between teachers ↔ pictures ↔ maps ↔
menological experiences that they represent to exem- craft ↔ researcher ↔ readership. Thinking with
plify presence and absence of felt experiences as these entanglements in the larger assemblage, what
recorded by the students in this group. While there comes next is not meant to identify who-said-what
can be clashes between postqualitative inquiry and nor who-did-what (this would defeat the purpose),
phenomenology, there is much value in considering but rather to inter-act and intra-act with how making
how postqualitative frameworks have inherited the came to be in that classroom. The figure captions are
ghosts of humanism (Dernikos et al., 2019) and it is excerpts from interviews conducted with the teachers
our responsibility to account for these tensions. who participated in this specific maker activity.

THINKING WHILE/AS MAKING Figure 2.

Drawing on the glowing-ness salient instead of


data moments (MacLure, 2013; Ringrose & Renold,
2014), that is, what affectively radiates and emanates
from data, and recognising that there is indeed a flui-
dity in determining the researcher’s affect from that
of the classroom’s, what ensues in the next section
is an engagement with the entanglements between
data ↔ participants ↔ researchers ↔ transcripts ↔
writing. One way of converying this work towards
antidualisms was to weave in transcript excerpts as
captions for the pictures of teachers making (shown “Just like offering more choice in how you assess them
below) and the captions for one of their maps. Thus, and maybe, you know, doing the interview instead of
shape and form are seen as expressions of craft doing like paper and pencil or getting them to build or
gestures (Ingold & Hallam, 2014), and the colla- make or other ways to show what they’ve been learning.”
borative movements below (Figures 2-6) exemplify

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Amélie Lemieux

ends. The multiplicity of examples shown above


Figure 3. reveal maker processes through the entanglements
of photographs, mapping, and transcribed conversa-
tions. Rather than pointing to what this weaving of
data tells, this article highlights relational snapshots
of what happens in the making process (Lemieux,
2021; Lemieux & Rowsell, 2020a, 2020b, 2021). One
of the takeaways—seen throughout the project and
across groups—is teachers’ ruminations on what it
feels like to make, with spurs of puzzlement, satis-
faction, reworking, time consumption, excitement,
enjoyment, and anxiety. These entanglements guide
humans to take the pulse of what happens in maker
literacies research and, more importantly, what they
“Like I personally always like building stuff with my produce. Similarly to Bower et al. (2018), this project
hands but it’s not something that I do very often because I draws on the importance of providing teachers with
don’t have necessarily like a job that has a lot of opportunities to do hands-on making, and enough
hands-on and creative parts and even at home, I think it’s time to speculatively experiment and be uncomfor-
’cause like I have kids and it’s busy, like I don’t create. So table with making, especially with thoughtful consi-
then when I do get opportunities to create I find myself deration for maker processes and affectively-oriented
really enjoying them and thinking I should do this more.” awareness of what entanglements with materials
produce. These dispositions, necessarily, clash with
the stress-inducing time structure of the traditional
Figure 4. classroom and suggest how a focus on matter and
mattering help people alleviate maker-related anxie-
ties. Researchers need more ways to invite specu-
lative philosophies in education research. Such
postqualitative practices might shed light on the
intra-actions embedded in making while giving parti-
cipants an opportunity to think with theory. In turn,
research projects with teachers that focus on learning
and practice development highly benefit from being
conceptualised as complex and dynamic situations
“Usually just to kind of explore more like what you (Strom & Viesca, 2020). This article provides some
enjoyed or like you know what I mean, instead of just answers to this emerging gap in the field, following
going, oh, I enjoyed it kind of seeing the process and what the example of in-service teachers who were asked
parts, like it just helps you dig deeper into what you to engage with maker education theories and craft
really got out of the project I guess like for me. Like material, hybrid, and digital artefacts while attending
exploring like my feelings and my thoughts around to maker experiences through mapping.
certain things… So being able to look at my thoughts The experience of leaving the mattering of
throughout the process most of them are positive. But it’s data, thoughts, and processes from this study up to
getting that extra stuff with reflection I guess.” readers’ felt interpretations, and the intentional break
from traditional qualitative data representation, have
informed some alternative possibilities for dissemi-
nation. Fluid forms of sharing scholarship, such
RUMINATING WITH ENTANGLEMENTS as Dernikos, Ferguson and Siegel’s (2019) conver-
sations intertwined with iMessage icons or Kuby’s
Making, as an activity oriented towards crafting, (2018) propositions on font and layout play in
extends the finite realm (Ingold & Hallam, 2014) posthuman research, open up possibilities for post-
where threads and stories have no beginning nor qualitative research where theoretical tensions might

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ANTIDUALISMS IN MAKER LITERACIES RESEARCH: PROCESS, MATERIALITIES, MAPPINGS

Amélie Lemieux

Figure 5.

“When I think about my MakerMap I kind of think about, well my MakerMap was mostly emotional which I thought was
interesting in the end. But I think it, like there were parts of it that were uncomfortable but the whole time when I was experien-
cing that I was thinking about how this is what we ask kids to do every day. You know, we ask them to take risks in their
learning and do all these things that are uncomfortable for them and we sort of like push them when we don’t, sometimes we don’t
understand why it’s uncomfortable for them, I think, but then going through this, I’m like, oh, this is what it feels like. I guess it
kind of puts you in your student’s shoes in a way and it sort of gave me perspective on like how they would feel in the classroom.”

Figure 6.

“I think it’s just kind of looking more deeply at like what we think, or maybe more broadly at what we think literacy is. Like
that’s kind of been in the back of my mind, this throughout a couple of classes now but it’s just like thinking about it diffe-
rently and not so much like, oh, if you can read and write you’re a literate person, you know. Like thinking about it in terms
of, like all this stuff we’ve been talking about like gaming and like the way kids can navigate through things that we, like I
have no idea about, you know. Like that makes them so much, like they get so much from that that they might not get from
reading and writing. So if you’re only exposing them to one thing, it’s kind of a disservice to them, I think.”

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Amélie Lemieux

emerge but also reconcile. Makerspace research and Lemieux, 2017; Lemieux, 2020, 2021). The categories
projects on mapping would benefit from that flui- could be negociated and renamed, and were not super-
dity and space to think with theory (Jackson & vised by the researcher (no arbitration of reaction-cate-
Mazzei, 2012), for these dynamic forms of disse- gory evaluation was conducted), and the participants had
mination contribute to de-territorializing research full control of the process outcome. Each bubble contai-
frameworks. For example, a posthuman rende- ned a reaction, each category was colour-coded, and each
ring of the plural nature and purposes of makers- reaction was summarized in a bubble. The bubble size was
paces (libraries, museums, faculty discipline-focused determined by the participants’ attribution of the level of
makerspaces, school-based makerspaces) would be intensity towards each reaction.
a valuable area of investigation to further unders-
tand the implications of making for learning. Such
a perspective, then, does not seek to mark an onto- BIBLIOGRAPHY
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