Posthumanism as research methodology: inquiry in the Anthropocene

Abstract

The posthuman turn has radically–and rapidly–shifted what is possible in research methodology. In response, my aim in this conceptual paper is to suggest entry points into posthuman educational research methodology. I outline aspects of posthumanism while recognizing its multiplicity: there are many posthumanisms and each offers different twists, turns, and ways of thinking about methodology. In unfolding the potentials thereof, I locate posthumanism within our current epoch, which some scholars have suggested be renamed the Anthropocene to account for the impact of humanity on the planet. Then, I describe how posthumanism situates, processes, and affirms knowledge in interconnected and material contexts. Next, I consider how non-representational research imagines and animates methodologies that think differently. I conclude by discussing a postdisciplinary future for more-than-critical inquiries. Significantly, this article addresses recent advancements in posthuman research and engages with ongoing theoretical, methodological, and ethical debates.

Keywords:

• Posthumanism
• critical qualitative inquiry
• ‘new’ materialisms

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the scholars in the post-qualitative community who have taken the time to share generous reading suggestions – one list at a time – and whose own imaginative works inspired this paper. Additional thanks are due to Justin Hendricks and Travis Marn for providing insightful feedback on the manuscript, as well as to the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and generative insights.

Notes

1. I adopt a more-than-human approach to posthumanism (as opposed to a strictly non-human or anti-human stance). In part, this is because I situate my thinking within the field of educational research – a field that often gravitates in some, way, shape, or form toward students. The critical humanism that inadvertently finds its way into this work thus illustrates the challenges of taking up posthuman research for, as Lather and St. Pierre (2013) observe, ‘We always bring tradition with us into the new’ (p. 630).

2. Although discussed here within the context of non-representational theory, or NRT, Lorimer (2005) prefers the term ‘more-than-representation.’ For Lorimer, the prefix ‘non’ creates closure, whereas ‘more-than’ better aligns with the openness that a move away from representation promotes.

3. These, however, are only but a few examples of non-representational research. As Vannini (2015b) observes, non-representational research also can involve creative genres of writing, multimedia, and performance.

4. Others might conceptualize thinking with, thinking without, and thinking differently as (more) discrete practices.

5. For an exemplar of how ‘thinking differently’ manifests across different aspects of, and approaches to, research, see Wyatt et al. (2014). In addition, Somerville (2016) recently has re-thought ‘data’ within posthuman contexts.