Explorations of posthumanist methodology for disability studies in education (DSE) research

Abstract

This paper takes up the struggles of doing of post-qualitative inquiry for inclusion and teacher education for inclusion. As collaborators who have taken different turns in the quest to understand posthumanist methodology, broadly speaking, we write with different voices. We take up two important themes—identity/ethics and becoming—to venture into conversations that might evoke new movements for disability studies in education (DSE) scholars. One of us takes up the questions of concern raised by the other to engage in various experimental forms of writing. We follow that with an exploration of posthumanist mattering to DSE researchers.

Keywords:

• Disability studies
• inclusion
• posthumanist methodology
• post-qualitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. We follow Ulmer in using “posthumanism” to refer loosely “to related bodies of work including new materialism, material feminisms, and critical materialism that share an interest in breathing vibrancy into matter and in avoiding an anthropocentric focus” (Ulmer, 2017)

2. We follow researchers as Manning (2016) and St. Pierre (2019) among others who refute the separation of thought from feeling as invoking a Cartesian separation of body and mind.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Srikala Naraian

Srikala Naraian is Professor of Education in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, New York. She locates herself in the disability studies tradition and is interested in qualitative inquiry in inclusive education and teacher preparation for inclusive education.

Susan L. Gabel

Susan L. Gabel, PhD, is Professor of Teacher Education at Wayne State University where she teaches courses on inclusive education. Her research is published in numerous scholarly journals and books