Magic(al)ing in a time of COVID-19: becoming literacies and new inquiry practices

ABSTRACT

This article conceptualizes the notion of magic(al)ing in relation to post-pandemic ways of thinking about data production and analyses. Revisiting old data produced pre-COVID-19 and engaging with new data produced during COVID-19, we consider the possibilities and potential of magic(al)ing as a theoretical concept. We think with several ideas informed by feminist ‘new’ materialists and post-inspired philosophies to conceptualize magic(al)ing: monism, spacetimemattering, blooms spaces and the pedagogy of an affective world. Over a year, we embarked on a reading/thinking inquiry about magic and literacies and their combined strength in locating literacies as embodied, relational, and sensory. Magic(al)ing has the potential to frame literacy moments as socio-material instances filled with affective flows and intensities. The concept of magic(al)ing fosters a space to not only rethink literacy but also to explore humans in relation to literacies. Kuby returns to an orange-paper-frog-puppet , a magic(al)ing moment that she often comes back to when thinking of the be(com)ing of literacies, especially in the uncertain times we find ourselves in a pandemic. Rowsell returns to a flowery artifact by a little girl who took part in a makerspace study in April 2019, speculating on how the same research could be conducted during lockdown. We also think-with new, unexpected data produced during COVID-19. As we engage again with these magic(al)ing moments, we explore the guest editors’ question: What methodological approaches are possible, and which kinds of research collaborations are appropriate?

KEYWORDS:

• Post-qualitative research
• literacy
• covid-19
• Spinoza
• magic
• affect
• philosophy

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. We are playful with punctuation in an effort to write-with-theory and show theoretical and/or philosophical concepts in our writing. Throughout the article we use parentheses and hyphens as a way to play with language and show relationships between words. In this particular case, as we explain later in the article, we think magic, magical, and magicaling, together. Concepts can be both/and, for example, magic can be both a noun and a verb at the same time when conceptualizing it with post-philosophical concepts.

2. Research studies with children have undergone review with ethics committees and consent was sought from children and/or families (except with Candace’s daughter, Lydia Ann, see endnote iii).

3. There is much written on the ethics of doing research with children, specifically when they are your child. As I (Candace) engage with post-philosophies and relational-materialist concepts of ethics, I am inspired by Bodén’s (2021) scholarship that discusses how propositions such as on, to, with, for and by when conceptualizing research ethics and children are tied to philosophical orientations and assumptions that shape methodological practices. Bodén writes about ethics as producing potential new worlds, which connects to my thinking on COVID-19 data in relation to Lydia Ann. I had conversations with Lydia Ann over the course of a year related to my writing about (her) literacies, if she wanted to share the writing with researchers and educators, what name she wanted published for herself, and she gave feedback on my writing. She decided that if the article would help other educators to open spaces in schools for more expansive views of literacies, then she wanted us to share her literacy(ies) experiences during COVID-19. This is my hope and wish as well for this manuscript.

4. We ponder and curiously question Gilbert’s writing that ideas can only be made manifest when partnering with a human.

5. Funded through the Explore Brock SSHRC Institutional Grant (BSIG) program.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Candace R. Kuby

Candace R. Kuby, PhD is a Professor of Learning, Teaching and Curriculum at the University of Missouri, serving as the Department Chair and the Director of Qualitative Inquiry. Dr. Kuby is author of several books: Speculative Pedagogies of Qualitative Inquiry (2020); Posthumanism and Literacy Education: Knowing/Becoming/Doing Literacies (2019); Go Be a Writer!: Expanding the Curricular Boundaries of Literacy Learning (2016); Disrupting Qualitative Inquiry: Possibilities and Tensions in Educational Research (2014); and Critical Literacy in the Early Childhood Classroom: Unpacking Histories, Unlearning Privilege (2013). Journals in which her scholarship appears include Qualitative Inquiry; International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education; Journal of Early Childhood Literacy; Journal of Literacy Research; Cultural Studies ßà Critical Methodologies; Literacy; and Language Arts.

Jennifer Rowsell

Jennifer Rowsell is Professor of Literacies and Social Innovation and Deputy Head of School at University of Bristol’s School of Education in the United Kingdom. Her research interests include multimodal, makerspace and arts-based research with young people; digital literacies research; digital divide work; and, applying posthumanist and affect approaches to literacy research. She has worked and conducted research in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Her most recent co-authored books are:Living Literacies: (MIT Press) with Kate Pahl and Maker Literacies and Maker Identities: Learning and Playing Through Modes and Media (Routledge) with Cheryl McLean. She is a co-editor of the Routledge Expanding Literacies in Education book series with Carmen Medina (Indiana University).