For our August New Materialisms SIG, we were delighted to have Dr. Theresa Ashford (USC) share some of her current NM research considerations, thoughts and processes.
In this session, we explored how ethics feature in New Materialisms research.
NM Session: Ethics in/with classrooms, comics and computers.
This session explores the idea of New Materialisms and ethics. This is a tricky space that tests emergence and experience. In this session, Theresa used several key papers as a way to continue working-with how to pull these aspects together in some (in)comprehensible form.
Bio: Dr. Theresa Ashford is a Geography and Sustainability Lecturer in the School of Law and Society (USC). Her key interest is investigating human-non human ethics and responsibility – response(ability) in the world. Her undergraduate and postgraduate education is in Geography and spans physical and human geography domains. She has worked in the regional planning field in Canada and her Masters research explored the use and role of public spaces in the support and co-construction of homeless punk youth identities in Winnipeg, Canada. Dr. Ashford’s Ph.D. research (2018, Education, UQ) used Actor-network theory to investigate the emergence of digital ethics in 1:1 classrooms and the active role of technology mediating, supporting, and translating human behaviour and understandings.
Some of Theresa’s recent publications (see below) we discussed were App-Centric students and academic Integrity: A proposal for assembling socio-technical responsibility and her awesome article on Wonder Woman: An assemblage of complete virtue packed in a tight swimsuit.
What we did
In this session, Theresa deep-dived into Ethics and how it has been bubbling up in her work wide-ranging research.
Theresa set the ethical scene and outlined the Artistolian entry point she was using to discuss ethics.
She then led us through a series of ‘searching for ethics in awkward places’.
Theresa used the metaphor of a ‘Mud Map’ to introduce herself and establish how her background as a human geographer and teacher informs her concerns for the state of inequity in the world and across human-nonhuman spheres of doing. She also outlined her particular interest in phronesis (practical wisdom informed by a sound understanding of ethics, the world and humans), and how she uses Aristotelian means to navigate the excesses and deficits in life and theoretical applications in the world.
We then turned to (Bruno) Latour, ethics and technology.
Theresa spoke of the New Materialisms tenets of decentring anthropocentrism, reconfiguring subjectivity, and elevating the role of non-human actors.
She problematized this type of ‘rethinking’ as it extends to sources of ethics – to the extent of which she argued, could be considered a ‘breaking point’.
Her discussion of increasing sensitivity to fragility (Jonas, 1981) and how New Materialisms celebrates materiality in its “surprises, noise and remainders” (Connolly, 2013) resonated strongly with me and my current bikes-for education research project.
Theresa also spoke about the cultivation of ethics grounded in care for the world. Here, we were provoked to consider how we enact and perform care (recognizing it is a network effect) what is derived in a positive ethos and practices of cultivation (requires awareness/wisdom), ideas on care in the human estate – and our “manifold entanglements” with non-human, and how we might reorient ourselves profoundly in relation to the world, to one another and to ourselves (Coole & Fox, 2010) and bioethics.
There are four main NM streams (see here for more on this). I sit with the feminist New Materialists within the Baradian tradition, so it was really enjoyable to learn more about the Latourian approaches to New Materialisms, such as how ANT:
- Sees technology as a mode of existence (exploring existence and being)
- Technology as ‘fold’ – time, space and actants – it keeps folded heterogeneous temporalities (materials, modes, memories, mobilities)
- Technology extends potentialies unrealisable without its presence
- Affordance – schemes of action – permission and promise – a new entity together
- Tech mediation – inadequately captures the new possibilities created
Teresa used three data vignettes from her research (a school daily internet bandwidth usage, Women Woman Stuff, and student-Apps), to highlight some of the ethical sticky points and moments of insight that come from looking at these educational situations from an Ethics and ANT New Materialisms POV.
After this incredible presentation, we had a lively Q & A and an open forum to unpack some of these vexing and encouraging connections between ethics and New Materialisms.
Below are a few ideas from Dr. Ashford’s presentation. I’ve deliberately not included the full PPT to respect and protect Dr. Ashford’s intellectual property and current research.
It was an exciting, robust, and thought-provoking session – so much to think and talk about!
A massive thanks to Theresa for sharing her ideas and experiences so generously.
Theresa’s Publications
Ashford, T., & Curtis, N. (2020). Wonder woman: An assemblage of complete virtue packed in a tight swimsuit. Law, Technology and Humans, 2(2), 185-197. doi: 10.5204/lthj.1593
Ashford, T. (2021). App-centric students and academic integrity: A proposal for assembling socio-technical responsibility. Journal of Academic Ethics, 19(1), 35-48. doi: 10.1007/s10805-020-09387-w
Readings
Blackman, T. (2020). Experiences of vulnerability in poverty education settings: developing reflexive ethical praxis. Postcolonial Directions in Education, 9(2) 198-225.
Waelbers, K., & Dorestewitz, P. (2014). Ethics in Actor Networks, or: What Latour Could Learn from Darwin and Dewey. Science and Engineering Ethics, 20, 23-40, doi: 10.1007/s11948-012-9408-1
All images from Dr. Ashford’s presentation (attributed in-text) unless otherwise specified.