As long-time readers of this blog know, along with Dr Sherilyn Lennon, I co-convene Griffith University’s New Materialism Special Interest Group (SIG). New Materialisms (NM) is an emerging post-qualitative research approach that has a significant take-up in education, queer and gender studies, environmental science and arts-based disciplines in particular, but is gaining traction more widely as well.
In our last session, we discussed 3 papers and one of the most essential questions plaguing NM: What is ‘new’ about New Materialisms? and then had an awesome presentation by Dr Natalie Lazaroo (Griffith Uni, Theatre Studies).
This month, we had a mix of three stimuli for the discussion. This was followed by a very moving presentation about a project exploring school workplace sexual harassment and the impact on teacher identity.
Presentation: Workplace harassment and teacher identity
Our presenter had just submitted her Griffith EPS Master’s thesis two days before this meeting, so we were very grateful for her time.
In this session, she shared some insights, ‘data’ and narrative moments from her latest research project which was an exploration of sexual harassment on teacher identity.
Now that her Masters had been submitted, the researcher was interested in feedback from the group on what resonates and how she might be able to build the project into a PhD using a New Materialisms lens.
As a starting point, X was keen to explore how the sexual harassment complaint has its own agency.
As always, it was a very generative and thought-provoking session.
The presentation blew up away and gave us much to think about.
We applauded the bravery, resilience and strength that underpinned this work.
This presentation focused on the impact of sexual harassment on teacher identity and, in so doing, opened up conversations around gendered harassment in institutional settings. The aim is to lift the curtain on the unacknowledged, misunderstood and often overlooked. These discussions offer insights into the ways that identity, power and culture interrelate and operate in institutional settings and how to shed light on the gendered nature of workplace harassment from a position that is often silenced. Here, feelings of powerlessness, critical reflexivity, and scholarly reflection were used to interrogate construction of institutionalised norms and examine how language, subjectivity, and power-relations impact on gender.
This session resonated very strongly with SIG members as it honours the insider’s perspective of the social complexities and challenges many women face in institutional workplaces.
It was certainly very moving – and left us all with much to consider – individually and collectively.
New Materialisms Reading/Discussion
For this meeting we had a mix of 3 stimuli.
First was a Taylor & Ivinson’s (2013) editorial for a journal special which was quoted from in the May meeting and flagged for the SIG to follow up. We also had a reading by Gamble, Hanan & Nail (2019) from the last meeting that helps trace the NM origins, epistemological developments and contested space. Lastly, we used a 30 min YouTube video of Iris van de Turin in which she discusses diffractive reading and asks questions about the spatiotemporality of diffractive reading: where and when does diffraction happen in reading processes?
We used the readings and our own knowledge and experiences to explore our central question of: ‘What lines of flight emerge for you?’
We used this key question to pick at the seams of NM and how we can engage with, and apply, New Materialist methodologies. Here is a sneak peak at some of our machinations.
Session resources
Editorial: Taylor, C. A., & Ivinson, G. (2013). Material feminisms: New directions for education. Gender and education 25(6), 995-670.
Reading: Gamble, C. N., Hanan, J. S., & Nail, T. (2019). What Is New Materialism?. Angelaki, 24(6), 111-134.
Youtube Video: Iris van der Tuin – Reading diffractive reading: were and when does diffraction happen?