Research-In-The-Making With String Figures

Abstract

In this chapter, in response to Janet Miller’s (2005) proposal to share “situated and multiple stories of our educational experiences” of research (p. 231), the author draws on Miller’s concept of “in-the-making” to engage with an inquiry into ecologically responsive curriculum. Grounded in critical posthumanism and feminist new materialism, the chapter recounts the formation of the Inquiry Community of String Figures (ICOSFs), where researchers and teachers collaboratively engaged in relational, material-discursive practices. Through embodied events and diffractive storytelling, the ICOSF disrupted anthropocentric norms and foregrounded relational ontology. Emphasizing curiosity, response-ability, and the affective power of research encounters, the chapter offers three propositions to activate further thoughts and practices. Inspired by Miller’s teachings, this work embraces research as an unfinished, affective, and collective becoming.