Abstract
This article explores a series of tentacular troublings inspired by Donna Haraway’s (2016) concept of String Figuring (SF). We consider these troublings as relational entanglements which produce perturbations of our gender, positioning, recognition and respectability as feminist academics in Higher Education. We activate tentacular troublings as a refrain for contemplating differences/ings in our academic lives and as a critique of contemporary neo-liberal academia which ossifies, fixes and freezes feminist flows. The article makes two contributions. The first is to deploy string figuring as a proposition for feminist thinking which troubles the notion and fixed positions in favour of position(ings)-plural in motion. The second is to enact string figuring as a mode of ecriture feminine (Cixous, 1976) in which connections are made, dropped and picked up in tentacular relays and patterns of entangled encounters, thereby perturbing normative modes of writing and troubling traditional modes of knowledge making. Feeling Medusa helps us with this work. Medusa, as powerful woman, Amazon goddess and gorgon, and vilified proto-feminist whose glance turns men to stone, is knotted into our perturbations and troublings; her presence informs and inspires our SF-ing.
Original language | English |
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Specialist publication | Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology |
Publication status | Acceptance date - 29 Oct 2019 |
Keywords
- String figuring, tentacular troubling, perturbing, ecriture feminine, position(ality), feminism