Cyborg sociopolitical reconfigurations: Designing for speculative fabulation in learning

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background Everyday digital technologies play an important role in mediating human activity that is socio-political and humanizing. The everyday cyborg engages in speculative fabulation that is about fantastical new world-making in times of multiple crises. The work presented in this article builds on previous projects that have examined how everyday cultural practices mediate consequential learning that is transformative for communities of color. Methods Two social design-based studies draw from ethnographic analysis of two teacher education courses as well as two after-school programs focusing on digital fabrication and making and tinkering. Participants included 22 undergraduate pre-service teachers and 10 middle school students from schools in Latinx communities. Findings Collaborative cyborg activity, where expertise is distributed, emerged as pre-service teachers and youth collectively engaged with everyday socio-political issues. This article highlights cyborg sociopolitical technical reconfigurations, where learners assembled ideational and material tools to craft objects of learning activity that went beyond those established by schooling and imagined new possible futures. Contribution Designing learning ecologies for the everyday cyborg, in this case pre-service teachers and non-dominant youth, fosters an engagement with everyday dilemmas in ways that serve as catalysts for further learning and the new world-making of speculative fabulation.