W(e)aving: When maker literacies and diffraction collide

Abstract

Inspired by posthumanist and new materialist perspectives, this article offers multi-perspective post-qualitative findings highlighting adults’ entanglements with environmentally oriented makerspace activities in higher education. The article draws on adult education studies and maker research to generate neomaterialist understandings of arts-based environmental education for adults. Using a methodology of w(e)aving as a way of listening, two posthuman vignettes are presented. The vignettes introduce Annike’s—an in-service elementary teacher—process of crafting a metaphorical representation of plastic waste in the ocean as part of a maker education and literacies module. The authors use diffraction, agential cuts, and ‘glow data’ to engage with Annike’s artefact, mappings, email communication, and interview data, as well as the affective flows that these generate. Posthuman methodologies point to findings that shed light on dynamic relationalities, orienting researchers towards more environmentally just futures. Posthuman makerspace research that employs the arts has the potential to work towards craftivism, emphasising the role of the arts in rendering humans accountable for matters of ethics, especially in situations where those adults are teachers.