Becoming Baglady: Collective Storytelling with Posthuman and Feminist New Materialism theories

Our paper shares our collective endeavour as four doctoral and early career researchers who are transitioning and becoming-with theories inspired by posthuman and feminist materialisms. Such theoretical frames are often understood as abstract and dense (Strom et al., 2020). Yet, we have found collegiality and understanding by reading and making with theories as a research collective known as the Bagladies (Albin-Clark et al., 2021). Our inspiration is the science fiction writer Ursula Le Guin (1989, 2019) and her text ‘The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’. This paper shares how we have employed storymaking where the human, non-human and more-than human come together as a lively relationality. We share our experiences in working as a collective that puts storytelling to work as a means of demystifying complex theory (Latto et al, forthcoming)LATTO, L., L. HAWXWELL, J. ALBIN-CLARK and J. OVINGTON.2022 Becoming Baglady: Collective Storytelling with Posthuman and Feminist New Materialism theories, Annual Conference for Research in Education (ACRE) Transitions and Transformations: Educational Research in Rapidly Changing Contexts, Edge Hill University, UK, 14-15 July http://eshare.edgehill.ac.uk/16272/45/ACRE%20abstracts%20for%20programme%20book%20FINAL.pdf