What does it mean to supervise educational research with queer, creative and playful approaches to methodology and method?

What does it mean to supervise educational research with queer, creative and playful approaches to methodology and method? Our paper presents our experiences as tutor and student of supervision dialogues from a master’s level research project that nurtured dialogic and relational approaches. From a basis of putting queer methodologies and methods to work, we approach research praxis as a challenge to normative subjects and subjectivities that include gendered identities (Browne and Nash, 2016). This means that our supervision dialogues went through a process of queering, in that many discussions looped back to question, trouble and explore with our own personal histories and experiences. It also brought some thought-provoking discussions on what generating and creating data means when the ideas we thought with were continually re-stabilising, on the move and in a state of becoming. In particular we problematise what might be described as normative methods of data generation such as interviews. From here we ponder what it means to repurpose research tools and processes in light of queer methodologies and bring creative and playful approaches to thinking with meanings and theorisations (Burnard et al 2022). What is interesting to note is how queer methodologies has led us to question the nature of supervision as a heteronormative and paternalist practice. From this position we offer some insights into what attitudes and dispositions were helpful in queering supervision and find that some affective moments had resonances (Ardiles et al. 2023). With affective moments related to relationalities, atmospheres and identities we illustrate our argument with three small vignettes from our supervisory dialogues to put forward the benefits and rich potentialities of queering research processes.