Post-Qualitative Research and Innovative Methodologies - (Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research) (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This book explores the possibilities of the relationships between theory and method as enacted in post-qualitative research. The contributors, based in Australia, Canada, the UK and USA, use theory and method to disrupt established traditions and create new and alternative possibilities for research in identity, agency, power, social justice, space, materiality, and other transformations. Using examples of recent and highly innovative research practices which meaningfully challenge taken-for-granted assumptions in education and social science, the editors and contributors open new ground for other ways of thinking about doing research in these fields. Major theoretical perspectives explored and applied include: posthumanism, poststructuralism, feminist theory, ecofeminism, new materialism, SF, and critical theory and the theorists drawn on include: Karen Barad, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Mikhail Bakhtin, Donna Haraway, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, Rosie Braidotti, Anna Tsing and Stacy Alaimo.

Review Quotes

"This important new collection has that 'forward tilt' described by the editors, of elaborating new concepts and new possibilities for thought and action, while being anchored in the ethics and the affects of specific research projects and encounters. It is a lively and serious contribution to a field that, thankfully, still has no fixed boundaries." --Maggie MacLure, Professor of Education, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

"Matthew Thomas and Robin Bellingham have assembled a book we need in this moment, one that moves beyond the pronouncements of post-qualitative, posthumanist, and agential realism as departures from what was and takes the step of materially exploring what social inquiry can be. It does so with an honesty about the slippages, challenges, and struggles of putting new theory to work that will stimulate great conversations in methodology classes and conferences for years to come." --Jerry Rosiek, Professor of Education Studies, University of Oregon, USA

"This provoking volume is one of the Bloomsbury Social Theory and Methodology in Education Research Series...The book provides an opportunity to question assumptions upon which research and society are built... The editors and authors are to be congratulated for developing and presenting a book that takes us to see research with different eyes, to imagine new forms and terms, to be intrigued by the intersecting of humanity with the natural world, and to envisage further changes that are moving into the world of Artificial Intelligence." --Australian Journal of Adult Learning

About the Author

Matthew Krehl Edward Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Education at Deakin University, Australia.
Robin Bellingham is Lecturer in Education, Pedagogy and Curriculum at Deakin University, Australia.