
Digital “Wayfaring” in the Posthuman University
Talk
Lesley Gourlay, University College London, United Kingdom
Abstract
Mainstream educational discourses tend to portray digital technologies and devices either as inert ‘tools’ at the fingertips of an implicitly neoliberal student subject, or alternatively as a force to be feared, and therefore ‘harnessed’. I will argue in this keynote that both of these views are problematic and inaccurate, leading to a collapse into utopian / dystopian binaries, and fantasies around digital ‘magic’ and the disembodied ‘user’. I will propose an alternative posthumanist reading of digital literacies which centres embodiment, materiality, mobilities, and spatiality into our understanding of emergent digital knowledge practices. Drawing on Tim Ingold’s concepts of the line and wayfaring, I will make a case for a different conception of digital knowledge practices in the digital university. This will be an interactive session involving reflective groupwork, and the implications of this analysis for policy, practice and research will be discussed.
Citation
Gourlay, L. (2020). Digital “Wayfaring” in the Posthuman University. Presented at EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2022 from https://www.learntechlib.org/primary/p/217644/.
© 2020 Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)