Frictional matterings: (Re)thinking identity and subjectivity in the coming-to-be of literacies

Abstract

The authors take up the guest editors’ invitation to address the difference that posthumanist and feminist ‘new’ materialist theories make and why this matters politically and ethically. Alongside events from an early childhood (kindergarten) classroom, the authors engage with current conversations which build on and extend Kimberlé Crenshaw's theory of intersectionality with post-philosophies by scholars who identify as Black feminist, Women of Colour feminist, queer theorist, Chicana and/or Indigenous scholars. In an iterative, slow thinking-making-with-reading, this contemplation brings intersectionality and post-philosophies into conversation to explore diffractive-affirmative possibilities for social and curricular (re)shapings. The authors create a philosophical playground to think identity and subjectivity when engaging with these theories both with/in classroom events and with/in their own co-constituted scholarly and teacherly becomings. The authors set forth several potentially generative frictions in teaching and researching environments.