Beyond Dichotomies/Binaries: Twenty-First Century Post Humanities Ethics for Science Education Using a Baradian Perspective

Abstract

In contrast to modernist presentations of research ethics, post humanistic ethics problematizes the human and non-human dichotomy that tends to be the basis of such modernist presentations which tend to apply instrumental, deontological and advocacy approaches to ethics in research thereby maintaining the separation of human researcher and the human or non-human researched. In contrast, post humanistic ethics includes non human entities when considering “who matters and what counts” when questioning education research practices, methods, data analysis and interpretations. The potential and possibilities for a discussion of post humanistic ethics in science education is reflected in the multiplicity of theories and approaches to utilizing the ‘unsettled and unsettling terrain’ on which science education research is based. Following Barad’s perspectives, we assume that ethics are contextual and entangled, framed from the dynamic relationalities of becoming of which we are part in the research process rather than as the traditional right response to an ‘exteriorized other’. Ethics are not a separate element of human action but are emergent as the intra-actions of research produce casual structures that foster material-discursive practices which are reworked by researchers in their efforts to frame what matters and what is excluded from mattering.