Doing Concepts Differently

Abstract

This article proposes an alternative way of using concepts in the scholarship of teaching and learning in the South. Normative understandings and uses of concepts in educational scholarship are challenged through a postphilosophical and postqualitative approach. In such an approach, concepts, instead of methods, become the generating force of research and pedagogy, as a counter to approaches which use formulaic methodologies to dictate the structure and content of pedagogy and research. Postphilosophies are predicated on a relational ontology which assumes that relationships precede entities and come into being in complex entanglements. Concepts are not seen as abstract ideas in the human mind but come into being through material arrangements as part of the world. In the paper, we develop six propositions as provocations for activating and doing concepts differently: Consent not to be singular, Render each other capable, Diffract concepts to enlarge your scholarly perspective, Make pedagogy an event, Make scholarship through research-creation, and Use writing to aerate your scholarly practice. The article extends an invitation to readers to consider doing concepts differently in their own scholarly practice.