‘Are we going to do that now?’ Orientations and response-abilities in the embodied classroom

Abstract

Asking ‘How do spatial and bodily processes produce teaching as a phenomenon?’ this paper approaches ‘teaching’ as a relational, spatial and bodily encounter. Findings from a video-based ethnographic account of everyday teaching situations in a Norwegian upper secondary classroom are explored using an analytical framework inspired by feminist perspectives on bodies. The argument made is that material organisations of social practices are politically and ethically charged. A series of pedagogical encounters are mapped and discussed by engaging the concepts of affect, orientation and alignment. The article demonstrates that one recurring material relation was the collective orientation towards a configuration of the boundaries for ‘doing school’. The bodily and spatial practice of aligning with the local configuration of response-abilities is proposed as a material relation that actively contributed to producing teaching as a phenomenon.