Troubling Structures: A Material-Embodied Pedagogy of Technical Difficulty

摘要

This article frames technical difficulty as a pedagogical opportunity, arguing that we must bring to the fore materialities and embodiments rather than oversimplify them for the sake of technical ease. Technical difficulty may renew a sense of medium as material, intensify embodied affect, and prompt instructors to consider how we can more ethically relate to our tools and to our students through attentiveness to structures of power and oppression. I describe how gendered dynamics of technical expertise are reflected in white, cis women student narratives of technical difficulty. I conclude by offering four characteristics of "feminist troubleshooting'' and offer practical suggestions and strategies for implementing a material-embodied pedagogy of technical difficulty. This pedagogy can make digital and multimodal learning more inviting and appealing for all students, but especially those who do not identify with cis, straight, white, able-bodied, and/or masculine orientations.