Matter/s of resistance: The in/visible dis/ruptions of gender diverse teachers and the reimagining of gendered becomings

Description

This paper explores the entangled, affective and material becomings of gender diverse teachers in primary and secondary schools in England. Drawing on feminist new materialism, particularly Barad’s (2007) theory of intra-action and MacLure’s (2013) concept of data 'glow', it analyses how these teachers not only hold space in schools but also how they are constituted by precarious assemblages where policy, space, objects and discourse simultaneously invite recognition or invisibility. Within these intra-actions lie pockets of quiet resistance that unsettle normative expectations of gender and professional identity.
Drawing from 13 object-interviews with participants in English schools, this paper explores 'quiet activisms': subtle, everyday dis/ruptions that re/configure what gender and professionalism can become in educational contexts. Objects brought to interview (badges, flags, items of clothing) did not merely represent identity; they agentively participated in meaning making, intra-acting with bodies, memories, emotions and institutional power. These encounters made visible the material-discursive forces constraining and enabling livability (Butler, 2004) for gender diverse teachers.
Using a diffractive analytical approach (Barad, 2007), the paper explores the more-than-human forces shaping subjectivity, resistance and possibility. It considers how gender is not merely expressed or performed but continually re/materialised through entanglements with schooling structures. In doing so, it contributes to lesbian and queer feminist pedagogies by illuminating the transformative potential of quiet, relational and everyday resistance in reimagining gender within schools.
References

Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press.
Butler, J. (2004). Undoing gender. Routledge.
MacLure, M. (2013). The wonder of data. Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, 13(4), 228–232.

Period	24 Oct 2025 → 25 Oct 2025