Unsettling the Researcher's Gaze: Rendering a Diffractive Account of Music Studio Teachers' Lived Experiences.

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Bibliographic Details
Title:	Unsettling the Researcher's Gaze: Rendering a Diffractive Account of Music Studio Teachers' Lived Experiences.
Authors:	Lewis, Ryan Matthew¹
Source:	Action, Criticism & Theory for Music Education. Jan2026, Vol. 25 Issue 1, p77-114. 38p.
Subject Terms:	Music teachers, Research methodology, Posthumanism
Abstract:	Thinking with philosophy, this paper unsettles the researchers' gaze and critiques how accounts of music studio teachers may come to bear. Calls to professionalize the liminal spaces in which music studio teachers operate requires discussion of their political underlay and the colonizing effects of identity work that seeks to label and describe. Contextualized through personal experiences in Malaysia and making use of composite vignettes, critical posthumanism is introduced to disentangle these relations of power as well as the discomforts of authorship and positionality within the research process. Barad's theory of agential realism and a diffractive methodology are posited to explicate these material-discursive practices, highlighting both a relational ontology and knowing-in-being. These framings offer the possibility for more response-able research and to ethically reconsider what becomes knowable in seeking to professionalize and support the working lives of music studio teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Database:	Education Research Complete

Description
Abstract:	Thinking with philosophy, this paper unsettles the researchers' gaze and critiques how accounts of music studio teachers may come to bear. Calls to professionalize the liminal spaces in which music studio teachers operate requires discussion of their political underlay and the colonizing effects of identity work that seeks to label and describe. Contextualized through personal experiences in Malaysia and making use of composite vignettes, critical posthumanism is introduced to disentangle these relations of power as well as the discomforts of authorship and positionality within the research process. Barad's theory of agential realism and a diffractive methodology are posited to explicate these material-discursive practices, highlighting both a relational ontology and knowing-in-being. These framings offer the possibility for more response-able research and to ethically reconsider what becomes knowable in seeking to professionalize and support the working lives of music studio teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
ISSN:	15454517
DOI:	10.22176/act25.1.77