Love Letters as Ways of Thinking About Relational Pedagogies of Assessment

What kind of assessment might emerge if attention is paid to posthuman and collaborative pedagogies? In our chapter we propose a relational praxis to assessment in higher education that builds upon a collaborative, affirmative ethics and that speaks to an embodied and affective experience. We explore alternatives to normative assessment practices in order to resist traditional structures of individualisation, competition and alienation. We reflect on our attempt to dismantle hierarchies through the form of writing ‘love letters’ between each of the four authors. The exchanges, movement and duration implied in the sending, receiving and re-sending of letters to each other by post in a process of posthuman, collaborative writing created a space to think about, and experience, care and joy.

This edited volume presents a post-humanist reflection on education, mapping the complex transdisciplinary pedagogy and theoretical research while also addressing questions related to marginalised voices, colonial discourses, and the relationship between theory and practice.

Exhibiting a re-imagination of education through themed relationalities that can transverse education, this cutting-edge book highlights the importance of matter in educational environments, enriching pedagogies, teacher-student relationships and curricular innovation. Chapters present contributions that explore education through various international contexts and educational sectors, unravelling educational implications with reference to the climate change crisis, migrant children in education, post-pandemic education, feminist activists and other emergent issues. The book examines the ongoing iterations of the entanglement of colonisation, modernity, and humanity with education to propose a possibility of education capable of upholding heterogeneous worlds.

Curated with a global perspective on transversal relationalities and offering a unique outlook on posthuman thoughts and actions related to education, this book will be an important reading for students, researchers and academics in the fields of philosophy of education, sociology of education, posthumanism and new materialism, curriculum studies, and educational research.

The publication 'Towards Posthumanism in Education: Theoretical Entanglements and Pedagogical Mappings' includes the chapter 'Love Letters as Ways of Thinking About Relational Pedagogies of Assessment' which was a collaboration involving EPRG Members Ana Vicente Richards (UAL/LCC PhD Researcher), Dr Mark Ingham (UAL/LCC Reader), Liz Bunting (UAL Exchange), and Vikki Hill (QMU).