M/othering in transnational space as curriculum theorizing: Investigating interrelationality in a self/other relationship through weaving

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation study is to explore a different way of thinking otherness in a self/other relationship. Specifically, I theorize m/othering in a transnational context in dealing with otherness in curricular practices. "M/other" is a doubled status of "mother," constantly questioning and troubling a normalized understanding of "good mother." Through the feminist poststructuralist autobiographical inquiry of m/othering, I examine the process of constituting my subjectivities, relationships, and knowledge as well as the complexity of interrelationship within a self/other relationship, focusing on what I encounter in my research process. I investigate the process of constructing my subjectivities as m/other and relationship with my mother in transnational space by analyzing discursive constitution and circulation of discourses of mothering. I also examine the ways in which otherness emerges and works within a self/other (m/other) relationship. By othering my self and my mother from my conventional knowledge of "good mother," I focus on my senses of doubt, confusion, and subversion which prompt diverse ontological statuses of "mother" in problematizing my "naturalized" knowledge of mother. In addition, I reconceptualize a seemingly separate, essentialized self/other relationship by rethinking the notion of weaving. In doing so, I challenge the interrelationship between my self and situated context and map out the formation of my knowledge, subjectivity, and relationship of/as/with m/other through weaving.

I delve into the moments of challenging and re/articulations of m/other in my partial knowledge making process. The self and the Other never exist within a fixed form. Rather, the otherness among the subjects emerges anew through un/expected interactions responding to their socio-political situatedness. This inquiry of m/othering through weaving for theorizing curriculum disrupts a monolithic understanding of self, other, and otherness and urges to work multiplicities, interrelations, and flexibilities in complexly connected and continuously changing educational space. This study implies that curriculum continues to transform just like weaving creates diverse patterns. My curriculum theorizing of m/othering provides a different frame to redefine and reconstitute important knowledge in contemporary educational practices which constantly search for unnamed pedagogical possibilities within various interwoven self/other settings.