Introduction: Expanding Conceptions for Research on Possibility

Abstract

This editorial introduces the special issue on “Expanding Conceptions for Research on Possibility” and surveys the papers submitted by over 15 scholars from diverse fields and disciplinary backgrounds. Expanding our conceptions of research beyond traditional boundaries and silos, the papers in this volume articulate research as a world-disclosing and “world-making” practice, concerned not only with how the “world is” but with creating “a world to come”. Displaying a great variety of research methods and approaches, the articles delineate specific theoretical and methodological strategies for expanding the sense of the Possible in diverse educational and social contexts. The expansion of possibility research and practice is further discussed in relation to theoretical expansions, pedagogical expansions, more-than-human expansions, and possibility and futures thinking. The editorial concludes by highlighting the relevance of possibility research in the context of current global developments.