Becoming Openly Faithful

Abstract

In this article, the authors consider the implications of teaching and enacting inquiry as an indeterminate event, one that interrogates the assumptions of paradigmatic fixity with the hopes of being other than we are. To do so, the authors articulate a sense of openly faithful pedagogical practice, blurring the boundaries of the classroom and inquiry site and promoting the possibilities inherent in “slippage.” The indeterminacy invoked in slippage creates opportunities for students to (re)consider the assumptions they carry, to individually and collectively critique, interrogate, and/or productively embrace such assumptions in a recursive project of ongoing positioning. Slippage is considered within a framework of ethical responsibility, with the authors’ asking: What does it mean to nudge students to slip and how might we do this ethically? Slippage, then, is a productive act, one that creates movement and vibrations with new possibilities for becoming differently.