Intimacy in Intra-Action with Students, Material, and Emotions in the Laboratory

Abstract

Practical activities and laboratory work are essential parts of technology education. It brings together theory and practice by applying theoretical knowledge through practical work. The handling of instruments and laboratory equipment develops experimental hands-on skills and technical competencies, such as data handling, process control, and monitoring. Another aspect of incorporating practical elements in natural science and technical education, often highlighted by teachers and in research literature, is that it makes the subjects more interesting and engaging. This can, of course, be the case, but it is just as common for practical activities to provoke other emotions, such as anxiety about making mistakes or about damaging expensive equipment. In this study, we use Barad's theory of agential realism to examine how upper secondary school technology programme students approach and establish relationships with the materials they need to use during laboratory work in biotechnology. Barad emphasizes that everything is entangled and that these entanglements create our reality. This means that both people and matter actively contribute to shaping our world. To describe the process that occurs in these entanglements, the concept of intra-action is used. We have observed and video-recorded experimental activity sessions on different occasions over the course of one semester. Through Barad's theory of the agency of matter, we conducted the observations with a focus on the intra-actions between the students' bodies and the materials used during the laboratory sessions, as well as the emotions that became visible. In the presentation, we will elaborate on the concept of intimacy to describe certain intra-actions in which the material seems to "call" to the students, prompting them to explore it in playful and emotional ways.