When Silent Actors Talk: Bodies as Learning Infrastructure in the Post-Pandemic World

Abstract

This paper is based on a qualitative research study that explored the lived experiences of 25 high school students when they first transitioned to online learning during the Covid-19 lockdown. The objectives of the study were to describe the lived experiences of high school students who transitioned to online learning during the lockdown in terms of their learning, and their mental and physical wellbeing; and to map the resources and strategies deployed by the students to navigate difficult circumstances of studying during a global public health crisis. The study employs actor network theory in education, a sociomaterial approach, in identifying the silent taken-for-granted human and non-human actors that constitute learning infrastructures whose presence and effects become visible only during infrastructural breakdowns such as the pandemic. The findings are organized into four themes each of which identify different aspects of the resources, that is, learning infrastructures needed for high school students to learn well. The first theme describes how learners are affected by the shift in the responsibility of providing learning infrastructure from private schools to private homes. While the second theme focuses on how historically developed classroom surveillance mechanisms play out when the body is no longer visible, the third theme explores how bodies can be envisioned as technologies of engagement. The last theme explores how students as integral beings respond physically and emotionally to the learning process. The findings of the study have implications for policymakers, school leadership, and educators to expand their understandings of learning infrastructures needed for learning in post-pandemic online and offline contexts.