“It keeps us in solidarity”: embodied narrative in Chinese teacher education

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a performance text, crafted by university researchers and teachers from a primary school in China. The “embodied narrative” is explored as theory, method, practice, event, and action within this collaborative inquiry. Through vignettes, we delve into the positionalities of teachers and teacher educators, highlighting the fluidity between participant, researcher, and performer roles. Our endeavor challenges the dominance of textualism in educational research, emphasizing “culture as performance” and “practice as research.” This embodied narrative approach allows teachers and teacher educators to bridge theoretical and practical divides, merge personal and public realms, and take proactive actions.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodied narrative
• collaborative inquiry
• performance text
• teacher education
• primary school teachers in China

Acknowledgements

We sincerely thank the eight teachers from Lotus Primary School who joined us on this enlightening journey of inquiry: Tangtang, Xingxing, Xiaodun, Tinna, Xiaowangzi, Dalishi, Xiaoxiao, and Lingzi. We also express our deep appreciation to Tingzi and Chengzi for their invaluable contribution in organizing workshops and transcribing sessions. Lastly, our sincere gratitude goes to Professors Tiefang Liu, Mingjun Fang, Xiangming Chen, and Yanping Fang for their unwavering support and insightful advice.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In his essay “Beyond the Text: Toward a Performative Cultural Politics,” included in the book Cultural struggles: Performances, Ethnography, Praxis, Conquergood critically analyzes the domination of textualism in academia.

2 The concept of “unity of knowledge and action” or zhixingheyi in Chinese originates from Neo-Confucianism and is particularly associated with the philosopher Wang Yangming (1472–1529). In the context of education and research, this concept emphasizes that learning and doing are not separate entities but rather parts of a continuous and integrated process.

3 Chuang Chou is Zhuangzi. Chou is Zhuangzi’s first name. In Wade-Giles spelling system, Zhuang is Chuang.

4 Wechat is a multifunctional Chinese social media platform that combines messaging, social networking, and digital services in one app.

5 This poem originates from a workshop, where we engaged in a dialogue centered around “research.”

6 We held a total of two forum theaters. The first one about the story of Qian and Yu was performed on 17 June 2022. This poster is for the performance on 12 April 2023, about the story of Huzi.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Postgraduate Scientific Research Innovation Project of Hunan Province under Grant CX20220452.