Mariia Vitrukh | Arizona State University (original) (raw)
Uploads
Book Reviews by Mariia Vitrukh
Comparative Education Review, 2019
As a brilliant science historian, active ecofeminist, curious multispecies theorist, and passiona... more As a brilliant science historian, active ecofeminist, curious multispecies theorist, and passionate storyteller, Donna Haraway has always been interested in exploring ways of relating to "the Other." While her earlier research focused on the possibilities of crossing boundaries between humans and machines (see "Cyborg Manifesto" [1985]) as well as humans and animals (see "Companion Species Manifesto" [2003]), Haraway's most recent book, Staying with the Trouble, urges us to address issues related to the catastrophic environmental crisis, suggesting that the survival of humans and the Earth depends on our ability to engage with each other in a multitude of multispecies assemblages. She argues, "we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles. We become with each other or not at all" (Staying with the Trouble, 4). A recently released documentary, Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival, produced by Fabrizio Terranova, captures Haraway's lifelong work-and her larger than life personality-inviting the audience to imagine new ways of surviving on a damaged Earth. Like an octopus, Haraway pulls you gently into the spiraling depths of her thinking, and before you know it, you find yourself thinking with and "becoming-with" Haraway and all other critters-human and nonhuman-around you. While the film has been screened across the world since 2016, it reached our doctoral seminar at Arizona State University in the fall of 2018. Aiming to explore the changing role of education in the age of the Anthropocene, we discussed perspec-tival shifts necessary to radically challenge the ideas of human exceptionalism and (neo)liberal individualism to survive on a damaged Earth. The life of all species is, with certainty, at stake in this uncertain time. So how can education contribute to rethinking what it means to be human and resituating the human within the rela-tional flow of life on Earth where everyone and everything-both human and non-human-are always already interconnected? "Beings do not preexist their relatings" (98), 2 and our semester-long encounter with her work created a unique experience of an emergent being-in-relation, a deep entanglement with Haraway and with each other in the context of the impending climate change catastrophe. We found that writing this movie review itself became an embodiment of a unique "becoming-with" experience, enabling us to pick up each other's ideas, play with meanings, and weave For permission to reuse, please contact journalpermissions@press.uchicago.edu.
Papers by Mariia Vitrukh
The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of displaced universities (DUs) as spaces... more The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of displaced universities (DUs) as spaces for coalition building, resistance, and decolonial practice that have re-invented the university architecture. This article offers a multi-perspectival and historical exploration of higher education in Ukraine before and after the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with particular focus on the coalitions around Ukrainian DUs. DUs can be seen as one form of decolonial creations, as a unique organic coalition and intellectual community. This organic coalition includes a process of social resistance, resilience, and policy, which are being shaped by people whose lives were and still are uncertain. These people affiliated with higher education created invisible connections that re-shaped the vision and relationality of DUs. The interwoven life trajectories of forced migrants, Ukrainian academics, administrators, and students who made the decision to move to mainland Ukraine and establish (in)visible DUs while continuing their work and education in Ukrainian territories under the control of the Ukrainian government.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Philosophical Mentoring in Qualitative Research, 2022
Gender, Work & Organization
European Educational Research Journal
In comparison to a vast literature on Soviet education little is known about Ukrainian pedagogica... more In comparison to a vast literature on Soviet education little is known about Ukrainian pedagogical sciences apart from a mounting critique about the issues of academic dishonesty and plagiarism, which relates to all higher education disciplines, the absence of an empirical tradition in education research, a poor record of publication in peer-reviewed journals, and the dominance of a positivist approach, which seeks to discover ‘laws’ rather than reach ‘understanding’. This paper offers a thematic analysis of four ‘Pedagogy’ textbooks – three textbooks for under-graduate studies and one textbook for post-graduate study. The textbook analysis demonstrates that Ukrainian pedagogical sciences as a research tradition is deeply rooted in its own conceptual apparatus with no apparent relation to the current debates about teaching and learning in a wider Europe. The key proposition of the paper is that Ukrainian pedagogical sciences represent a mixture of Herbatianism and dialectical materi...
Comparative Education Review, 2019
As a brilliant science historian, active ecofeminist, curious multispecies theorist, and passiona... more As a brilliant science historian, active ecofeminist, curious multispecies theorist, and passionate storyteller, Donna Haraway has always been interested in exploring ways of relating to "the Other." While her earlier research focused on the possibilities of crossing boundaries between humans and machines (see "Cyborg Manifesto" [1985]) as well as humans and animals (see "Companion Species Manifesto" [2003]), Haraway's most recent book, Staying with the Trouble, urges us to address issues related to the catastrophic environmental crisis, suggesting that the survival of humans and the Earth depends on our ability to engage with each other in a multitude of multispecies assemblages. She argues, "we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles. We become with each other or not at all" (Staying with the Trouble, 4). A recently released documentary, Donna Haraway: Story Telling for Earthly Survival, produced by Fabrizio Terranova, captures Haraway's lifelong work-and her larger than life personality-inviting the audience to imagine new ways of surviving on a damaged Earth. Like an octopus, Haraway pulls you gently into the spiraling depths of her thinking, and before you know it, you find yourself thinking with and "becoming-with" Haraway and all other critters-human and nonhuman-around you. While the film has been screened across the world since 2016, it reached our doctoral seminar at Arizona State University in the fall of 2018. Aiming to explore the changing role of education in the age of the Anthropocene, we discussed perspec-tival shifts necessary to radically challenge the ideas of human exceptionalism and (neo)liberal individualism to survive on a damaged Earth. The life of all species is, with certainty, at stake in this uncertain time. So how can education contribute to rethinking what it means to be human and resituating the human within the rela-tional flow of life on Earth where everyone and everything-both human and non-human-are always already interconnected? "Beings do not preexist their relatings" (98), 2 and our semester-long encounter with her work created a unique experience of an emergent being-in-relation, a deep entanglement with Haraway and with each other in the context of the impending climate change catastrophe. We found that writing this movie review itself became an embodiment of a unique "becoming-with" experience, enabling us to pick up each other's ideas, play with meanings, and weave For permission to reuse, please contact journalpermissions@press.uchicago.edu.
The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of displaced universities (DUs) as spaces... more The purpose of this article is to describe the creation of displaced universities (DUs) as spaces for coalition building, resistance, and decolonial practice that have re-invented the university architecture. This article offers a multi-perspectival and historical exploration of higher education in Ukraine before and after the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, with particular focus on the coalitions around Ukrainian DUs. DUs can be seen as one form of decolonial creations, as a unique organic coalition and intellectual community. This organic coalition includes a process of social resistance, resilience, and policy, which are being shaped by people whose lives were and still are uncertain. These people affiliated with higher education created invisible connections that re-shaped the vision and relationality of DUs. The interwoven life trajectories of forced migrants, Ukrainian academics, administrators, and students who made the decision to move to mainland Ukraine and establish (in)visible DUs while continuing their work and education in Ukrainian territories under the control of the Ukrainian government.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Philosophical Mentoring in Qualitative Research, 2022
Gender, Work & Organization
European Educational Research Journal
In comparison to a vast literature on Soviet education little is known about Ukrainian pedagogica... more In comparison to a vast literature on Soviet education little is known about Ukrainian pedagogical sciences apart from a mounting critique about the issues of academic dishonesty and plagiarism, which relates to all higher education disciplines, the absence of an empirical tradition in education research, a poor record of publication in peer-reviewed journals, and the dominance of a positivist approach, which seeks to discover ‘laws’ rather than reach ‘understanding’. This paper offers a thematic analysis of four ‘Pedagogy’ textbooks – three textbooks for under-graduate studies and one textbook for post-graduate study. The textbook analysis demonstrates that Ukrainian pedagogical sciences as a research tradition is deeply rooted in its own conceptual apparatus with no apparent relation to the current debates about teaching and learning in a wider Europe. The key proposition of the paper is that Ukrainian pedagogical sciences represent a mixture of Herbatianism and dialectical materi...