Leaning into liminality

“Teresa Smith, lecturer in Primary Education, School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia, reflects on the tensions and transformations within an integrated educator, artist, researcher identity, and the potential of liminal spaces to foster connection, creativity and cohesion”

https://www.nsead.org/publications/ad-magazine/ad-44/

From guest editor, Abbie Cairns: “This special issue of AD emerged from a desire to better understand the layered identities and practices of educators, artists, researchers (EARs). The term EAR is more than a shorthand. It is a provocation. What does it mean to be an educator, artist, researcher? And how do we hold these identities in tension, in dialogue and in motion?

This issue is for those working across and between sectors, in classrooms, studios, libraries, communities and digital spaces, wherever creative education and inquiry take root. Whether you are early in your career or decades in, whether you lead with pedagogy, practice or research, this issue invites you to explore the ways in which these roles can enrich, collide and reshape each other.

This issue is about mapping and remapping who we are and what we do, not to pin it down but to open it up. The EAR Worm diagram (see p 9) offers an invitation – a playful but purposeful framework to visualise identity in flux. It asks: How do our roles shift across time and space, and where do we locate our energy, our values and our work?