ABSTRACT
In considering deliberative encounters, vis-a-vis the ethical, it is worth examining the unfolding of such encounters in relation to another post-humanist theorist's thoughts, namely the physicist and philosopher, Karen Barad. When teachers and students engage in deliberative encounters, such encounters do not happen in the first place as encounters separate from deliberation. Diffracted teaching–learning seems to be a more apt way of describing the intra-actional relationality between the phenomena of teaching and learning. When teaching–learning is seen in an intra-actional way, the concern for teachers and students would be on which new insights both entities bring to the relationship. The responsibility of the teaching–learning encounter, following Barad, does not reside in the agency of the teacher or student as individuals. Rather, the accountability and responsibility and the responsiveness of the encounter reside in the intra-actional relation of the teacher and student.
