ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we attend to the question, what new concepts do poststructurally oriented literacy researchers need to practice their critiques of power? Folding poststructural theory into a “critical literacy” approach to literacy offers the field a different rendering of issues of power. If mediation overly determines our analyses of emergent moments, then what new concepts are necessary to weaken such powers of conformity, which operate incessantly and create inequities in the diverse lives of those alongside whom we research? Working forward from these questions, our goal in this short chapter is not to rehash poststructural critiques of mediation that have developed through the latter half of the 20th century and continue through this day. 1 Neither do we present concepts and insights from the full range of poststructural theory that has grown through the same period of time. Rather, we rouse our propositions for continuing to attend to power in poststructural literacy research from a history of process philosophy that has moved through the philosophies of, for example, Spinoza, Whitehead, Deleuze, Guattari, and, more recently, Massumi.
