ABSTRACT
What kind of assessment might emerge if attention is paid to posthuman and collaborative pedagogies? In our chapter we propose a relational praxis to assessment in higher education that builds upon a collaborative, affirmative ethics and that speaks to an embodied and affective experience. We explore alternatives to normative assessment practices in order to resist traditional structures of individualisation, competition and alienation. We reflect on our attempt to dismantle hierarchies through the form of writing ‘love letters’ between each of the four authors. The exchanges, movement and duration implied in the sending, receiving and re-sending of letters to each other by post in a process of posthuman, collaborative writing created a space to think about, and experience, care and joy. It prompted us to consider how we can create joyful experiences for both student and lecturer in assessment. In this chapter we propose such potentia evoked by ‘love letters’ as a ‘relational pedagogy of assessment’.
