ABSTRACT
If, among all words, there is one inauthentic word, that word is certainly the word ‘authentic’.
(Blanchot 1982, p. 16)
This space is not yet blank. Before I write, it is overwritten by the polarity of theory/practice. I can’t practise writing without the practice of theory. And that polarity is prioritized: it is theory talking to (at?) practice. There will never be authentic dialogue. The blank sheet forces that separation, before any word can have its emollient say (but ‘not so’, I pretend to hear you read, and you are right because writing is always a form of trickery). The space before writing insists on a further disciplinary mark. This will be about separate things, ‘Anthropology’, ‘Education Research’. Thus the space is already ontologically disciplining, and then cross-disciplined by the Proper Discipline of Anthropology – the latter no doubt in fearful prospect of an undignified coupling with the mongrel of Education Research. Practice sculpts Theory from its womb and invites Ritual to bless the proceedings?
