Written by: Charlotta Hilli & Sofia Jusslin, Åbo Akademi University, Finland

Abstract: The study contributes to the nascent digital academic writing tutoring field by applying posthuman thinking while investigating intimate socio-material relations during a participatory action research project. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021), on-campus academic writing workshops moved online to Zoom, Moodle, and Padlet. We became inspired by Jackson and Mazzei’s thinkingwith-theories and Haraway’s concept of diffraction when inquiring into how and why humans and more-than-humans made a difference in digital academic tutoring. Lively conversations emerged inbetween the research matters (tutor logbooks, embodied experiences, course materialities) and authors by diffracting them with the posthuman cyborg, hybridity, and Didaktik. The posthuman cyborg questioned what, who mattered, and why, pointing to embedded humans and more-than-humans shaping fragmented digital relations. Hybridity brought fluidity and fusions of different educational dimensions (openness/structure, teacher/student) to the study. Didaktik suggested that fluid tutoring structures (curriculum) and institutional politics (study credits) interfered with the teacher-student collaboration. We propose a posthuman relational, fluid, and fragmented framework called a hybrid Didaktik when developing teacher-student collaboration across several digital systems. By inviting materialities alongside human experiences into discussions about digital teaching, new practices sensitive to socio-material and political relations may unfold in higher education.

Keywords: digital academic writing tutoring, the cyborg, hybridity, Didaktik, higher education, socio-material relations, political relations, Zoom, Padlet, Moodle