Techno-shamanism and educational research

This article offers an approach to writing about the qualitative experience of change in an educational context. The analyst spent four years studying how children use technology to augment their literacy practices in the Midlands of the UK. He simultaneously became involved with free parties in the district that offered social celebratory gatherings using technology to generate dance music. Rather than separating these experiences into categories such as work and play, the analyst has drawn them together through the practice of techno-shamanism. To summarise this approach, the researcher's understandings about techno-literacy change through research into the behaviours of the youth of the area who are present in the schools that took part in the study. He also changes as he dances and organises parties that represent an augmentation of the self through technology. Thus techno-shamanism synthesises an exploration of these changes and the transformative power that technology offers at its most intense and socially inclusive.