Neither of the air, nor of the earth but a creature somewhere between: the researcher as traveller between worlds

In this story of places, spaces and power I adopt the persona of the bat as storyteller, bringing together narratives of my experience as an educator of pre-service teachers, and from my three years’ participatory research within a Reggio-informed and community-managed primary school. The bat’s story becomes a fable for neo-liberal times as the forced closure of the alternative school and university restructures reflect increasing government controls of educational systems in Australia and globally. In and between these seemingly contradictory epistemologies and ontologies I re-interpret the bat’s hybridity and experience of darkness as a disruptive and generative third space for re-thinking education