A complex orientation to embodiment in online education: making online educational spaces more engaging and more socially just

This dissertation argues that, in order to create more engaging and socially just online educational spaces, a complex orientation to embodiment is needed. A complex orientation to embodiment includes critique, care, and reflection on what it means to be physically embodied; what it means to be positioned within society—in ways that reflect the interaction of physical embodiment and societal discourses, ideologies, and institutional practices—in ways that give access to or often draw lines of exclusion from power and resources; and creating critical engagement around embodied relationships of labor. I analyze how embodiment is meaningful for online educational spaces; and then suggest ways to negotiate new design strategies and pedagogical practices with complex understandings of embodiment in mind; to create more engaging and socially just online educational spaces. I advocate for an attention to details of embodiment and materiality; and call for an orientation to embodiment (the physicality, positionality, and material relationships of bodies) to ground praxis