Creative Entanglements: Riffing with Posthuman Arts-Based Inquir

This paper looks into evolving practices in arts-based research through the lens of Posthuman Arts-Based Inquiry (PABI) and its principle of experimental recombinatoriality, referred to here as “riffology.” By pushing back on anthropocentric assumptions, PABI brings in human, and nonhuman, forces alike, generating a more expansive approach to creativity and knowledge production. Drawing on DeleuzoGuattarian philosophy, new materialist perspectives, and post-qualitative research, we treat art-making as an ontological event rather than mere representation. In doing so, PABI challenges established boundaries within arts-based research, foregrounding shared agencies and ethical obligations that extend across human, technological, and ecological domains. Through practical examples and theoretical grounding, this paper demonstrates how PABI reimagines creative inquiry amid planetary crises, ultimately offering a posthuman critical pedagogy with the potential to transform both educational and societal landscapes.Keywords:Posthuman arts-based inquiry, posthuman critical pedagogy, DeleuzoGuattarian philosophy, assemblage theory, arts-based research (ABR), Anthropocene Introduction In recent decades, dialogues surrounding the Anthropocene and posthumanism have prompted re-thinking of how we approach , research, and creativity, particularly the entanglements between human and nonhuman entities (Braidotti, 2013; Haraway, 2016). Traditional research methodologies, deeply rooted in humanist frameworks, are increasingly disrupted to accommodate the fluidities and complexities of our contemporary era. In response, arts-based research (ABR) has evolved as a set of methodologies that draw upon artistic processes across visual, performative, literary, and sonic domains to produce non-traditional forms of knowledge (Barone & Eisner, 2011; Leavy, 2017). However, much of ABR focus primarily on the human subject, emphasizing empathy, interpersonal meaning-making, and the amplification of personal narratives. Posthuman Arts-Based Inquiry (PABI) takes shape as a conceptual approach that broadens and reworks traditional ABR methods to respond to broader ontological and epistemological shifts that decenter the human subject. grounded in diverse theoretical traditions—including DeleuzGuattarian philosophy, new materialism, post-qualitative research, speculative realism, and remix culture—PABI underscores the complex, relational dynamics that disturb anthropocentric norms (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987; DeLanda, 2016). Core concepts such as assemblage, becoming, and deterritorialization bring into relief the interconnectedness of all entities, disputing the idea that humans are the sole drivers of creativity and knowledge production (Haraway, 2016; McBrien, 2016). Within PABI, the generative impulses traditionally emphasized in ABR are redirected to include a broader range of entanglements among human, and nonhuman participants. For example, the concept of “riffology”—borrowed from remix culture—advocates an open-ended research approach, where researcher-artists engage with unfolding forces to create new ways of seeing and being (Wainwright & Stevens, 2017). These post-qualitative stances resonate with posthuman inquiry, which departs from linear, anthropocentric meaning-making toward exploring how multiple agencies interact and inform one another. This paper strives to map out the conceptual lineage of PABI and show how it reconfigures ABR toward more inclusive, posthuman horizons. By taking on the expansive framework of PABI, we not only incorporate machinic elements and hybrid ontologies but also integrate feminist new materialism, quantum views of matter (Barad, 2007), and ecosophical thought (Morton, 2013). These theoretical strands converge to fundamentally rethink creativity, representation, and knowledge production. PABI pushes the conversation to include diverse genealogies that further enrich and challenge anthropocentric assumptions. We start by mapping the long-standing legacy of ABR within educational and interdisciplinary contexts before unpacking how posthuman critiques of anthropocentrism invite new framings of art and research. We then consider the value of experimental recombinatoriality—what we term “riffing”—in encouraging innovative posthuman inquiry. Finally, we reflect on the consequences of adopting PABI amid planetary crises, proposing a posthuman critical pedagogy that centers on emergence, interconnectedness, and relational ethics. From Humanism to Posthumanism ABR originated from a broader qualitative shift in the social sciences that began in the mid-twentieth century and grew in influence toward the century’s end (Barone & Eisner, 2011). Researchers employ the arts—poetry, visual arts, dance, music—to represent experiences, elicit emotional resonance, and create empathetic connections between participants and audiences. Barone and Eisner (2011) describe ABR as an approach “enlarge[ing] human understanding” (pp. 8–9), with art functioning as a conduit to express subjective realities that might otherwise remain out of reach, or underrepresented in traditional research outputs. In the humanist context, the goal of ABR is often to “create an expressive form” that encourages “empathetic participation” in the lives of others (Barone & Eisner, 2011, p. 8). Over the years, numerous iterations of ABR have emerged, each with its own conceptual underpinnings and practical emphasis. For example, a/r/tography (Springgay et al., 2007) weaves the roles of artist, researcher, and teacher, emphasizing the “in-between” spaces where creative practice interacts with teaching and scholarship. Poetic inquiry (Prendergast et al., 2009; Galvin & Prendergast, 2016) draws upon the affective power of poetry to express subtle human experiences and emotional truths. Despite their differences, these and other ABR methods maintain a human-centered viewpoint: an emphasis on individual viewpoint, empathy, and the expanding of human understanding through creative expression (Leavy, 2017). While humanistic ABR has led to a wide range of insights, it faces growing critique from posthuman scholarship (Braidotti, 2013; Haraway, 2016a). Posthumanism doesn’t entirely reject the significance of human-centered art-making but suggests that strictly anthropocentric frameworks can overlook the complex interconnections shaping our world. Thinkers like Rosi Braidotti (2013) challenge the Enlightenment-era notion of an individual, autonomous, rational subject, arguing it fails to match a planet where humans, animals, technologies, and environments are closely interwoven. Likewise, Karen Barad (2007) proposes an onto-epistemological stance on matter and meaning, holding that the lines between subject and object are continually being formed rather than assumed as fixed.Such shifts spur a new examination of how we grasp creativity, knowledge, and our ties to one another. In posthuman models, human agency is only one element among many agential forces including nonhuman animals, tech-based networks built environments, microorganisms, and planet-altering forces (Bennett, 2010). The so-called Anthropocene—or what Haraway (2016) reframes as the Chthulucene—amplifies our awareness of these entangled relationships by exposing the destructive consequences of human activity on global ecologies. As a result, posthuman scholarship serves not merely as an scholarly project but also as a call to action pressing us to take fully into account the more-than-human communities coexisting on our planet. Experimental Recombinatoriality and RiffologyPABI comes about as a methodological response to the question: How can we do arts-based research that properly accounts for the agency of nonhuman forces, while encouraging fresh forms of thought?The concept of experimental recombinatoriality, introduced by Wainwright and Stevens (2016), invites researchers to become “riffologists”—similar to DJs sampling music—by mixing diverse elements such as theory, art materials, and technology. This “plug in and play” ethos (Wainwright & Stevens, 2020) fits with posthuman approaches that emphasize relationality and emergence. Rather than using a fixed approach, PABI favors open systems in which human, nonhuman, and conceptual forces interact to produce surprising, innovative outcomes. Riffology therefore pushes back against the idea that the researcher is just an observer, highlighting researcher-as-participant in fluid networks of becoming. Its free-flowing and unplanned style to knowledge creation resonates with post-qualitative approaches, which critiques rigid methodologies and stable categories (St. Pierre, 2011). Postqualitative scholarship likewise questions the idea that data exist “out there” to be collected or that human experiences alone form the core of understanding. Instead, it reveals how phenomena, subjects, and objects continuously co-create each other . Working alongside with postqualitative perspectives, PABI provides a direct line of flight from conventional ABR: no longer centered mainly on expressing human experiences, it becomes an assemblage that actively generates new ways of thinking and being. Arts-Based Research Revisited: Expanding the Frame ABR has a long-standing tradition of resisting positivistic frameworks and championing embodied, emotive, and nuanced ways of knowing (Barone & Eisner, 201

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