Learning Through Crisis Epistemologies: Recognising, Managing and Designing New Spaces and Bodies

The Covid-19 crisis made spaces for people to immerse themselves in moments of reflection. The suspension of time, sites, and body mobility, the collapse of the past principles; as the macro learning environment has undergone unprecedented changes, how could people read and react to those changes? Learning at the university, almost all the students have to adopt an online format as a singular way to access higher education, which calls for more self-management capacities and learning autonomy. Bodily learning is crucial from the pedagogical perspective, drawing insights from The Affective Turn, where Clough (2008) took the human body as biomedia so as to affect learning and transform knowledge. This paper shines a light on the new bodies and spaces with inherent innovation potentiality. Based on the literature review chiefly from Sociology, Anthropology, Philosophy, and Culture Studies, this paper engages with four typologies of learning epistemology, nomad, heterotopia, liminality, and rhythm. Their essential characteristics, principles, and interpretations imply in-between and transformational traits, challenging the existing principles and being open to alternatives. They help evaluate the changes and foster our critical and creative learning in risk and crisis. Simultaneously, they serve as the theoretical foundation for the following innovation fieldwork.


Introduction
Reckoning with the moments of reflection during the Covid-19 crisis, "The first lesson the coronavirus has taught us is also the most astounding: we have proven that it is possible, in a few weeks, to put an economic system on hold everywhere in the world" (Watts, 2020). These are the words of Bruno Latour, an influential French philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist. Latour's interview about the Covid-19 pandemic in June 2020 talked about how the lockdown forced people into a retreat, a moment for reflection, and how the public is learning a great deal about the difficulty of statistics, experiments, and epidemiology. His words resonated with the collective empathy living in the pandemic times, suggesting a concern for the new epistemology of learning about the environment, ourselves and their relations.
There is an urgency to recognise this concern and take care of the ecology of learners. Since the education transformation during the Covid-19 pandemic, almost all students moved from physical classrooms to virtual ones. The online or blended learning modes have been primarily normalised. Apart from the limited learning resources available from educational institutions, it also generated spatiotemporal challenges for teachers and students. For the learners, the initiatives to learn would rely even more on autonomy, self-management, and self-efficacy (Falloon, 2011). Thinking ethically, the new physical and virtual learning spaces might convey a hidden message of individualism, compliance, and inequality, revealing new educational gaps (Cahapay, 2020). The digital remote learning/working mode blurred the boundaries between personal and learning-working spaces (Schwartzman, 2020). If this phenomenon is normalised, it will threaten the autonomous times and spaces, prioritising the occupy anytime and anywhere as labour.
For this paper, my interest began with the probes on learning spaces. How could people learn from the shift in their learning spaces? Under the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, how could people reshape their learning spaces? If taking the education from schools as a fulcrum, were the learners capable of leveraging their learning by re-managing and reconfiguring the spatial-temporal epistemology? The learners are drawn to the new becomings of self and the new ontological areas for critical and creative thinking for the unknown future. , advanced the rs but put emp hers". He sugg own capabilit problem solvi uidance or in Vol. 11,No. Vol. 11, No. 5;2022 Connecting it to Latour's latest thoughts on how coronavirus gave us a model for spreading ideas (2020). In his interpretation, people were suggested not to see it as a revenge of nature but as a vast experiment. Unlike the catastrophes driven from outside, the viruses were inside our bodies, or perhaps we were the viruses per se. Since humans could not expel them thoroughly, we must learn to co-exist with them.
Besides, only four years after Latour's raising debate on How to Talk About the Body? The Normative Dimension of Science Studies, Patricia Clough (2008) re-examined the bodily matters in response to the influence of post-structuralism and deconstruction in the late 20th century. In her article The Affective Turn. she took the body as "biomedia", a biomediated body, to challenge the autopoiesis model of the body-as-organism: The biomediated body is a definition of a body and what it can do-its affectivity-that points to the political economic and theoretical investment in the self-organization inherent to matter or matter's capacity to be in-formational, to give bodily form (p. 2).
Therefore, regarding the ideas from affectivity, learning resembles a biodynamics matter of the body-the capacity to absorb and organise different kinds of information. Inspired by Nigel Thrift (2008), a human geographer and social scientist who initially proposed Non-representational Theory, learning requires "bodies" unparalleled ability to co-evolve with things" (p. 10). The things and objectives, such as information, knowledge, materials, and non-human relatedness of the body, are understood non-representationally through affect. The notion of affect embodies "properties, competencies, modalities, energies, attunements, arrangements and intensities of differing texture, temporality, velocity and spatiality, that act on bodies, are produced through bodies and transmitted by bodies" (Lorimer, 2008, p. 552). In this way, when someone transforms herself, she also transforms others. She collides with the world through the "body talks", while the bodies are being affected by a talk from the world.

New Spaces
This section integrates four typologies of potential learning spaces: nomad, liminality, rhythm, and heterotopia. Each space responds to the epistemology of the following questions: How to recognise the characteristic through bodies? How and why does it contain the potential for innovating our learning? How to understand and design such spatial arrangements that could foster our innovation practices?

Nomad
Nomad is a perpetual displacement (Kaplan, 1996). Deleuze and Guattari described the nomad occurs in a smooth space-a vector of deterriteriolisation, a line of flight, and an open dynamic that obtain the potentiality of transformation (Cole, 2013). In contrast, the striated space is hierarchical and rule-intensive (Tamboukou, 2008). The nomad can be sensed and recognised by the movement (extensive) and also the speed (intensive), "the nomad moves, but while seated, and he is only seated while moving. The nomad knows how to wait, he has infinite patience" (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987. Learning in the nomad, we are required to use our body mobility as a reference to identify the potentiality of the nomadic spaces for learning. Burke and DeLeon (2015) stressed that the movement and the bodies in motion are the key points to a nomadic subjectivity for transformative experiences to occur. "The moving nomadic body points toward liberation practices that can stir the imagination because of its decentering" (p. 14). Erin Manning (2007) used Tango as an example to express nomadic learning. "It is a dance of encounter and dis-encounter, a voyeuristic embrace of repressed sensuality and a complex network of (mis)understood direction." The nature improvised tango "takes place on the edges of neighbourhoods, the magic time between dusk and dawn, in the periphery of the social order" (p. 2).
However, Rachel Fendler (2013), an art educator, argued that the "nomad" in nomadic pedagogy is neither about body travelling nor the actual physical movement but the disruptive actions that resist convention. Nomadic space frames a learning process "whereby learning is the change incurred when subjects enter into unfamiliar territory, in a process of discovery" (p. 787). Indeed, Deleuze and Guattari attached importance to the territorial principle of the nomad but against defining the nomad as a movement, The nomad has a territory; he follows customary paths; he goes from one point to another; he is not ignorant of points (water points, dwelling points, assembly points etc.). But the question is what in nomad life is a principle and what is only a consequence… A path is always between two points, but the in-between has taken on all the consistency and enjoys both an autonomy and a direction of its own. The life of the nomad is the intermezzo (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987. By focusing on the boundaries and territory of the nomad, nomad reminds us of the issues of ethnicity. Rosi Braidotti, a contemporary continental philosopher and feminist theorist, who wrote Nomadic Theory (2011), addressed the network of power relations embodied in nomad, "looking for the ways in which otherness prompts, mobilises and allows for flows of affirmation of values and forces which are not yet sustained by the current social and historical conditions" (2013, p. 343). The bodily differences imply different degrees and levels of power and force of understanding. She suggested that we require us to look at the privilege of mobility and critically evaluate the centralisation and decentralisation of the power. Being nomad is being the minority as a new mode of existence.
Insofar, the nomadic pedagogy opens up the opportunities for students to learn in and outside schools, to learn in the eventful space, where "learning emerges as an imagined geography, bridging a reflection on social space and the social imaginary" (Fendler, 2013, p. 17). Connecting to the view of Tim Cresswell, a human geographer and poet, nomad is always attentive to place-making, signifying process and trajectories with mobility, "places do no have intrinsic meanings and essences… the meanings of place are created through practice" (2010, p. 17). In this way, nomad provides evidence of dynamic geographical learning. With the practice of mapping, cartographical tools, and place-making inquiries, the learners can better understand their positions and design the embodiment of learning and innovation practices.

Liminality
Liminal was coined as an anthropological term by Van Gennep in 1967, referring to rites of passage, such as marriage or coming-of-age rituals. In the sociology critique, liminal transitions dissolve social structures which regulate ordinary social interaction, removing limits from everyday life. As defined by the sociology critic Tom Boland, Liminality is not just a time of questioning and criticism but also a difficult time in which there are no particular standards for behaviour, a frightening, bewildering limitlessness; it is a moment in which society appears arbitrary and culture merely illusionary, a moment of touching the void. Nonetheless, again and again, meaning and structure return and prevail and are even refreshed and renewed by liminality (2013, p. 230).
Liminality obtains the potential of a learning space because it is transformative. It challenges the previous structures, unfolding a "period of reflection" (1967, p. 105) on the temporary custom and construction, which is remarkably shown during the Covid-19 pandemic, where the suspension of everyday "autopilot" stimulated lives to be (re)imbued with new values from heartfelt rather than mundane.
Sharing the same concern as Ronald Barnett, James Conroy (2004), an education philosopher, argued that the forces of consumerism and globalisation threatened the democratic society. Accordingly, he took liminality as a "heuristic metaphor", a critical approach to operating the in-between categories and spaces-the margins of society, calling attention to cultivating a sense of the liminal in order to let students adopt critical positions themselves (p. 60). To be precise, he believed literature, poetry, and the arts present liminal forms to "bring the student in her marginal state" (p. 163) and to encounter their own spaces in the world. Meyer and Land (2003) found that the difficulty in understanding threshold concepts may leave the learners in the liminal space in the project Enhancing Teaching and Learning Environment. They characterised the threshold concepts as transformative (significant shift in the perception of knowing), irreversible (unlikely to be forgotten or unlearned only by considerable effort), integrative (new integration of understanding, thinking and practising), and possibly often bounded and potentially troublesome. Therefore, the liminal space entails a conceptual and an ontological shift in the learners' subjectivities. It offers reference to teaching strategies and learning outcomes (Meyer & Land, 2003). In terms of this perception, how could the learners and teachers justify their positions when staying in liminal spaces?
Liminality produces clear emotional signals to the learners, so the answer to the question also embodies how the liminal space feels. On the one hand, the perception of psychological changes acts as critical evidence. As Meyer and Land (2005) discussed, when learners cross thresholds, the insights they gain could be captivating. However, it might also bring unsettling feelings and a sense of loss, demanding a change of subjectivity. Learners frequently gain the feeling of failure, defeat and loss of self-confidence ).
On the other hand, it is assumed that not actual spaces are considered sheer liminal spaces. Still, the orientation to regard certain conditions as a threshold could facilitate understanding how the dissolution of customary familiar ways of seeing and the formulation of new beliefs occur. By acknowledging the liminality, the learners are more willing to stay in the liminal space with patience. They will be more confident to resist the uncertainty, uncomfortable, and sense of loss. The creative potential generated in the liminal space will not be tapped unless held in that tension until crossing the threshold.

Rhythm
Rhythm inherits the affective potential to affect our body as a way to learn. Echoing affective bodies and affective learning mentioned in the previous section, Julian , a professor of Culture Studies and an author of Sonic Bodies, creatively proposed understanding the transmission of affect via the propagation of vibrations. In his words, "affect is expressed rhythmically-through relationships, reciprocations, resonances, syncopations and harmonies" (p. 58). We mobilise the body as a set of rhythmic relations (McCormack, 2013, p. 32). We can sense and grasp the rhythm through the open sensory, the intensities of feeling, the attentive eyes and ears, a head and a memory and a heart (Lefebvre, 2004, p. 36).
According to Henri Lefebvre, a French philosopher and sociologist in the 20th century, his educational critique originated from his critique of everyday life and the social production of space. For Lefebvre, rhythm is energy: "Energy animates, renders time and space conflictual" (Lefebvre, 2004, p. 60). Considering "human nature pedagogically reproduced in universities and schools", he raised the question of the pedagogy of body: "how to re-educated bodies for space?" (2014, p. 34).
In order to answer this question, we must situate ourselves both inside and outside of social life. To be precise, the paralleled relation and the distinctions between three social spaces are needed to clarify, which are perceived space (including the rhythm of social space and rhythm of body and nature), conceived space (abstract, mental and bureaucratic, the rhythm of which are linear, regular, and measurable), and lived space (unconscious, imaginary and symbolic dimensions of experience) .
Thus, rhythmanalysis helps to reframe our understanding of the body by how these three spaces attune with each other. Then, sensing the rhythm of these social spaces and people in everyday circulation indicates power placement (Allen, 2003). Almost at the same time when John Allen, a professor in Arts and Social Science, published his book Lost Geographies of Power (2003), Zygmunt Bauman gave an example of "mastery over time" in his book Liquid Modernity (2000). The managers perform power-by "immobilising their subordinates in space through denying them the right to move and through the routinisation of the time-rhythm they had to obey the principal strategy in their exercise of power" (p. 10). The workplace example can also be transferred to places of learning for noticing the contradictions in everyday practice and the knowledge power production.
Rhythm informs the learners to engage in everyday life and "to vivify the entire body with all its rhythms and senses" (Lefebvre, 2005, p. 35). As Lefebvre's "pedagogy of appropriation" suggests, teachers and students are supposed to engage in the collective critique of everyday life . Different speeds of animate movement spaces formulate the daily sense and knowledge. Critical pedagogy can take the rhythm as an embodied temporal perspective on learning social, cultural, and natural ecology. Being aware of the spatial-temporal rhythm allows us to foster sensitivity and make better conversations with the environment and ourselves.

Heterotopia
According to Of Other Space by Michel , the notion of heterotopia represents a certain kind of spatial comprehension for criticality (Hetherington, 1997). It is neither imaginary nor perfect as a utopia but problematises the received order and knowledge (Topinka, 2010, p. 56). It does also exist in real places. The Postman's Park ( Figure 5.) in central London serves as a real-world example to capture such kinds of spaces in urban. The name of this public garden originated due to its popularity as a lunchtime site with postmen from the nearby old General Post Office. However, the garden embodies the juxtaposition and combination of many spaces in one site and simultaneously produces heterogeneous meanings for the human body. The resting benches for a coffee break could shape space for a temporal body; the history of the civilian hero memorial could function as an experienced body; a tranquil terrain in-between the office buildings for mediation could be interpreted as offering space for a ritual body.  Vol. 11, No. 5;2022 nostalgia to perceive the privilege of taking control of the near future, in which the home is a heterotopia transaction.
Rather than taking the lockdown as an opportunity to create something new, people were actually nurtured to create heterotopias spontaneously. Such that the heterotopia home is taken as the rehearsal of imaginative reality. People would inevitably rationalise their identities on these controversial sites. The contradictions people encountered within the spaces enabled them to rethink the heterotopia. Heterotopia would position beyond "a site of resistance" but a learning space for criticality, adventure, experiment, and new possibilities.

Conclusion
As we live in uncertain times facing restless risk and crisis, there is an urgency to manage ourselves for autonomous learning. We teach ourselves, and at the same time, we teach others. The learners are supposed to take the body as an agency. The body not only works to make the learning happen but also biomediates the dynamic of new knowledge. By focusing on the learning creativity requested for contemporary university education (Barnett, 2020), the students should be aware of the multiple learning spaces that obtain the potential for innovation, transformation, and authentic becomings. In terms of the concern, this paper aims to provide insights into how to take our human bodies as an approach to recognise and manage the new potential learning spaces through the crisis epistemologies? Four typologies of learning space are analysed in this paper. The theoretical framework of summarising each space, with the characteristics for recognition, principles for management, and methods for creativity, are listed in Table 1. By mobilising these four abstract concepts around learning behaviours, the finding pushes the boundaries of learning transformation. It also contributes to the new ways of knowing, inspiring learners to re-vision the familiarities and changes around their daily experiences.