Beyond disbelief: A confession of religion, technology and academic conceit

My professional life has been built on taking a position of apostasy, or the rejection of belief, toward many if not all of the major articles of faith within the fields of literacy studies, teacher education, and instructional technology. I justified my stance and my research practices through my reading of Pierre Bourdieu's analysis of the relation between belief and practice, and was successful for many years in getting published in top academic journals. My disbelief was shaken, however, after a trip to a university in Morocco and subsequent efforts to bring students in the US and myself into direct exchange with Arab/Islamic culture. These experiences provide the basis for re-examining the efficacy of apostasy as an epistemological stance, and through the critique of Jacques Rancière speak to the power of intimacy, empathy, and redefined forms of believing and belonging as paths of insight into one's own and others' cultures.