In 1977 the Sex Pistols declared that there is “no future”. Today, the state of our world is more perilous than ever and the Sex Pistols seem to have been right. We are living in a crisis-ridden world dominated by a neoliberal order that does not seem to be capable of offering appropriate and reasonable responses. This order also dominates thinking and practices within education, where an unquestionable commitment to evidence-based policies and practices rule. Education is thus contributing to and “mirroring” (Rorty, 1979) this order, rather than looking for alternative ways to engage with research and practice that can contribute to social change. The ruling order is based on ‘taken for granted assumptions’ about a world “that can be ‘governed by numbers’” (Mills, 2018). The neoliberal order has resulted in a crisis of “what works” (Biesta, 2020) in education and beyond. It would be understandable to assume that there is no alternative to the neoliberal deadlock.

Education, however, can be a driving force behind social change if researchers and practitioners are willing to rethink their views on the purpose of education and the nature of their practices through engaging in direct actions that contribute to alternative futures. In this paper, I introduce a novel boundary-crossing futures forming practice for education researchers and practitioners termed “punk ethnography” as one possible way of contending with a crisis- ridden world. I suggest punk ethnography as a method, a practice, that allows for an interruption of this order, for the possibility of imagining alternative futures and supporting social change. Punk ethnography should thus not be understood as an ethnographic approach that focuses on the punk subculture. It is a practice that applies elements of anarchist and punk philosophy, thereby making use of ethnographic strategies. This practice is conceptualised around three components: an anarcho-syndicate, a punk ethos and a postdisciplinary approach that allow for researchers and practitioners, together, to interrupt the neoliberal order, to create alternative futures and contribute to social change in the present.

 Punk ethnographic work also involves asking ontological questions and making normative judgements about what constitutes a good life. Relationality, interconnectedness and solidarity are the fundamental values that underpin the formation of alternative futures presented here. This perspective requires a shift from “learning about the world in order to act upon it, to learning to become with the world around us” (Common Worlds Research Collective, 2020, p. 2), whereby we can imagine plural futures, created in the present.

My arguments are centred around the idea that binary thinking in and about education research and practice is putting limits to and constraints on the educational work we do and the alternatives we can create. Instead, I argue for “boundary-crossing collaborations” (Couture et al., 2020, p. 2) between research and practice, one of the agenda points of UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative launched in 2019 (UNESCO, 2019). Punk ethnography offers a conceptual framework as well as a practical toolkit to (re)orient ourselves in relation to the field of education and to society more broadly through boundary-crossing work across disciplines and fields. As the method emerged and continues to develop from my own research in collaboration with a secondary school in Hong Kong, I use vignettes of my work with them to illustrate how the components of punk ethnography are put to work.

Instead of limiting itself to critique, a punk ethnographic practice supports the possibility of developing not only alternative ways of doing education, but alternative ways of being.

A lot of the work presented in this paper is of conceptual and exploratory nature, as is necessary when developing new ways of thinking and doing. Yet, through vignettes of and connections with my own research with one secondary school, out of which punk ethnography developed, I attempt to make punk ethnography tangible through providing examples of how it can be put to work.

Education is a highly complex and troubled field that I have been active in for a substantial period of time now, in various roles, across continents. On bad days, I mainly see crises, caused by the neoliberal paradigm that has got education in a deadlock. On those days, I easily slip into pessimism and find it hard to see alternatives. Yet, on good days, I see possibilities and it was on one of those good days that I came across a podcast by sociologist Stephen Ball who made a bold case for the importance of scholars to “engage in small acts of resistance” (2020, n.p.), to not give in and to battle against that which we have become. None of this work is easy, as the challenges and tensions described throughout this paper have shown. These challenges are not exclusive to education, but exist elsewhere. The role of scholar is the latest addition to the list of educational roles I have taken up, yet I do not stop being a teacher, student, practitioner. Each role adds layers to the other roles and traversing the boundaries between them creates more possibilities. We are multitudes and therefore, we always have the potential to see and create alternatives. In this paper, I lay out how punk ethnography can be applied as a method, a futures forming practice for any researcher and/or practitioner who wishes to contribute to social change in education, but also beyond. This paper is also an invitation to try and experiment with punk ethnography in different contexts, to further shape it, conceptually as well as practically, and - ultimately - to shape alternative futures.

Ball, S. (2020). The sociology of education policy. Retrieved from https://soundcloud.com/eetheducationesearcher/the-sociology-of-education-policy-stephen-ball Biesta, G. (2020). Have we been paying attention? Educational anaesthetics in a time of crises. Educational Philosophy and Theory. DOI:10.1080/00131857.2020.1792612 Common Worlds Research Collective (2020). Learning to become with the world: Education for future survival. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374032 Couture, J.C., GrØttvik, R., Sellar, S. (2020). A profession learning to become: the promise of collaboration between teacher organizations and academia. Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000374156 Mills, M. (2018). Educational research that has an impact: ‘Be realistic, demand the impossible’. Australian Educational Researcher. 45, 569–583. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press. UNESCO (2019). Futures of Education. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/futuresofeducation/