This study aims to critically explore how professional identities of immigrant non-native English-speaking (NNES) teachers in Australia evolve over time and how these processes can be conceptualised through Hybrid Relational Onto-Epistemology (HROE). The paper seeks to decentre anthropocentric knowledge paradigms in qualitative research by incorporating Eastern and Western epistemologies within a processual and relational approach. By examining how professional identity is shaped by lived experiences, relationality and spatial-temporal entanglements, the study contributes to advancing qualitative methodologies that embrace fluidity, multiplicity and ethical co-emergence in qualitative research.
This article introduces HROE, an evolving qualitative research methodology that interweaves four vectors: temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. HROE reconfigures qualitative inquiry by integrating insights from an extensive body of literature and a long-term empirical study employing hermeneutic phenomenology and narrative inquiry. It examines how immigrant NNES teachers in Australia shape their professional identities through lived experiences over time. HROE responds to the call to decentre anthropocentrism by running Eastern onto-epistemologies—Jñana Vidya, Marifat, Mohism and Zhishí Lilùn—and Western philosophies of becoming and differentiation through the four vectors. This approach produces a decentred, processual understanding of knowledge and identity formation, offering a methodological alternative to Western-centric, human-centered paradigms. HROE demonstrates how these concepts unfold iteratively through the four vectors, generating relational creativity, iterative self-overcoming and ethical co-emergence as emergent epistemic forces. By applying HROE to narrative data, this paper illustrates how NNES teachers co-construct professional identity as an ongoing, co-emergent process, shaped by the dynamic interplay of temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. It foregrounds how diverse lived experiences continuously reshape ethically attuned professional development, advancing a transversal and embedded methodological orientation that embraces becoming as fluid and differentiation as relationally situated. In doing so, HROE fosters practical and philosophical tools to reimagine relational ontologies in qualitative research, where knowing and being unfold as intertwined, rather than separate, domains.
Findings reveal that NNES teachers' professional identities are co-constructed through processual and iterative engagements with temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality. The study highlights how diverse onto-epistemic methods elucidate the evolving nature of professional becoming, shaped by affective and institutional entanglements. Teacher professionals actively negotiate linguistic hierarchies, cultural expectations and policy structures while constructing cosmopolitan English teaching identities. The application of HROE demonstrates that professional identity formation is not linear but an emergent, co-constitutive process that unfolds across multiple, intersecting spaces—both material and digital—challenging static models of teacher development.
While this study advances HROE as a methodological alternative for qualitative inquiry, its findings are contextually situated within the experiences of NNES teaching professionals in Australia. Future research should apply HROE across diverse professional contexts to explore its broader applicability. Additionally, methodological engagement with Indigenous and African epistemologies could further enhance its decolonial and transversal potential. The study invites qualitative researchers to rethink knowledge production beyond Western paradigms, advocating for ethically engaged, relational and processual approaches in professional identity research.
This research provides educators, policymakers and teacher educators with insights into how NNES teachers construct and negotiate their professional identities within evolving educational milieus. The study underscores the importance of mentorship, intercultural pedagogies and professional networks in fostering inclusive and cosmopolitan professional identities. By applying HROE, teacher education programs can shift from standardised, competency-based models to more fluid, relational and transformative approaches that recognise the affective, embodied and spatial-temporal dimensions of professional development.
By challenging linguistic hierarchies and anthropocentric research paradigms, this study contributes to broader discussions on social justice and equity in education. It highlights the systemic barriers that NNES teachers face and how relational, embodied and affective engagements can foster more inclusive educational spaces. The research underscores the need for policies that value multilingual and transnational expertise in teacher recruitment and professional development. HROE offers a methodological lens for reimagining knowledge production, emphasising ethical co-emergence, relational creativity and diverse ways of knowing in educational research.
This study introduces and operationalizes HROE as a novel methodological approach for qualitative research. By integrating Eastern and Western epistemologies, it decentres anthropocentric paradigms and provides a relational, processual alternative to dominant research methodologies. The study contributes empirical and theoretical insights into how NNES teachers construct professional identities through lived experiences. It advances qualitative methodologies that foreground relationality, temporality, spatiality and embodied materiality—offering a valuable orientation for researchers seeking to move beyond static, Western-centric paradigms in educational and professional identity research.
Introduction: addressing human-centrism in qualitative research
At the heart of this article is the development and articulation of Hybrid Relational Onto-Epistemology (HROE) as both a conceptual and practical response to anthropocentric limitations in qualitative research. We offer HROE not as a prescriptive or fixed model, but as a fluid, iterative and relational methodology—anchored in situated, culturally expansive and affectively attuned inquiry. Our aim is twofold: first, to theorise HROE as a methodological alternative that decentres human exceptionalism through interconnected, ethical and transversal ways of knowing; and second, to empirically demonstrate its generative potential through the lived narratives of immigrant non-native English-speaking (NNES) educators in Australia. We argue that HROE enables ethically grounded, affectively entangled and contextually responsive research practices that reconfigure professional becoming beyond Western-centric frames. While grounded primarily in Eastern philosophical traditions, HROE remains in dialogue with broader non-Western epistemologies. This work is animated by an ethical accountability to the intellectual lineages we draw upon, foregrounding relational rigor over extractive synthesis. In this paper, we focus specifically on its Eastern inflections, while recognising that future work may extend the conversations through more sustained engagements with Indigenous and Southern knowledge systems.
Qualitative methodologies have transformed educational research by challenging positivist paradigms that reduce human experience to measurable outcomes. Instead, they foreground temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality—rooted in Merleau-Ponty's (1962) notion of la chair (the flesh), which captures the entanglement of embodiment and materiality—and relationality (Stolz, 2021; Nigar, 2020; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024; St. Pierre, 2019; van Manen, 1990). In this framing, temporality refers to how meaning unfolds across time; spatiality speaks to the affective and material dimensions of place and learning environments; embodied materiality emphasises the inseparability of bodily and material experiences; and relationality foregrounds knowledge as co-constituted through interdependence and ethical connection. Nevertheless, despite these advancements, qualitative research often remains deeply anthropocentric and implicitly-centric, limiting its epistemic scope (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Braidotti, 2013; Patel, 2016; Smith, 2022). This Eurocentric emphasis continues to marginalise alternative knowledge traditions and sustains narrow, human-centred epistemologies that fail to engage more plural, ecological, or relational understandings of being and knowing.
Importantly, many non-Western knowledge systems never positioned the human as sovereign or central to knowledge production in the way that Enlightenment humanism has (Smith, 2022; Patel, 2016, 2022). Decentring the human, then, is not a tokenistic act of inclusion but a deep methodological and ontological repositioning rooted in the logic and lived praxis of these traditions. Where Cartesian dualism constructs knowledge as disembodied and separable from relational or material contexts, non-Western traditions approach knowledge as relationally emergent—arising through interconnectedness among human, more-than-human, spiritual and ecological entities (Smith, 2022; Patel, 2016; Nakata, 2007; Nasr, 2007). Thus, HROE is not an external application of these views but an orientation that reconceives subjectivity as relational and situated.
Reconfiguring knowing: Western critiques and relational shifts
Patel (2016) critiques educational research's entanglement with colonial logic, arguing that it continues to reinforce epistemic hierarchies that dictate what counts as legitimate knowledge. Similarly, Smith (2022) illustrates how Indigenous methodologies challenge Western-centric knowledge systems, reclaiming epistemic spaces that privilege relational, embodied ways of knowing. Extending such critiques, Biesta (2015, 2019) highlights how evidence-based epistemologies reproduce the hierarchies by reducing inquiry to technical measurement, neglecting ontological and ethical dimensions. Biesta (2015, 2019) argues that instrumentalist paradigms prioritise utility over relational meaning-making, treating knowledge as extractable rather than emergent. Likewise, anthropocentric logics reinforce reductionist assumptions, isolating humans from their socio-material entanglements. Collectively, the perspectives urge a reconsideration of qualitative research, embracing its emergent, co-constitutive character and eschewing fixed paradigms.
While the critiques highlight the epistemic limitations of dominant research paradigms, their impact is particularly evident in educational and professional contexts, where knowledge is often framed through mechanistic, outcome-driven models that prioritise efficiency over relational engagement (Fenwick et al., 2015; St. Pierre, 2013). Conventional methodologies privilege objectivity and standardisation, reinforcing Cartesian dualism between mind and body, theory and practice, and human and non-human actors (Biesta et al., 2019; St. Pierre, 2013). This binary logic reduces learning and professional development to discrete inputs and outputs, detaching them from the relational, material and affective conditions in which they unfold (Nigar et al., 2024b). The limitations are most noticeable in professional standards and educational policies, where curriculum, standardised assessments, and accreditation models serve as regulatory mechanisms that put efficiency and compliance ahead of relational knowledge-making, becoming-centered. Instrumentalist perspectives reinforce the notion of learning as a linear, measurable process, rather than recognising it as a fluid, co-emergent phenomenon embedded in temporal, spatial and embodied entanglements (Hopwood, 2010; Kemmis and Hopwood, 2022; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). Addressing the limitations requires a shift toward relational, processual methodologies, recognising education and professional learning as affective, ethically situated practices rather than systems of measurable transactions (Deleuze and Guattari, 1994; Nigar et al., 2024d). This includes digital platforms and online networks, which—when viewed through an HROE lens—can be understood as relational assemblages of affect, time and space, co-producing knowledge and subjectivity beyond instrumentalist frames (Bayne, 2015; de Freitas and Sinclair, 2023; Nigar et al., 2024d).
Challenging entrenched epistemic hierarchies, posthumanist and process-oriented philosophies offer compelling alternatives to anthropocentric and instrumentalist frameworks. Scholars such as Braidotti (2013) and Massumi (2021) advocate for fluid ontologies that foreground becoming, relationality and ethical participation. While the traditions share a commitment to decentring the sovereign human subject, they diverge in their treatment of subjectivity and ethics—Braidotti's (2013) posthuman nomadic subject emphasises embodied materialism and affective interdependence, whereas Deleuze's (1994) ontology of becoming centres multiplicity and difference as irreducible, generative forces. HROE draws from both, not to unify them, but to enact a situated, transversal practice of inquiry grounded in the ethical tensions between difference, relation and co-becoming. This is extended through Western relational philosophies that explore the intersubjective nature of experience (Husserl, 1982), the ontological condition of being-with (Heidegger, 1962) and the hermeneutic dimensions of understanding through interpretive iteration (Gadamer, 1975; Ricoeur, 1981), illuminating how temporality, spatiality and embodied materiality (Merleau-Ponty, 1962) shape educational and research experiences. Yet, Western thought alone cannot fully address the limitations of anthropocentrism. To cultivate a precisely relational and transversal approach to qualitative inquiry, it is imperative to engage with non-Western epistemologies that foreground interdependence, relational ethics and onto-epistemic multiplicity.
Relational dialogues: hybridising knowledge traditions
Crucially, Eastern and Indigenous traditions offer already decentered ontologies that challenge the anthropocentric foundations of dominant research paradigms (Smith, 2022; Patel, 2016, 2022). Far from being cultural supplements to Western thought, the traditions embody foundational logics that resist human exceptionalism, instrumental rationality and disembodied knowledge. Traditions such as Jñāna Vidyā (Vedantic wisdom, Shankara, 1980), Marifat (Sufi experiential knowledge, Nasr, 2007), Mohist relational ethics (Fraser, 2016) and Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Confucian harmony, Feng, 1948) reject the autonomous subject and dualisms between knowing and being, self and world. They emphasise interconnection over individualism and foreground entangled co-becoming among human and non-human actors. For instance, Jñāna Vidyā posits the unity of Atman (self) and Brahman (universal being), while Marifat highlights the ethical interplay of intuition, perception, action and affect. The perspectives do not simply “decentre the human” conceptually—they reconfigure the very conditions under which knowledge, subjectivity and ethical relationality are constituted. In this way, HROE enacts a transversal reworlding of inquiry—not tokenistic diversity.
Although this iteration of HROE foregrounds selected concepts from Eastern traditions, it is designed as a dialogic, relational methodology open to being shaped by further engagement with Indigenous, African and other non-Western relational philosophies. Rather than treating the traditions as metaphysically interchangeable, we foreground their onto-epistemic tensions as productive frictions. These frictions are not dissolved but dialogically engaged, allowing HROE to inhabit an ethic of methodological becoming. For example, Vedantic non-dualism (Shankara, 1980) posits an ultimate unity of being through Atman-Brahman alignment, while Mohist relationalism (Fraser, 2016) centres ethical impartiality and social accountability in everyday relations. HROE does not homogenise the positions but brings them into a dialogic encounter where their tensions and resonances shape methodological becoming. Rather than treating the diverse philosophical traditions as seamlessly integrable, HROE embraces relational hybridity—an approach that foregrounds relational tensions and ontological dissonances as sites of epistemic creativity (Bhabha, 1994; Massumi, 2021). In this framing, contradiction is not treated as philosophical incoherence but as a generative space of dialogic becoming, where competing worldviews are held in tension without forced synthesis. Such a stance aligns with Deleuze's affirmation of difference as productive (Deleuze, 1994) and resists the universalising tendencies of Western metaphysics (Braidotti, 2013).
Premised on relational creativity—the dynamic, interconnected process of meaning-making where ideas, experiences and perspectives continuously evolve through interaction rather than existing as fixed or isolated entities (Massumi, 2021)—it interweaves post-humanist concepts (Deleuze, 1983, 1994) and hermeneutic phenomenological perspectives (Heidegger, 1962, Gadamer, 1975). HROE bridges Western relational philosophies—including intersubjectivity (Husserl, 1982), Mitsein (Being-with) (Heidegger, 1962), narrative inquiry (Ricoeur, 1981; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000), and Becoming, Differentiation and Desire (Deleuze, 1983, 1994)—with non-Western epistemologies such as Jñāna Vidyā, Marifat, Pramāṇa Śāstra, Mohism and Zhīshí Lǐlùn. Engaging temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality (Merleau-Ponty, 1962; van Manen, 1990), HROE challenges anthropocentrism through a relational and transversal approach to inquiry, conceptualising knowledge traditions as interconnected and self-evolving onto-epistemic constellations (Bhabha, 1994).
Through the vectors of temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality, HROE offers an alternative approach to qualitative research—one that decentres the human and foregrounds interconnected, becoming-centred knowledge production. It challenges static methodologies by emphasising dynamic, iterative and ethically attuned inquiry. Crucially, this ethical orientation arises not from abstract universalism but from grounded engagements across diverse philosophical traditions. Drawing on Gadamer's (1975) fusion of horizons, Merleau-Ponty's (1962) embodiment, Jñāna Vidyā’s intuitive knowing (Shankara, 1980) and Marifat's affective cognition (Nasr, 2007), HROE foregrounds epistemic and ontological emergence without collapsing cultural specificity. In doing so, it reimagines qualitative research as a fluid, co-generative practice—a methodological becoming shaped by dialogic hybridity and entangled relationality.
Informed by the philosophical engagements, HROE emerges as a lived stance, taking shape through situated, dialogic encounters with data guided by affect, ethics and co-becoming. The following section outlines how the commitments translate into a relational, iterative inquiry design.
Onto-epistemic commitments and methodological design
Building on these conceptual commitments, we ask: how can non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) come to know themselves as teachers in ways that defy linear, singular and static models of professional development? In doing so, we draw on empirical material from a three-year study with 16 migrant English language teachers in Australia.
This paper aims to demonstrate how HROE can decentre anthropocentric and Western-centric paradigms in qualitative research. By hybridising Western and Eastern knowledge traditions, HROE expands the onto-epistemic repertoire available to researchers, offering cross-cutting, affective and generative modes of inquiry. Rather than a sealed or finalised model, HROE is presented as an evolving invitation—an open, ethical methodology that invites scholars to reconfigure how research is imagined and enacted. We position HROE not as a fixed synthesis but as a transversal and pluriversal approach: one that crosses knowledge traditions while respecting their ontological specificity. Grounded in Eastern philosophical traditions yet aspiring toward a pluriversal horizon, HROE is guided by a transversal ethics of movement—valuing relationality across difference without collapsing epistemic distinctions.
The discussion that follows illustrates how HROE can be operationalised through four key vectors—temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality—drawing on empirical narratives from a three-year hermeneutic phenomenological and narrative inquiry study (Gadamer, 1975; van Manen, 1990; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) with 16 immigrant English language teachers in Australia. The teachers, often referred to as NNESTs, use English as an additional language and frequently navigate structural inequities within English-dominant education systems. The NNEST concept, originally developed to contest the native-speaker fallacy (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2019, 2024), foregrounds the hybrid, translingual and epistemically generative positionalities of multilingual educators who challenge monolingual norms and enact relational, transversal pedagogies. This study explores how educators negotiate professional identity through temporal, spatial and affective entanglements. It examines how NNES teachers co-construct identity through iterative tensions shaped by cultural traditions, with HROE framing these contradictions as vital to co-emergence. The conclusion revisits the problem of human-centrism, highlighting HROE's openness and proposing future directions that engage with Indigenous, African and other relational ontologies beyond East–West binaries.
The empirical material presented in this paper draws from a three-year narrative inquiry project with 16 immigrant, multilingual English teachers in Australia (see Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). Data included long-term interviews, written reflections, informal dialogues (email, messaging apps) and shared planning documents. Analysis followed an interpretive, relational and iterative process shaped by hermeneutic phenomenology (Gadamer, 1975; van Manen, 1990), narrative inquiry (Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) and the HROE developed in this study. Rather than traditional coding, meaning emerged through dialogic, embodied encounters with the data and participants, where analysis was guided by temporal, spatial, affective and ethical entanglements (van Manen, 1990). This interpretive stance acknowledges data not as fixed representations but as co-constructed, affective events that reveal the becoming of professional identities.
This paper reconceptualises qualitative research as an affective, iterative and processual endeavour that decentres endeavor and the human by foregrounding relational creativity, interconnected knowledge production and ethically generative action. Moving beyond reductionist paradigms, it embraces variation, complexity and socio-material entanglements, recognising the co-constitution of human and non-human actors (St. Pierre, 2013; Nigar et al., 2024b). In doing so, it aligns with the special issue's call to resist anthropocentric biases and advance transformative, relationally embedded research practices.
HROE: conceptual foundations
This paper introduces HROE—an unbound and evolving approach to qualitative inquiry. Rooted in relational creativity—a dynamic, interactive process where meaning emerges through engagement rather than fixed constructs (Massumi, 2021)—it accumulates posthumanist thought (Deleuze, 1983, 1994), hermeneutic phenomenology (Husserl, 1982; Heidegger, 1962; Gadamer, 1975; Ricoeur, 1981; van Manen, 1990) and narrative inquiry (Ricoeur, 1984; Clandinin and Connelly, 2000) with Eastern onto-epistemologies, including Jñāna Vidyā (Shankara, 1980), Marifat (Nasr, 2007), Mohism (Fraser, 2016) and Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948). By cultivating an ever-evolving dialogue within and beyond the traditions, HROE deepens the exploration of relationality, temporality and ethical engagement in research and education.
Eastern traditions offer foundational insights into relational knowledge production, ethical practice and the fluidity of meaning-making. Jñāna Vidyā (Shankara, 1980) conceptualises knowledge and being as inherently intertwined, asserting that knowing is an ongoing process of becoming. By rejecting dualisms that separate intellectual inquiry from lived experience, this perspective positions education as a co-constitutive process in which theoretical knowledge and practice continuously shape one another. In contemporary digital and multilingual teaching contexts, educators actively connect new theoretical concepts with lived experience to cultivate dynamic, responsive learning environments (Nigar et al., 2024a).
Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948), grounded in Confucian and Taoist traditions, emphasises ethical relationality, reciprocity and collective responsibility in education. In the context of professional identity formation, this epistemology reimagines mentorship as a dialogic, co-constructive process rather than a hierarchical transfer of expertise. For instance, when a native English-speaking (NES) educator mentors a NNES colleague, both individuals expand their linguistic, cultural and professional competencies at the intersection of relational agency and solidarity, thereby challenging conventional mentorship structures (Peeler and Jane, 2005; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). This approach fosters ethical engagements in which knowledge production emerges through relational interdependence rather than unilateral imposition.
Marifat (Nasr, 2007), drawing from Sufi traditions, embeds self-reflective inquiry with embodied, ethical and spiritual epistemologies. Knowledge creation is positioned as an introspective and ethically charged journey. In applied professional contexts, educators engaged in translanguaging and embodied storytelling negotiate meaning, identity and agency in ways that foster relational engagement and self-reflective teaching practice (Nigar et al., 2024a, b).
Mohist impartiality (Fraser, 2016) reinforces HROE's commitment to fairness and equitable access in educational spaces. This framework resists hierarchical and exclusionary norms by amplifying marginalised voices, particularly in linguistic and cultural discourse (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership AITSL, 2017). By actively challenging assimilationist policies and linguistic homogenisation, Mohist principles counteract structural barriers that disproportionately impact multilingual educators (Udah and Singh, 2019).
Taken together, eastern traditions emphasise relational knowledge, ethical engagement and dynamic meaning-making, positioning education as a co-constitutive process (Shankara, 1980; Feng, 1948). Jñāna Vidyā, Zhīshí Lǐlùn, Marifat and Mohist impartiality challenge hierarchical structures, cultivate reciprocal mentorship, incorporate self-reflective inquiry and resist exclusionary norms to promote equitable learning (Nasr, 2007; Fraser, 2016).
Building on the Eastern insights, Western traditions—including phenomenology, hermeneutics, postmodernism and posthumanism—enrich HROE's engagement with temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality, offering deeper ontological and epistemological dimensions to its framework. Husserl's (1982) phenomenology foregrounds intersubjective meaning-making, emphasising that knowledge is constructed through lived experience and collective engagement. Heidegger's (1962) concept of Mitsein (Being-with) further underscores the ontological entanglement of existence and knowledge, positioning relationality as central to meaning-making. In digitally mediated learning environments, where presence and engagement transcend geographical constraints, the perspectives offer vital insights into hybrid professional identity formation (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2025).
Gadamer's (1975) hermeneutic philosophy conceptualises understanding as an iterative dialogue between traditions and present contexts, reinforcing the dynamic and co-constructive nature of interpretation. Ricoeur (1981) extends this notion through narrative inquiry, demonstrating how storytelling serves as a vehicle for self-reflection, identity negotiation and meaning-making. In educational contexts, the insights reveal how reflective storytelling facilitates the reconstruction of professional identities through dialogic engagement. Merleau-Ponty's (1962) focus on embodiment and spatiality adds further depth, illustrating how learning environments are dynamically shaped through the material, affective and sensory interactions (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2019).
Postmodern and posthumanist theories challenge static identity models, conceptualising becoming as a relational and continuous process. Nietzsche's (1883/1974) will to power (der Wille zur Macht) and Deleuze's (1994) theory of differentiation reject essentialist understandings of identity, reframing desire as a generative force that drives transformation. Nietzsche's concept of self-overcoming (die Selbstüberwindung) and Deleuze's repetition-with-difference illustrate how educators actively reshape their professional identities by negotiating institutional constraints, rather than passively conforming to them.
For instance, an educator facing structural marginalisation may include translanguaging, intercultural storytelling and affective pedagogies to resist dominant paradigms. This process aligns with Marifat-inspired professionalism (Nasr, 2007), which foregrounds critical self-reflection and dialogical encounters as key mechanisms for hybrid identity formation. Such practices embody ethical engagement, as they enable educators to cultivate emergent, fluid professional identities in response to shifting institutional landscapes.
HROE's hybrid relational onto-epistemological engagement with temporal, spatial, embodied-material and relational entanglements reveals how knowledge, identity and interaction unfold across hybrid spaces (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). Eastern epistemologies, such as Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948) and Marifat (Nasr, 2007), emphasise the ethical and intangible dimensions of temporality and spatiality, urging educators to consider their relational impact beyond immediate interactions. Complementarily, Western phenomenology reinforces the perspectives through Husserl's (1982) intersubjectivity, Heidegger's (1962) temporality and Merleau-Ponty's (1962) embodiment of space. The insights are particularly relevant in hybrid professional becoming (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2025), where power relations, agency and affect intersect. This is especially critical for NNEST educators, who navigate the intersections of race, culture, language and gender, drawing on lived experiences to exercise agency and build solidarity. Through professional learning networks and collaborative engagements, NNEST educators amplify their agency and cultivate cosmopolitan English teaching identities. Digital platforms like Google Docs enable cross-temporal collaboration, enhancing accessibility, while Zoom facilitates real-time affective interactions, transforming learning environments. By transcending traditional constraints, hybrid professional spaces foster relationally attuned, ethically driven professional development, empowering marginalised educators and enriching global English language teaching.
Precisely, HROE advances a holistic and integrative methodological approach that bridges Eastern and Western epistemologies to reconceptualise relationality, temporality, and ethical engagement in research and education. By drawing on Jñāna Vidyā, Zhīshí Lǐlùn, Marifat and Mohism alongside phenomenology, hermeneutics, poststructuralism and posthumanist thought, HROE establishes a structured, processual attuned lens that resists static methodologies. This interdisciplinary fusion enables researchers and educators to critically shape their professional practices while responding to the evolving complexities of global educational landscapes. HROE offers a transformative vision for modern education by fostering principled, flexible and generative qualitative inquiry through its emphasis on discourse, fluidity and ethical engagement.
Illustrating HROE: research process and identity formation
At this point, we illustrate HROE through empirical insights from a long-term study on 16 immigrant NNESTs in Australia, employing hermeneutic phenomenology and narrative inquiry (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). Focusing on seven educators, the study examines how they reconstitute their professional identities as cosmopolitan English teachers, practising hybrid professional becoming (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024, 2025) beyond the NEST–NNEST binary through multifaceted digital and in-person interactions. Their trajectories were shaped by four key vectors of lived experience—lived-time, lived-space, lived-embodied-materiality and lived-relationality—which mediated their agency, affect and professional transformations (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024; Nigar et al., 2024d). Through relational and transversal engagements, HROE propels agency, critical reflection and affective encounters, supporting knowledge co-creation, mentorship and solidarity. Digital platforms like WhatsApp and Zoom functioned as relational assemblages, enabling emergent connections, affective exchanges and professional experimentation, amplifying agency and imagination in the face of structural constraints.
The researcher's entangled positionality underscores identity work as a co-emergent process, reinforcing relational, ethical, phenomenological and interpretive orientations (van Manen, 1990; Nigar, 2020; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). By embracing relational ontologies and decentring human-centrism, the study frames professional identity formation as hybrid, interconnected and dynamically evolving, pressing for inclusive, egalitarian and affectively attuned hybrid educational practices. This reframing of professional becoming foregrounds ethical relationality and solidarity-driven epistemologies, challenging dominant paradigms and expanding the scope of cosmopolitan pedagogical engagement.
This study adhered to the ethical guidelines of the relevant university ethics committee and received approval on May 6, 2019 (Project ID, 19107).
Temporality: how HROE embraces fluid and iterative processes in identity formation
Temporality here is marked by discontinuities, ruptures and affective shifts. HROE refuses temporal flattening by tracing how migrant educators inhabit multiple, at times conflicting, temporalities that resist neat sequencing, as explored by Hopwood (2010) and Nigar et al. (2024b). Rather than following a linear trajectory, identity formation emerges through temporal negotiations where educators navigate institutional constraints, cultural paradigms and affective investments. Through narrative inquiry, reflective writing and asynchronous dialogues, teachers engage in critical self-examination, making sense of the affective, spatial and power-laden dimensions of their professional becoming (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024).
Teachers' reflections on collaborative planning and co-teaching reveal the complexities of navigating cultural and professional differences. Janaki, a program leader for refugee/migrant students, identified gaps in institutional support, recognising how neoliberal and native-speakerist discourses often obscure the emotional and practical struggles of refugee learners. This realisation prompted her to rethink her professional role beyond conventional teaching:
I am now looking at even leaving the Program Leader role if given an opportunity, and being a full-fledged teacher. I want to explore other venues for teaching, perhaps cultural training to people in other sectors. In my role, I have come across people working in organizations who are quite unaware of what it means to be a refugee and how it is different from being a migrant. (Janaki)
Her reflection signals a temporal rupture in institutional logic—a recognition that professional identity is not merely conferred by formal titles but actively negotiated through relational commitments and responsibilities, Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948). By shifting her professional trajectory, she envisions herself as an intercultural facilitator, expanding the temporal and spatial layers of her educational impact to challenge entrenched monolingual, cultural and moral norms (Nigar et al., 2024a). This fluid, conscientious involvement with professional identity aligns with Eastern philosophies of self-cultivation and relational becoming.
Like all other NNESTs, Laura grapples with imposter syndrome and ambivalence at the intersection of race, language, culture and gender (see Nigar et al., 2024a). Her evolving self-concept as a global English teacher reflects this ongoing negotiation:
I have always been a fan of World Englishes. I respect each language but love English as a universal language connecting every individual.
Yet, despite embracing a cosmopolitan vision of English teaching, she remains trapped in a temporal loop of self-doubt, shaped by deep-seated hierarchies of native-speakerism across post-colonial spaces—the Philippines and Australia:
I think, I will always consider myself as a non-native, striving to improve and be better—like others who are very effective and seasoned in this profession. … I lost my confidence when I stepped into Australia. (Laura)
This duality—the desire for professional fluidity yet the internalisation of linguistic hierarchies—reflects the temporal ambivalence of identity formation, where educators oscillate between self-empowerment and structural constraints. Like Janaki, Laura envisions herself as “just an English teacher” without any “tag” attached, signaling a shift in how she conceptualises professional identity. Her narrative aligns with Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) insights on narrative inquiry, which outline the relational and ethical dimensions of identity formation. As refugee students navigate English learning, employment and settlement challenges, the reflections underscore the need for trauma-informed, relational teaching that facilitates student well-being and engagement.
Heidegger's (1962) notion of temporality as an ontological dimension emphasises how human experiences unfold within structures of power that shape relational interactions. Similarly, Jñāna Vidyā (Shankara, 1980) frames learning as an evolving interplay between knowledge and being, rejecting dualistic separations between intellectual understanding and lived experience. This philosophical grounding helps illuminate how educators engage in meaning-making across digital spaces.
Asynchronous tools such as Google Docs, emails and WhatsApp provided a reflective space that extended beyond immediate interactions, allowing educators to iteratively engage with their professional dilemmas (Nigar et al., 2024a, 2025). The platforms supported ongoing critical reflection, enabling teachers to trace patterns of constraint, resistance and transformation over time. Rather than being mere communication tools, they facilitated an evolving dialogue that resonated with the fluid and entangled nature of learning itself.
Becca articulated how this process reinforced her professional identity and enabled her to reconfigure her role beyond deficit-based NNEST discourses:
Reflecting on my practice as an English language teacher in Australia was one of the main reasons I participated in this study. It’s helped me to organize my thoughts and reaffirm my belief that there is room for all kinds of teachers at English language schools. (Becca)
Her engagement with asynchronous reflection through attuned writing practices allowed her to navigate her hybrid professional identity, bridging linguistic and cultural paradigms. Through critical self-examination beyond the immediate classroom, she reaffirmed her identity as a capable English teacher, resisting socio-historical categorisations shaped by native-speakerism (Holliday, 2006; Nigar et al., 2024b). This iterative self-construction reflects the interwoven nature of temporality and identity formation, reinforcing Husserl's (1982) notion of intersubjective meaning-making, where professional becoming emerges through relational entanglements across time.
This reflective practice underscores how relational temporality nurtures professional agency, enabling educators to refine their teaching approaches while embracing cosmopolitan identities that challenge rigid linguistic hierarchies. By intertwining narrative inquiry with reflective practice, educators navigate the temporal and spatial layers of professional becoming, foregrounding relationality, principled involvement and affective presence. Integrating Eastern and Western temporal perspectives—Zhīshí Lǐlùn's conscientious relationality (Feng, 1948), Jñāna Vidyā’s embodied knowledge (Shankara, 1980) and Heidegger's being-in-time (1962)—this study underlines how identity negotiation unfolds within power structures, affective histories and institutional expectations. Rather than a linear trajectory, professional becoming emerges through cycles of reflection, disruption and transformation, reinforcing the fluid and iterative nature of hybrid professional identity formation.
Spatiality: how HROE explores the decentred nature of contexts and interactions
Teachers' reflective narratives reveal how professional identity formation unfolds across digital, geographical, online and offline spaces. In this view, spatiality is refracted through tensions—between belonging and estrangement, emplacement and exclusion. Rather than treating these tensions as problems to be resolved, HROE recognises them as productive generative forces in professional becoming. Grounded in Mohist impartiality (Fraser, 2016) and posthuman ethics (Braidotti, 2013), HROE fosters holistic professional environments that value fluid, interconnected and ethically attuned modes of learning. Re-encountering spatiality here involves surfacing contradictory pedagogical geographies—where migrant educators both navigate and remake onto-epistemic spaces. HROE foregrounds such contradiction as a dialogic method.
Empirical data highlights the principles in action, revealing how educators navigate identity formation through both in-person interactions and digital engagements. Platforms such as Google Docs and WhatsApp serve as collaborative spaces that extend professional dialogue, amplifying collective potential (power of action) and ensuring diverse voices are valued. The digital tools do not merely facilitate communication but become integral to the iterative process of self-reflection and professional development. As Laura reflects,
I enjoyed looking back, and seeing how I have grown in the profession and here in Australia. I got a better understanding of who I am professionally. I have realised how intimidated I was at the very beginning and how I have improved as a teacher.
This reflective practice embodies Mohist fairness (Fraser, 2016), Confucian harmony (Feng, 1948) and affirmative ethics (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Braidotti, 2013), reinforcing multiplicity and professional development within hybrid spaces of teaching and learning (Nigar et al., 2024d). While this perspective intersects with Gadamer's (1975) hermeneutics, Ricoeur's (1981) narrative identity theory and Clandinin and Connelly's (2000) narrative inquiry, it extends beyond a purely narrative or hermeneutic account. Instead, relational ontologies foreground professional identity as an emergent, co-constituted process shaped by affective, material and institutional entanglements, emphasising dynamic interactions rather than fixed interpretations.
Mahati reflects on the intersecting influences shaping her professional identity:
Other external factors—my workplace, which includes my manager, coordinator, my colleagues (in the AMEP department and other departments), the office staff, the volunteers, other centre users, and my students. The other factors could be the professional development I’m constantly engaged in—meetings and workshops at Melbourne Polytechnic; conferences organised by the professional organisations that I’m a member of, like VALBEC and VICTESOL; webinars, Twitter chats, and Facebook. (Mahati)
The digital spaces are not merely communicative tools but operate as affective and epistemic assemblages (de Freitas and Sinclair, 2023; Bayne, 2015; Nigar et al., 2024d), enabling situated relationality across asynchronous, multimodal and culturally diverse terrains. From an HROE perspective, they are unfolding nodes of becoming—sites where knowledge, identity and practice are co-constituted through interaction, materiality and affect. Mahati's narrative highlights how becoming professional extends beyond the classroom into digital, institutional and transnational networks. Her experience, shaped by her hybrid linguistic and cultural background as an NNEST, becomes a site of intensive epistemic negotiation—where belonging, identity and knowledge co-emerge in situated and relational ways (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2025). This process aligns with Mohist ethical impartiality (Fraser, 2016) and Confucian relational harmony (Feng, 1948), both of which foreground collective accountability and reciprocal learning. Through this lens, HROE decentres fixed subjectivities and reshapes professional learning as dialogic, pluriversal and affectively entangled—anchored in ongoing processes of becoming.
Jasha's professional trajectory similarly reveals how teachers navigate linguistic and epistemic boundaries, often engaging in self-directed learning beyond prescriptive models: “I had to make sure my English wasn't just the textbook English we were made to learn”.
Her reflection signals a departure from rigid curriculum-driven modes of professionalisation, embracing experiential and relationally informed approaches to teaching. This process resonates with Deleuze's (1994) concept of becoming, where professional identities are continuously reshaped through differentiation and adaptation rather than passive assimilation.
Both narratives demonstrate how professional identity is relational, fluid and emergent across multiple, intersecting spaces. Whether through peer mentorship, institutional learning, or digital collaboration, Mahati and Jasha's experiences affirm that professional formation unfolds through conscientious participation, affective resonance and collective becoming.
The knowledge assemblages' iterative and emotive qualities are in line with Vedantic wisdom (Shankara, 1980) and Marifat (Nasr, 2007), connecting scientific and heavenly insights to foster group professional approaches. Such interactions capture the principled and relational entanglements of professional work, developing accessible, dialogic spaces for professional and personal development.
Nietzsche's (1883/1974) self-overcoming and Deleuze's (1994) differentiation as repetition with variation mark the transformative potential of relational spaces. Rather than being confined by dominant structures, educators mobilise desire as a catalyst for change, challenging static professional categories. This fluidity is evident in intercultural mentorship, where Laura described it as “positive, honest, and motivating,” and Natalie as “responsive, affinitive, empowering.” Here, NES educators mentor NNES colleagues while also learning from their cultural and linguistic expertise, reinforcing reciprocal, attuned professional identities that disrupt hierarchical mentorship models.
The temporal, spatial, embodied-material and relational vectors of HROE's conceptualisation shape how knowledge, identity and interaction unfold across hybrid spaces (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2025). Eastern traditions such as Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948) and Marifat (Nasr, 2007) emphasise the ethical and, in Marifat's case, intangible dimensions of time and space, urging educators to reflect on their presence and actions across multiple dimensions. Western phenomenology, particularly Husserl's (1982) intersubjective relationality, Heidegger's (1962) temporality and Merleau-Ponty's (1962) embodiment, further elucidate how digital tools mediate embodied and material dimensions of professional practice.
Asynchronous platforms, like Natalie's reading of Professor Suresh Canagarajah's work on “The Politics of English Teaching and linguistic imperialism”, enhance temporal accessibility in English education. Meanwhile, synchronous tools, such as Professor Kate Burridge's Zoom webinar on World Englishes, where Mahati learnt that “there is no standard English”, foster real-time affective engagement. This dynamic learning is also evident in Jasha's online teaching of offshore students during COVID. Together, the hybrid approaches transcend traditional constraints, integrating diverse experiences into ethically attuned, relationally emergent professional development.
Mohist impartiality (Fraser, 2016) disrupts hierarchical norms by bolstering diversity in teacher professional standards (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership AITSL, 2017). It counters the tall poppy syndrome (Udah and Singh, 2019), where immigrant teachers' transnational expertise is scrutinised rather than valued. Mahati's experience illustrates this: “She has a big head … My God, you Indians, you are very smart. You just want to go go go.” Such remarks reinforce racialised constraints on professional mobility, reducing innovation to perceived arrogance (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). By rejecting assimilationist norms, Mohist impartiality promotes equitable recognition, ensuring professional identity is shaped by merit rather than conformity.
Broadly, by distinguishing Eastern epistemologies (Jñāna Vidyā, Zhīshí Lǐlùn, Marifat) from Western traditions (hermeneutics, narrative inquiry, posthumanism), HROE reinforces a fluid professional identity. This interdisciplinary approach deepens engagement with temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality, reinforcing connective enactment and collaborative accomplishment (Kemmis and Hopwood, 2022). Rejecting fixed methodologies, it embraces affirmative experimentation, cultivating heterogeneous, reflexive spaces where professional identities continuously evolve.
Embodied materiality: how HROE reconfigures the material and embodied in inquiry
Embodied materiality involves frictions between dominant bodily norms and lived difference. HROE foregrounds these frictions as epistemic sites where migrant educators negotiate professional legitimacy through discomfort, hybridity and refusal. The data illustrates that professional identity is not merely cognitive but emerges through an interplay of embodiment and affect—shaped by gesture, posture, voice and affective resonance. Teachers' narratives reveal how institutional and material contexts mediate this process, embedding professional becoming within everyday bodily and affective engagements. As Green and Hopwood (2014, p. 49) observe, “Professional practice consists of speech (what people say) plus the activity of the body, or bodies, in interaction (what people do, more often than not together)—a play of voices and bodies”. These embodied enactments are also affective, charged with the emotional labour of navigating linguistic legitimacy, institutional recognition and relational belonging (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024).
Jasha's reflections exemplify how embodied materiality intersects with professional transcendence. Initially an English teacher, she later expanded her practice to pre-employment education, emphasising job-seeking skills, resume writing and workplace culture (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2019).
This “part” of my life is heavily “Australianised,” as you can imagine. (Jasha)
Her statement underlines how institutional norms dictate professional legitimacy, reinforcing Mahati's experience of having to affirm the validity of her Australian English vis-à-vis ASE—not just in terms of language use but as a marker of professional recognition.
The accounts reveal how linguistic embodiment and institutional discourses regulate professional recognition, reinforcing native-speakerist hierarchies (Holliday, 2006; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). However, Mahati disrupts such exclusivist norms, asserting, “But I'm Australian too now”, challenging the monolithic framing of linguistic legitimacy.
Eastern traditions, such as Zhīshí Lǐlùn (Feng, 1948), illuminate committed and sustainable relationality in professional practice. Reciprocity and mutual accountability underpin mentorship and professional co-construction, as evident in Raphael's reflections:
I just did a Zoom meeting earlier today … and she was asking questions, and she wanted to know, she wanted to understand. That’s the kind of student that motivates you.
His association embodies Confucian moral practice, where relational care proliferates professional and pedagogical development. Similarly, Husserl's (1982) intersubjectivity reinforces how relational co-presence shapes hybrid professional identity. Raphael's investment in student learning, even through digital spaces, reflects an embodied ethic of care.
Embodied materiality also manifests in asynchronous professional dialogues, demonstrating how professional becoming is relationally generated across material-discursive environments. Teachers' iterative, reflective exchanges—whether through in-person mentorship or mediated discussions—shape their professional and teaching approaches. Natalie, for instance, was inspired by her NEST colleague, Tanya's storytelling techniques, which she described as a bridge between migrant students' past and present experiences:
Tanya showed me how storytelling could bridge gaps for migrant students, linking their lives in Australia to their experiences in their home countries. It changed how I approached student engagement. (Natalie)
Tanya reciprocated by crafting digital storytelling, acclimatizing non-linear flow and multimodal expressions that heightened affective connection. The reciprocal processes, akin to Deleuze and Guattari’s (1983) desiring-production, exemplify professional reinvention as educators mobilise affect and embodiment to reshape professional practices-cum-becoming (Green and Hopwood, 2014; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024).
Jasha's assertion— “COVID opened a new door for me … This is ‘my’ program, I developed it, and I'm very happy with how it goes”—reinforces Nietzsche's self-overcoming (1883/1974). Her shift towards employment-focused education exemplifies agency through professional multiplicity, negotiating institutional constraints while advancing professional hybridity, amplifying agency and producing imagination to be a cosmopolitan teacher of English.
I am well aware of the “English” of the world and always stress that it’s often the usage in different parts of the world, rather than what a grammar book says, that matters. (Jasha)
Her emphasis on translingual pragmatism and cosmopolitanism contests linguistic racism and promotes intercultural professional identity formation (Dovchin, 2019; Nigar and Kostogriz, 2019).
The demand for a singular, native-like accent in Mahati's class—“I want to learn Aussie”—illustrates the persistence of native-speakerism, reinforcing exclusionary linguistic hierarchies (Holliday, 2006). Yet, Mahati's counterstatement, “But I'm Australian too now”, reclaims professional agency, challenging the discourses through an assertion of her professional self. This exchange illustrates how embodied materiality materialises in professional identity work through the experience and application of agency, where linguistic and embodied performances are scrutinised, contested and reconfigured in relational spaces.
HROE provides a malleable yet robust lens for analyzing the entanglements, drawing from Eastern and Western epistemologies. Teachers' professional adaptations—whether through scrupulous relationality (Zhīshí Lǐlùn, Feng, 1948), intersubjective presence (Husserl, 1982), or desiring-production (Deleuze and Guattari, 1983)—illustrate embodied materiality as an ontological and onto-epistemic process. This study contributes to the conversation on hybrid professional becoming by breaking down static professional categories and proving that professional identity, teaching practice and knowledge production are all fundamentally relational, affective and material.
Relationality: how HROE decentres qualitative methodology through relationality
Relationality emerges through paradox—between visibility and silence, solidarity and precarity. HROE sustains these tensions without collapsing them, treating relationality as an uneven terrain of ethical co-becoming. Findings show that relational ethics in education intensify diversity, affinity and interdependence. Grounded in Mohist impartiality (Fraser, 2016) and Taoist interdependence (Feng, 1948), the principles promote affective care and mutual relationality. Educators disrupted some NEST-NNEST hierarchies, engaging with students, colleagues, monolingual curricula, policy frameworks (e.g. SAE-focused standards, Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership AITSL, 2017) and socio-political discourses. Native-speakerism—the privileging of native English speakers in teaching (Holliday, 2006)—alongside teacher accountability and performativity discourses (Kostogriz, 2019), shaped the negotiations. The research process itself became a space for identity transformation, as participants critically engaged in reflective and affective negotiations, reshaping professional practice and diversity.
The data manifest how relationality in NNEST identity formation unfolds across temporality, spatiality, embodied materiality and relationality dimensions. The primacy of affect played a crucial role in shaping professional identity beyond digital engagement. For instance, Quang's critical and relational agency reflections highlighted how affective encounters with students shaped his teaching philosophy. His assertion that “‘nativeness’ is irrelevant in language teaching” marked a critical departure from essentialist binaries and aligned with decolonial critiques of linguistic hierarchies (Pennycook, 2022). His professional stance evolved through networked interactions, lived language learning experiences and role modelling drawn from his English teachers in Vietnam—“I imitated what my own teachers had done in class” (Quang). Institutional discourses on English proficiency and professional networks both validated and constrained his expertise. He reflected on his ambivalent professional identity, stating,
Sometimes I get the feeling that my opinion is not as valid as another teacher’s. And then that’s very subtle, and I can’t say that that’s because of how I look like.
This tension underscores how relationality operates within the broader structures of native-speakerism and institutional gatekeeping, shaping NNESTs' navigation of professional multiplicity.
Similarly, relationality in identity formation extended beyond professional learning to socio-political and institutional structures. Janaki's engagement with migrant/refugee education demonstrated how affective encounters, interwoven with her lived experiences as a migrant NNEST, amplified agency and engendered imagination, necessitating sensitised accountability.
She noted,
There are organisations out there that have got resources to help newly arrived refugees, but it is a matter of tapping into them. I can see myself exploring those resources and helping students learn English in a less stressful manner. (Janaki).
This marks relationality in professional identity formation as a continuous negotiation with institutions, extending affirmative involvement beyond teacher-student interactions to policy, funding and activism shaping marginalised learners' access to education.
Further, spatial and material relationality played a significant role in identity reconfiguration. Natalie's reflections on integrating intercultural storytelling into her curriculum exemplified how NNESTs dynamically navigated as hybrid professional spaces through embodied, affective and onto-epistemic investments. She remarked,
I incorporate migration stories in my lessons—not just my own but also those of my students—to show that English is not a singular, monolithic thing but a space of many voices. (Natalie).
Her professional becoming was mediated not only through relational intensifications with students but also through material artefacts such as multilingual texts, students' lived narratives and cultural hegemony around English language teaching. This aligns with Heidegger's (1962) notion of being-in-the-world, where professional identity is shaped by an educator's entanglement with their environment, discourse and material conditions.
Moreover, interactions with non-human others—such as curricular frameworks, standardised assessments and accreditation policies—also shaped NNEST identity trajectories. For instance, Becca's engagement with professional standards revealed the tensions between institutional requirements and her professional values. She reflected,
Being able to reflect on my practice as an English language teacher in Australia was one of the main reasons I decided to participate in this study. It’s helped me to organize my thoughts and reaffirm my belief that there is room for all kinds of teachers at English language schools.” (Becca).
Professional identity formation extends beyond interpersonal processes, intertwining with a single language variety—SAE—alongside its cultural and epistemological foundations, regulatory structures, assessments, and evolving English teaching policies in Australia. Becca's experience exemplifies how HROE situates relationality within institutional, epistemological and material dimensions.
While digital platforms supported relational engagement, Raphael's mentoring extended beyond online spaces to in-person discussions and collaborative teaching projects (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2019). He valued students “motivated with a direction to get somewhere,” such as one from Afghanistan aspiring to be a kindergarten teacher. Emphasising that “motivation is the key to learning”, he framed professional identity as a “deeply relational, iterative, and situated process” where teachers “get to know students … as people, not just as students”.
By centering relationality beyond digital spaces, this study underscores the principled and onto-epistemic significance of co-emergent professionals becoming (Nigar et al., 2024c). Findings show that relational obligation—through affective encounters, material conditions and policy landscapes—shapes equitable and all-encompassing identity development (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). HROE provides an evolving yet robust approach for co-constituting knowledge, navigating ethical dilemmas and challenging structural barriers to disrupt hegemonic norms while enhancing hybrid professional practices.
Conclusion: decentring the human in qualitative research
The evolving terrain of qualitative research necessitates methodologies that move beyond anthropocentric constraints, embracing interconnectedness, affective multiplicity and fluid identity formation. HROE contributes to this shift by offering a non-linear approach that incorporates relational, ethical and transdisciplinary approaches to inquiry. By interweaving Eastern and Western epistemologies, it cultivates reflexive, accountable and holistic research spaces that embrace the entangled nature of knowledge production and its intrinsic ontological interconnectedness. Rather than reinforcing static research paradigms, HROE engages iterative knowledge practices that foreground relational multiplicity across time, space, embodied matter as central to qualitative inquiry (Nigar et al., 2024d). HROE refuses closure. Instead, it extends transversal invitations—calls to play, remix, listen otherwise and imagine knowledge-making beyond institutional containment. These are not fixed routes but relational detours, where educators and researchers co-compose ethical futures-in-motion.
Empirical examples illustrate how HROE's methodological contributions decentre human exceptionalism, situating knowledge within intensive, processual, co-emergent spaces. Mahati's engagement in professional networks and peer learning exemplifies how digital, institutional, embodied interactions and narratives of lived experiences shape professional becoming, reinforcing solidarity and conscientious attunement. Likewise, Janaki's mentorship experience underscores the significance of relational agency, differentiation and self-overcoming (Nietzsche, 1883/1974; Deleuze, 1994) in navigating systemic constraints and supporting ethical, cosmopolitan engagements. The narratives illustrate how HROE reconfigures research spaces through spatial and temporal entanglements, recognising both synchronous and asynchronous interactions as legitimate sites of knowledge co-creation (Nigar and Kostogriz, 2024). Digital learning environments are similarly constitutive, acting as affective, spatial and epistemic assemblages that extend professional becoming and knowledge co-production across modalities and temporalities (Bayne, 2015; de Freitas and Sinclair, 2023; Nigar et al., 2024d). Whether through reflective writing, storytelling, or intercultural mentorships, HROE underscores how professional and research practices, along with identities, are fluid, co-constituted and continuously shaped through relational entanglements rather than being predetermined.
HROE's cosmopolitan scope is capacious—it welcomes Indigenous, African and other wisdom traditions not as tokens, but as co-authors in the generative reworlding of inquiry. Concepts such as Jukurrpa (The Dreaming) and Country articulate land as a living, interconnected entity, where knowledge is rooted in ancestral relationships and responsibilities (Nakata, 2007). Practices like Dadirri (deep listening) (Ungunmerr-Baumann, 2002) and Ganma (Yunupingu, 1994) enable reciprocal learning between Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, while African philosophies such as Ubuntu (Tutu, 1999) and Maaya (Diawara, 1998) foreground ethical interdependence and collective knowledge creation. Gurri (Martin, 2008) further emphasises knowledge as relationally co-constructed through land, kin and community, closely aligning with HROE's commitment to inclusivity and affective, place-based inquiry. Against the grain of methodological orthodoxy, HROE reimagines qualitative research as an act of dreaming forward—fluid, fugitive and unfinished. It is not a fixed method but a movement attuned to disjuncture, refusal and the hopeful labour of epistemic difference. In this spirit, HROE improvises across terrains—braiding decolonial mentoring, community-rooted storytelling, speculative theorising and land-based pedagogies. It invites us to dwell in uncertainty, to co-become with others and to compose other worlds. Its productive potential lies in making space for epistemic difference, rather than reducing complexity to compliance or singularity.
Ethics approval statement
This study received ethical approval from the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee (MUHREC) on May 6, 2019 (Project ID, 19107), titled “Non-native English Teachers in Australia: Storying Professional Identity,” in accordance with MUHREC guidelines.
