Presence, absence, and spatial relations: An Interactional Ethnography of physical-virtual field-based learning through a sociomaterial lens

Field-based learning has been central to ecology education in supporting scientific inquiry and connecting learners with nature. However, pandemic-era campus closures have renewed debates regarding the role of virtual and immersive experiences. This Interactional Ethnography (IE) of a university-secondary school initiative in Hong Kong employs a sociomaterial lens to trace field-based learning interactions within and across physical and virtual spaces. Metaphors from social topology guided analysis of an ethnographic archive of classroom and field-based video records, learning artifacts, and interviews. Our analysis surfaces how and in what ways organisms act as agents in providing an essential anchor and recurring motif within and across interactions, contexts and settings in the enacted field-based design. While their ‘absence’ in the classroom and virtual environment constructs a sense of authenticity through the flickering metaphor of fire space, the material and semiotic resources in the field enable fluidity, opening possibilities for multiple, often serendipitous forms of relations, presences and dialogues that support diverse forms of knowledge and learning. By positioning field-based learning as varying sociomaterial assemblages centering on natural materials, we reconsider physical-virtual binaries and propose their designs as entangled human and non-human spatial relations that recognize and elevate the agency of natural materials.