With Murmurations and Motherhood

Weaving together starling murmurations, indigenous methodologies, new materialist rhetorics, and stories of community-engaged research and motherhood, this article is part theory and part reflection. I reflect on how my experiences as a mother not only impactmy roles as researcher and writer but enhance them and show me aspects of those activities I could not otherwise have seen. Sitting with these reflections alongside starling murmurations, I theorize how the rhetorical concept of becoming can give community-engaged researchers insight into how we might engage continuously and reciprocally with our research partners. In addition, I theorize that engaging in research through becoming can lead to research practices that embrace the unknown futures of our research and communities while doing what we can to recognize our effect on those futures.