Nexus Analysis

Nexus analysis is an approach to discourse analysis that critically examines action, bodies, materials, and spaces to reveal how unspoken expectations produce taken-for-granted ways of using bodies and things in a place. These seemingly benign actions that "everyone just knows" how to do signal who gets access and who is able to belong within a particular group. Nexus analysis can unpack how literacy practices contribute to a nexus of practice's patterns of inclusion and exclusion. Literacies include a wide range of meaning-making that goes beyond books and print to include all kinds of creative production such as photos, films, live-action, play, dance, music, art-making, social media, and more. Tools for nexus analysis enable micro-macro examinations that map how expectations materialize in a moment of action through the well-worn ruts that shape our everyday interactions.