37dialectical thinking. Soja explains that, for Lefebvre, ‘[t]here is always the Other, a
third term that disrupts, disorders, and begins to reconstitute the conventional binary
opposition into an-Other that comprehends but is more than the sum of two parts’
(p. 31). He describes Lefebvre’s response to either/or binaries ‘by choosing instead
an-Other alternative, marked by the openness of the both/and also’ (p. 7). Although
rarely attributed to either Soja or Lefebvre, the language of ‘both/and also’ is fre-
quently invoked in teacher education research in what may be read as the critical
thirding of familiar binaries such as university/school and theory/practice.
Soja enacts various examples of critical thirding, even challenging epistemologi-
cal perspectives such as modernism and postmodernism that otherwise appear to be
‘incompatible, uncombinable’ (p. 6) binaries. Elsewhere, critical thirding of the
Firstspace of the ‘real’ material world versus the Secondspace of ‘imagined’ repre-
sentations of spatiality creates a Thirdspace of ‘real-and-imagined places’ (p. 6).
Even Bhabha’s hybridity is offered up by Soja as an example of thirding-as-
Othering, providing as it does an-Other alternative to the unenviable choice between
indigenous-oppressed-other and assimilated-homogenous-colonised (see Soja,
1996 , pp. 139–145).
Whereas Bhabha’s third space emerges to account for an identity which might be
described as neither first nor second space, Soja’s (and Lefebvre’s) Thirdspace pro-
duces an-Other alternative which is inclusive of both. Furthermore, where hybrid
subjects inexorably find themselves in Bhabha’s third space, Soja’s Thirdspace is
intentionally created via ‘a creative process of restructuring that draws selectively
and strategically from the two opposing categories to open up new alternatives’
(p. 5). According to Soja ( 1996 ), embracing the third space of cultural identity is a
kind of ‘chosen marginality’ since it ‘explicitly challenges hegemonic historiogra-
phy’ (p. 140). Despite these differences, the interest that Bhabha and Soja share is
disrupting the hegemonic assumptions that underpin binary thinking, by highlight-
ing (Bhabha) and creating (Soja) alternative spaces and perspectives.
Gutiérrez’s Third Space of Dialogue
Despite writing about the third space at a similar time as Bhabha and Soja, Gutiérrez
et al. ( 1995 ) invoked the term to describe yet another related but distinctly different
phenomenon. While Soja explicitly addressed the relationship between his
Thirdspace and Bhabha’s third space, Richardson Bruna ( 2009 ) observes that
Gutiérrez claimed to have had no knowledge of Bhabha’s invocation of either ‘third
space’ or ‘hybridity’ as its defining feature when she too began to use both terms in
order to theorise an aspect of classroom dynamics which is essentially concerned
with knowledge and power. In fact, Gutiérrez ( 2008 ) tracks the development of her
own third space metaphor over time.
Grounded in Bakhtinian notions of ‘dialogic meaning and social heteroglossia’
(Gutiérrez et al., 1995 , p. 446), Gutiérrez’s third space refers to the ways in which
teachers and students can share knowledge and power, in order to challenge
3 Theorising the Third Space of Professional Experience Partnerships