The focus of this article is adult learning theory and the concept of 'communities of learning'. Drawing on the authors' experiences as educators, it offers a critique of liberal-humanist and critical ideas about pedagogy, and draws on feminist poststructuralism to disrupt notions of 'dialogue', 'community'and 'difference'. The aim is to interrupt critical pedagogies through recognition of partial knowledges, exclusionary practices, and differences and similarities within learning communities. The article argues the need for an understanding which acknowledges both the universal and the particular, and engages with the discursive and the material realities entailed