Diffractive Methodology and Critique in Educational Research

• In Event: 69.049 - Critical Posthumanism and Diffractive Post-Qualitative Methodologies

Abstract

Critical research (in education) is centrally concerned with forms of domination that prevent the opening up of conditions of freedom (Foucault, 2007) or of becoming (Deleuze). While a diffractive methodology is posed as an alternative to critique by Barad (Dolphijn & Van der Tuin, 2012), its value and potential for critique is dependent on the ways issues of power and freedom are addressed. This paper aims to show that a diffractive methodology is not the alternative to, but an essential element of critique. Ontologically the phenomenon of diffraction refers to the ambiguity of reality as illustrated by the natures of light (Barad, 2007). Methodologically diffraction reveals the multiplicity of reality and the ‘agential cuts’ through which reality becomes determinate (Barad, 2007). Diffraction allows the researcher to see how the subject/apparatus/object converge as a posthuman agent that performs reality through particular agential cuts. A diffractive research methodology tunes into the ontology of diffraction in order to gain an understanding of the effects of agential cuts, and to intervene responsibly in anthropocenic cuts. Anthropocenic cuts refer to the powerful interventions of the posthuman (nonhuman, hybrid, cybernetic) agent who, for example, constructs heterogeneous educational practices where the student is posited as a consumer of a commodified curriculum. Posthuman agents are much more powerful than their human counterparts since they are intermingled with technologies and forces of nature. In education they often shape particular kinds of subjectivities within the alienating context of neoliberal ordering. The anthropocenic agent has caused increased human suffering and environmental degradation. It also renders the educational subject an exploitable human resource. It is therefore important to investigate how the posthuman agent could accept responsibility for the ethical becoming of being. The ethics of becoming is related to the ways freedom/power are enhanced through the expansion and intensification of affects in the process of becoming (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). The ethical responsibility of the posthuman researcher entails the evaluation of the effects of agential cuts. A diffractive methodology is a valuable instrument for the critical posthuman educational researcher since it reveals multiplicity and indeterminacy by showing how a ‘dominant’ and ‘homogeneous’ reality is the effect of contingent assemblages (Callon & Latour, 1981). It also shows how reality could always be cut differently. Furthermore, it opens avenues for the kinds of intervention that could make a difference. Critique is, however, not only about differences that matter since they do not all matter in the same way. Critique is rather concerned about those differences where power becomes domination. While diffraction performs reality as multiple, the performative (Callon, 2007) side of critique performs a reality (brings about those agential cuts) where ethics, power and freedoms could come together.

Author

• Dirk Postma