Writing in Movement

• In Event: Writing Intensions in Post-Qualitative Educational Research

Abstract

Purpose: This paper focuses on how fieldnotes written to/from/in-between research sites produce intensities (ideas, thoughts, affects, memories) that may materialize in shifting the purpose of educational research (Lather, 2007; St. Pierre, 1997; 2011). It accentuates what happens to writing, when scholarship, in the form of fieldnotes, ‘moves’ from the privileged location of a university, to an inner-city location riddled with socioeconomic inequalities. In this paper, I consider writing as an ethical endeavour that treats language as more than representational (e.g., allegory, aphorisms) (MacLure, 2013) producing intensity as difference itself (Deleuze, 1994) through movement. I draw on the concept of intensities by Deleuze (1994) to animate a writing practice that escapes traditional conventions of writing as a clear and accurate representation of educational research (St. Pierre, 2011). Mobility is productive of ideas that may actualize through writing intensities creating new possibilities that otherwise would not be possible. I conclude that writing intensities can contribute to the re-framing of the purpose educational research as an ethical endeavor that aims to serve the lives of who have not been benefited by educational research so far.

Perspective: I draw on mobilities research, and literature focused on movement in academic writing. Watts and Urry (2008) argue that travel is a space of activity and fantasy. In education research, Ulmer (2017) has argued that movement infuses writing with creativity, making the emergence of different knowledge and ontologies possible. Cancienne & Snowber, (2003) have also argued that how an awareness on the body and dance influences their interpretation of educational research. Altogether, these scholars infuse the idea that moving through space changes writing practice, as it creates different sociomaterial conditions through which a writer engages with her fieldnotes.

Modes of inquiry: Fieldnotes are both a form of writing and a source of writing educational research (Brodsky, 2008). Instead of separating fieldnotes in the description of facts and personal perspectives, I merge them to observe the emergence of intensities through movement. I draw on my commuting experience by public transit in Vancouver to and from my research site as a place in movement.

Results: Fieldnotes written to/from/in-between research sites produces writing intensities – ideas, thoughts, affects, and memories – that offers a portrayal of difference and multiplicity that otherwise would be overlooked in my writing about diversity in early childhood education. This portrayal shows the potential that writing intensities has on stimulating the emergence of other ways of scholarly being.

Significance: Writing about the role of movement in research, and in fieldnotes as a scholarly writing, can contribute to a growing body of literature on post-qualitative approaches to educational research and writing (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2000; Ulmer, 2017). Looking at writing movement can make space in academic communities to validate writing as something beyond the confines of communicated evidence-based research: a writing that embraces singularity, heterogeneity, and transgression to contribute to a scientific knowledge that seeks difference and multiplicity (Deleuze, 1994).

Author

• Claudia Diaz-Diaz, The University of British Columbia