The Straits of Theory

• In Event: 45.057 - Odd Encounters: Other-Than-Conventional Relations in School

Abstract

Purpose
The paper asks what kind of theory might be useful for the Odd project and similar research that attempts to mobilise art and social science practices in straitened (ie narrowly confined) circumstances - such as those of contemporary schooling in the UK and elsewhere. It argues that theory’s contribution, like oddness itself, might be to carve straits or narrow passages between the inert masses of habit, history, policy and developmentalism that confine children’s experience and potential.

Theoretical framework
The paper turns to Deleuzian philosophy (Deleuze, 2004; Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) and speculative empiricism (Whitehead, 1978; Stengers, 2008) for forms of theory that are immanent to events. Rather than seeking to explain, critique, or contain events within more abstract conceptual frames, speculative theory attends to that which is ‘coming into existence’ (Stengers, 2008) in events, in order to effect change. Such theory is itself ‘odd’, at least from the vantage point of conventional qualitative methodology. Like many of the school behaviours that are judged (often pejoratively) as odd, such theory attends to the junk material and the marginalia that evade capture by language and rationality, such as sensation, rhythm, gesture, jokes, affect and atmosphere. It forms ‘unnatural nuptials’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987) across boundaries of human, nonhuman, actual, virtual, material and discursive. It is driven by interest and wonder (MacLure, 2013; Whitehead, 1978) rather than the urge for explanation. It resists externally imposed goals and use values.

Argument
Theory that is immanent to events has the capacity to augment the capacities of children, staff, parents and researchers to ‘counter-actualise’ (Deleuze, 2004) odd events from within, redirecting them toward less predictable outcomes. Speculative empiricism demands ‘precursive trust’, in order to enable a ‘jump with both feet off the ground into or towards a world of which we trust the other parts to meet our jump’ (James, cited in Stengers 2008: 44). But as Stengers argues, the jump with both feet also, paradoxically, never leaves the ground, since it is always situated in the specific priorities and contours of the ‘ground’ from which it departs. The paper discusses some empirical examples in which theory unfolded from the potentialities inherent in the example itself, offering the chance for a jump toward new possibilities for thought or action. However although the jump may be instantaneous, the cumulative effects of theory may be slow, immersive and erosive, imperceptibly forming straits between the solid masses that compose the status quo, even as it also enables the queer dynamics of the ‘line of flight’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987).

Data and mode of inquiry
The paper is primarily concerned with conceptual development. This is supported by data examples from a completed classroom ethnography.

Results and significance
The paper proposes modes of theory that avoid disciplining and explaining away oddness. It has ethical as well as methodological significance, in offering resources for troubling the settled habits of schooling by augmenting the capacities of those caught up in odd events to exploit their transformative potential.

Authors

• Maggie Maclure, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Kate Heron Pahl, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Steve Pool, Manchester Metropolitan University