Laziness in Post-Qualitative Inquiry

• In Event: 29.082 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.082-8 - Work/Think/Play in Post-Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

There are practices that might bear little resemblance to research but might indeed be necessary for transforming research practices into becoming-inquiry. These practices could be playful (e.g., hiking), thoughtful (e.g., reading poetry), or work-based (e.g., practicing an interview in the mirror). The neoliberal imperative of modern academia cares little for such practice, fearful it slows down the processes of production. It cannot quantify, nor valorize some of these practices, because they do not contribute to processes of production in readymade ways. These practices are lazy. These examples are instantiations of lazy inquiry at the micro-level of practice. In this paper, I illustrate laziness as a behind-the-scenes virtue of post-qualitative inquiry, drawing on my own lazy practices from which collaborative methodological work emerged (see Colleague & Author, 2012; Author & Colleague, 2011; Colleagues & Author, 2011). I subject these lazy practices to analysis for their capacity to engender creativity and confront the neoliberal imperative of the corporate university. While friendly to the “slow” movement in higher education (Berg & Seeber, 2016), laziness brings a much needed political dimension to post-qualitative research.
Laziness is “political action that at once refuses and eludes the roles, functions, and significations of the social division of labor, and, in so doing, creates new possibilities” (Lazzarato, 2015, p. 246). From a broader methodological perspective, the lazy behind-the-scenes activity that proves essential to becoming-inquiry contributes to a broader political project congruent with the ontologically-driven foundations of post-qualitative inquiry that can confront the neoliberal imperative, which colonizes post-qualitative researchers into indebted human capital (Foucault, 2008; Lazzarato, 2012). I conceptualize laziness in the vein of Lazzarato’s (2015) refusal to work, Lafarge’s (2013) dogma of work, and Duchamp’s readymades/work avoidance (Molesworth, 1998). Each looks to lazy activity as responses to capitalist ascription of being based on work. Such subjectivation inhibits the social justice commitments of post-qualitative inquiry, particularly those aligned with posthumanist philosophy that engender greater equity and equality across onto-epistemological knowings (Braidotti, 2013; Esposito, 2008) and confront the biopolitical project of neoliberalism.

Author

• Ryan Evely Gildersleeve, University of Denver