Thinking with Deleuze in qualitative research

Abstract

This special issue that we are calling, ‘Thinking with Deleuze in qualitative research’, presents writings from qualitative researchers across various disciplines and contexts who are attempting to work with these new analytics and practices made possible through their engagement with Deleuzian concepts and processes. These researchers engage epistemological questions and try out methodological practices inspired by thinking with Deleuze in qualitative research. In response to our call for proposals, contributors to this issue are using or thinking with the philosophical concepts and processes of Deleuze, not focusing on them in the abstract, but instead engaging the implications of those concepts and processes for research methodology and ethics in educational research.

Keywords:

• Deleuze and Guattari
• qualitative research
• methodology

Notes

1. See Scheurich and McKenzie (2005) for a similar critique that they level against those who similarly ‘use’ Foucault.

2. The word ‘maps’ here presents a bit of a problem for thinking with Deleuze. Deleuze and Guattari (1980/1987) distinguish between the map and the tracing, as explained in the following section of this introduction. Lather's meaning here more closely corresponds to what Deleuze and Guattari call tracing.