Post-qualitative line of flight and the confabulative conversation: a methodological ethnography

Abstract

This paper is a methodological ethnography aiming to highlight the difficulties in using conventional methods in connection with an explorative philosophy; Deleuze and Guattari’s. Taking an empirical point of departure in conversations about the future with students in upper secondary school, the struggle to find a scientifically valid label through the focus group interview is outlined. However, combining the particular philosophy with a conventional qualitative method turned out to be an impossible aim since the ideals of the focus group interview departures in the image of stable subject simultaneously as the method is blemished by positivistic language and standards. By turning to post-qualitative research, which encourages new concepts and methods, the confabulative conversation was produced. Within these confabulative conversations, the aim has been to create a methodologically smooth space in order to enable movements beyond manifested knowledge in favor of the virtual and the not-yet-seen, and thus producing possibilities for something new.

Keywords:

• post-qualitative research
• Deleuze and Guattari
• virtual
• confabulative conversation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. These three batches contained in total 13 conversations (first and second batch five conversations each, and the third three) and 45 students.

2. The material handed out contained different quotations about the future, but also humorous drawings and comic strips. The aim of using such a material was to highlight that the students, although still being in school, were part of a different context regarding expectations on content format, etc.

3. “Thinking with Deleuze” is a phrase used in this article with inspiration in, for example, Mazzei and McCoy (2010). “Thinking with” contrasts the image of thought that runs “through” a philosophy, in which the thoughts are regarded as manageable instruments, by focusing on its productive and open potential.

4. According to Richardson and St. Pierre (2005), the writing is seen less like a product and more as a way to facilitate a movement within the material, keeping it alive as an assemblage in connection to the other components in the study (as in Jackson & Mazzei, 2012).

5. St. Pierre (1997a) invents what she calls transgressive data, which includes sensual, emotional, and dream data.

6. This example is also used in Johansson (2014).