The commitment of research: reading-writing as openness to the new

Abstract

I respond to the provocation of this issue focusing on the action [reading] to theorize it in its openness to what is not present, as the texts are never present to be read. Using the Derridian quasi-concepts of trace and specter, I understand “reading” as a long exercise of responding to the otherness of the text. I defend that it is necessary to refuse the representational tradition of reading, to continuously deconstruct the metaphysical colonial legacy of what does it mean to read. Mostly, I argue that this process requires more and not less readings of what one seeks to deconstruct—a long preparation that is the research-event.

Keywords:

• Research
• event
• reading
• trace
• specter

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Among the “key points about the post qualitative inquiry,” as summarized by St. Pierre (2019), are those that include “the best preparation for post qualitative research is reading theory and philosophy” and “from reading come philosophical concepts that don’t represent reality but reorient thought” (p.14).

2 See Patton & Protevi (2003); Cunniff (2007); Patton (2003) among others.

3 I take the liberty of using the hyphenated reading-writing that I bring in this text, replacing the Derridian term writing (ecriture), with which the author intends to escape the dichotomy between writing and speech.

4 Although the term “epistemicide” is more recurrent in the literature, we have preferred gnosecide, understanding that gnosis concerns different types of knowledge. The very choice of the term “epistemicide” “reduces, disqualifies, or demeans the knowledge of otherness, based on a given model” (Azevedo-Lopes, 2021, p. 74) of science or episteme.

5 Although the debate on the possibility of a “materialist reading of deconstruction” (Barad, 2012, p.46) is still open, I understand that it resonates Derrida’s ethical commitment to alterity.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the CNPq under Grant [number 3078E-2625/2018-3]; and FAPERJ under Grant [number E-26/200.954/2021].

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth Macedo

Elizabeth Macedo is a professor in Curriculum Studies at State University of Rio de Janeiro. Her research projects are clustered around a commitment to produce curriculum theorizations that expand the possibilities of circulation of difference in schools. Among other visiting scholar positions in various Universities in US and Canada, she has served as short-term researcher at University of Georgia-Athens in 2022 when this paper was originated.