Research as entanglement

Abstract

In this paper I seek to explore how we might conceptualise research when subject and object are entangled: when subject can no longer be thought as a unified body, a conscious Self, formed by its unique history of experiences and interactions; when object exceeds its passive identity and relations of analogy, resemblance and opposition (Deleuze, 1994) with other objects. This paper interrogates how an immanent materialism affects understandings of doing research, what it means to fail to distinguish researcher from research or method or findings, and to abandon attempts to fully extract the research data from its ongoing relations with all matter. Immanent materialism offers a view of the subject-who-researches and the object-researched as entangled in multiplicities of matter interconnecting, co-influencing, individuating and always becoming new. Data expands to include all: the subject, the objects, their representation, and their virtual potential to become-new. Instead of subject-object, there is only data, and data, and data, and...

Learning disability imagined differently: an evaluation of interviews with parents about discovering that their child has down’s syndrome

“…I position myself within a research assemblage that includes the subject who researches and the individuals researched as 'entangled in multiplicities of matter interconnecting, co-influencing, individuating and always becoming new.' (Hargraves 2016;541). As I enter these interviews, I am a professional wanting to understand and to find meaning in the particular lived experience of these parents.…”