Rhizoanalytic Pathways in Qualitative Research

Abstract

This article deploys the concept of rhizoanalysis in order to disrupt, to think, and to do qualitative research differently. Rhizoanalysis is a concept created out of Deleuze and Guattari's (1987) concept of the rhizome. The article explores what rhizoanalysis can do, how it functions, and what it produces in relation to research on literacies, in particular multiple literacies theory (MLT). The article is a rhizome having multiple entries: concept creation, rhizoanalysis the concept, an introduction to MLT followed by a detailed presentation of a rhizoanalytic study on conceptualizing writing systems in multilingual children. The article exits with an intermezzo and a potential becoming of rhizoanalysis as an approach to qualitative inquiry.

From places to paths:Learning for Sustainability, teacher education and a philosophy of becoming

“…What is described is a story, or what Masny (2013) refers to as a 'vignette'. Masny (2013) stresses that, although rhizoanalyses contain an empirical component, they are not empirical in the conventional way.…”

Telling Stories of Violence in Adult ESL Classrooms: Disrupting Safe Spaces

“…This rhizoanalytic approach (Masny, 2013) views data as transgressive; analysis as a creative, process producing connections; and reporting as mapping different linkages. Data selected from the larger study are chosen "according to their power to act and intervene rather than to be interpreted" (Colebrook, 2002, p. xliv (Nordstrom, 2015, p. 171).…”

On the Complexity of Digital Video Cameras in / as Research: Perspectives and agencements

“…While Abdu submitted several video clips, the level of intensity (Massumi, 1996) that this one evoked in me was stronger than for the other video clips. In the following vignette, intense affective passages are underlined to show when connections happened in my mind and when thought was produced (Masny, 2013) as a way to map how this vignette was selected.…”

“…Along these same lines, Masny (2013) introduced the concept of rhizoanalysis as a means to expose "potentialities for thinking differently about qualitative research" (p. 339). Rhizoanalysis is an approach that enables a researcher to analyze transgressive data (i.e., sensual data, emotional data, response data, and dream data), which is by definition "out-of-category and not usually accounted for in qualitative research methodology" (St. Pierre, as cited in Masny, 2013, p. 341).…”

“…For Masny (2013) and her multiple literacies theory, reading, reading the world, and self are all mechanisms that have the potential to transform both human and non-human life. To her, reading is both intense and immanent: "To read intensively is to read critically" so as to disrupt established patterns of thought, keeping in mind that "cognitive, social, cultural, and political forces are at work" (p. 15).…”