Deleuze and narrative investigation: the multiple literacies of Sudanese families in Australia

Abstract

AbstractSudanese families arriving in Australia bring with them a wealth of language and cultural resources that are currently not recognised by the Australian education system. This paper challenges such a position by investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians from a Deleuzian perspective. A Deleuzian perspective in education promotes the multiple literacies of the Sudanese Australians as a means to learn about and articulate important aspects of their changing circumstances. The families are not ‘othered’ or marginalised through this study, or compared to or against the normative cognitive functions that are produced by the current education system in Australia. Rather, an innovative way to look at the narratives of the Sudanese in Australia is explored by applying Deleuzian philosophy to education. Such a process uses the notion of the ‘virtual’ from Deleuze, which is a hybrid concept that engages with psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas from a fresh perspective. Such novel conceptual positioning is deemed necessary when investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians in order to think alongside the Sudanese in Australia. The final part of the paper takes the conceptual work from Deleuze and the investigation of the narratives, and makes pragmatic educational recommendations about literacy learning strategies for the Sudanese Australians.