Doctoral Thesis as Entangled Becomings: Moments That Tremble With Potential

Abstract

This paper attempts to exemplify an emergent doctoral research process that plugs into the political activism of Deleuze and Guattari’s “becoming minoritarian” and the transformational potential of Erin Manning’s “minor gesture.” Revisiting and responding to texts and images produced over the course of one month, the author attempts to demonstrate how an attentiveness and openness beyond the bounds of the traditional doctoral thesis can generate shiftings and shimmerings that have the potential to produce tangible impacts and affects. In a process of writing to the human and nonhuman matter she encounters on her everyday walkings and wanderings, the author senses a shift of herself in relation to the world, generating an imperative to act that can not be ignored. As a tentative exploration of a process that resists the constraints of an externally imposed methodology, this paper works to trouble the prescribed linearity of more normative approaches to doctoral research. This is done in the spirit of encouraging and promoting speculative enquiries with a social conscience for, as Brian Massumi argues, even tiny acts and interventions have the potential to make a difference in the world.