The intercultural deterritorialization of knowledge: Al-Ghazali and the enunciation of the educator’s Rihla

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis study appropriates the notion of deterritorialization, a process that determines the nature of an assemblage introduced by Deleuze and Guattari, to refer to Al-Ghazali's conceptualization of scholarship and methodology as the antithesis of the pursuit of a fixed area of research. His response to the deterritorialization of knowledge identifies an interdisciplinary approach, always in flight, which ultimately enunciates ‘rihlah’, a sojourn. It negates the notion of research as stasis and recovers its semantic origin of movement and process. The article examines intercultural practices that challenge the institutionalization of knowledge. How can Al-Ghazali's response to scepticism, knowledge, and authority inform practices in higher education today? Not only does this study aim to connect intercultural philosophical discourses to modern debates about academic expertise and the dissemination of knowledge, it equally seeks cultural and intellectual reconciliation, which is crucial today in a world that is becoming largely xenophobic, and entrapped in ethnocentric academic practices.