Rhizomatic Approach Research Articles

Reimaging Music Education Through a Rhizomatic Approach Focusing on Performing, Creating, Responding, and Connecting

In music educators’ endeavoring to integrate equity into our curriculum, adopting a rhizomatic approach could provide a valuable perspective for reassessing the Western classical tradition as the norm. From a philosophical perspective, the rhizome is perceived as an interconnected multiplicity, where various elements are intricately connected without a central or hierarchical control system. In essence, a rhizomatic approach is more expansive than top-down alternatives and inherently places greater emphasis on equity. Given a rhizome’s noncentered and nonhierarchical nature, the concept of a rhizome encourages engagement with music comparatively or relationally, fostering a broad perspective that recognizes the interconnectedness between musics. More importantly, lessons using a rhizomatic approach may promote teachers and students to view all forms of musics as equally significant, honoring diverse musical traditions rather than exclusively prioritizing Western classical heritage.

Reconfiguring the Sanctions of Schooled Literacy Through Living Literacies

AbstractIn this article, the author argues that living literacies—relational, embodied forms of literacy engagement—are an integral component of literacy engagement and hold the potential to disrupt and reconfigure the power structures embedded within schooled literacy. Drawing on affect theory and rhizomatic theory, the author analyzes youths’ literacy engagement in a seventh‐grade English Language Arts and Reading classroom in a New York City public school. This research addresses how schooled literacy, constructed through a sanctioned educational system, potentially dehumanizes students who diverge from the idealized curricular norm, while a focus on living literacies challenges these limitations. Central to this study is the rhizomatic approach of tracing and mapping to analyze the complexities between imposed schooled literacy engagement and living literacies engagement. The author presents findings through two sections: (1) an analysis of the sanctioning power of schooled literacy and (2) an analysis of living literacies through youths’ in‐class literate engagement. Findings demonstrate how schooled literacy practices become normalized and sanction what types of literacy engagement are valued in the classroom—and, therefore, transfer value to students themselves. However, by mapping assemblaging moments of living literacies, including socially charged interactions and spontaneous peer assistance, findings provide insight into how embodied, interrelational forms of literacy engagement offer opportunities for reconfiguring the sanctions of schooled literacy. The author concludes by discussing implications for policy, practice, and research, advocating for a shift toward more humanizing, interrelational, and embodied forms of literacy engagement in school spaces.

(Re)conceptualising coach education and development: towards a rhizomatic approach

ABSTRACT To ensure sport coaches across all domains deliver ethical practices, appropriately educating the coaching workforce is of paramount importance. Yet, coach education programmes have been heavily critiqued for failing to enhance coaches’ knowledge and practice. In recognising the sociocultural nature of coach learning, researchers have drawn upon prominent social theorists such as Bourdieu, Foucault, and Bernstein amongst others to critically analyse coach education provision. However, the notion of rhizomatic learning, derived from the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, has yet to be applied to coach education research, despite its ability to disrupt normalised and linear education systems. Consequently, the aim of this new horizons paper is to introduce rhizomatic learning as a possible framework for (re)conceptualising coach education and development. The intention of this paper is to put Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts “to work” to help theorise how social actors and coaching discourses function to produce learning and practice.

Toward a Decentered Music Education Using a Rhizomatic Approach

As we work to connect equity to our curriculum and pedagogy, a rhizomatic approach may provide a valuable lens for reconsidering traditional conventions. Such an approach underlines interconnected multiplicity with a noncentered, nonhierarchical emphasis. Applying a rhizomatic method, I offer music teachers some practical applications to challenge conventional curricular tendencies in subtle but important ways. Instead of using an additive approach to the Western classical canon, this approach helps to engage in music comparatively or relationally, which can enable teachers and students to think broadly across categories by recognizing the interconnections between musics. More important, lessons adopting a rhizomatic approach may help teachers and students consider all musics as bearers of equal status and honor many diverse forms of music.

Weaving Rhizomes in Photography Research

Anchored on Deleuze and Guattari’s Rhizome concept, this postqualitative research puts philosophical concepts to work in the doing of inquiry to produce knowledge differently. It adheres to ontoepistemology where the act of knowing is through performativity. Letting the (un)thought guide the work, I experimented with how materialities in photography are constituted in photographing Cambodia’s Angkor temples. The inquiry yielded a new visual rhizomatic approach in research-creation that disrupts the colonial and stabilizing methods in research. Called Weaving Rhizomes, this approach acknowledges the imbricated relations of humans and non-humans, constantly entangled and (re)produced in the doing-making of research: the becoming of photographer-researcher.

Inverting questions: an invitation to take a stroll on another side of questions

This paper has two objectives: to explore how inverting questions in the Community of Philosophical Inquiry (Kennedy, 2004) can be a useful tool for triggering thought processes; and, more generally, to explore the importance of inverting the role traditionally given to children as bystanders to their own education and thought processes. On this basis, we will assume that children have an epistemic and political voice and that this voicing, placed on equal standing with the adult voice, is long overdue. It is undeniable that questions have a central role in P4C sessions (Costa-Carvalho E Mendonça, 2020; Costa-Carvalho E Kohan, 2020) and that, in the context of any given community of philosophical inquiry, they can trigger (Kennedy, 2004) a wide range of thought processes. Some questions may be too vague and require sharpening to adequately address the problem at hand, while others may promote a metacognitive approach to the issue under discussion, and to the entire thought process that sustains it. We will explore how inverting questions may be useful in this context. Moreover, we will consider how this thought anastrophé may emerge in concrete philosophical discussions with children. Our argument will, therefore, navigate the intersection between language and thought, logic and semantics, and theory and practice. Assuming that the term “inversion” may offer different understandings, we will try to outline this rhizomatic approach (Deleuze and Guattari, 1987) to the concept. We will focus primarily on the child’s point of view, which we hold to be epistemologically privileged (Kennedy, 2020). It is our core belief that children´s voices should be granted scientific and political standing and that an epistemic inversion between adulthood and childhood in education must be explored.

All carrot – no stick: an alternative award framework to enhance ‘international’ students’ sense of belonging and engagement in the extracurricular

A sense of belonging and feeling at home at their institution are key factors in student success at university. Engaging with extracurricular activities is part of this dynamic, and an area in which ‘international’ students face additional barriers. These include institutional and psychological barriers to belonging, resulting in a shortage of meaningful opportunities to belong and a lack of motivation to take part. Increased belonging uncertainty and negative stereotype threat are among the potential concerns for such students. In response, we have developed the Student Extracurricular Engagement Award for pre-sessional undergraduate students at the University of Leeds Language Centre, UK. This scheme draws on theoretical approaches related to co-construction, participation, identity, opportunity and motivation. This innovative educational intervention seeks to address the issues affecting belonging by providing encouragement and guidance in engaging with the university’s extracurricular activities. By validating activities in areas other than academic language and literacies, the award raises student awareness of the value of their successes in those areas. This more holistic and rhizomatic approach to student learning is argued to bring a greater sense of belonging to ‘international’ students.

Women in public cultural organizations and their professional paths strategies: A rhizomatic approach

AbstractThe aim of this article is to explore the rhizomatic nature of the professional development strategies used by the female workforce of public cultural organizations. The research problem of this study are (1) the challenges of women who work in public cultural organizations and (2) ways of dealing with them by women. The empirical material was collected between January 2021 and January 2022 through 20 in‐depth interviews with female managers of public cultural organizations in Poland. The findings are presented in three sections: (1) specificity of work in culture, (2) twists and configurations on the way to grow, and (3) communities. In this way, it was possible to capture the specific strategies used by the female workforce for the development of their professional paths. To illustrate the complexity of these strategies, the concept of Rhizome—a root structure that grows in unpredictable and manifold directions—developed by Deleuze and Guattari was used. It also highlighted the fact that the professional development strategies used by women develop in a strong relationship with their environment and constantly evolve according to the needs of the women who decide to undertake them. The results of the research illustrate the impact of the far‐reaching gendered nature of work in cultural organizations on the professional development of women in this sector. Moreover, this reveals that to achieve their professional ambitions, women in cultural organizations co‐create complex informal organizational constructs, rhizome‐like in structure, which help women cope with the challenges that arise along their professional paths. These findings contribute to the theory of gendered organizations and the knowledge of gender inequality in cultural organizations.

Olanda

Olanda

STUDENT TEACHERS’ EXPERIENCES IN USING OPEN EDUCATION RESOURCE IN THE OPEN DISTANCE LEARNING CONTEXT

Open education resource (OER) has become an increasingly important topic for consideration in the open distance learning (ODL) context. ODL students’ education should be learner-centered based on intrinsic motivation and OER usage. The purpose of this study was to explore the student teachers’ experiences in using open education resource in ODL. Even though many studies have been conducted on OER in ODL, there are insufficient empirical studies that have explored environmental education (EE) student teachers’ experiences in using OER in the ODL environment. In exploring this topic, the qualitative research methodology, interpretive paradigm, and rhizomatic approach were used. Participants and documents were purposefully sampled. Data was ethically collected through documentation and semi-structured telephonic interviews. The data were thematically analysed and processed to find patterns, keywords were identified, coded, and clustered into categories, and themes emerged. Qualitative findings showed that EE studentteachers knew about OER informally and some students wanted to use OER. Hindrances to OER usage by student-teachers included little engagement with OER by lecturers and costs to access OER.

Multiple Religious Belonging and Religious Communities

This contribution investigates the concept “community” as a previously underexplored dimension of multiple religious belonging (MRB). A review of the MRB approach to multireligiosity reveals there has been paid relatively little attention to community influence and fluid, non-dualistic styles of religious belonging. We argue that these styles of multiple belonging cannot be accounted for by conventional understandings of MRB that assume a “World Religions Paradigm.” After reviewing two approaches to this problem, the article explores a rhizomatic approach to MRB and religious communities. To illustrate this approach, a brief review of several Dutch multireligious communities is presented.

Cumulative Revision in John Gower’s Quicquid homo scribat

ABSTRACT John Gower’s twice-revised short Latin poem on his blindness, incipit “Henrici quarti primus” / “Henrici regis annus” / “Quicquid homo scribat,” provides an opportunity to observe the author at work on self-revision. Gower was a compulsive reviser, and Quicquid homo scribat clarifies special details of his procedure. In bringing the poem into a new form, Gower saw fit to draw on two different prior iterations. This decision bespeaks a rhizomatic approach to revision and a multidirectional understanding of the implications of the literary work. Rather than work a poem up from nothing, Gower preferred to start with some metrical phrases already composed on the same or a related subject, either by another author or, often, by himself. To see Gower’s decision to revise as a compulsion, and therefore something less than a voluntary decision, is to understand the text on the page as a prosthesis constructed to enable the author to confront difficult circumstances. This essay reads revision in Quicquid homo scribat between Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's concept of the rhizome and Julie Singer's concept of lyric prosthesis.

Socio-culturally Embedded Vedic and Ethnoecological Knowledge: Decolonising Perspectives and Practices

This study explored the Vedic and Ethno-ecological knowledge embedded within cultural practitioners, teachers and students. To obtain the objective of this explorative and decolonising study, I purposively selected two Ethno practitioners, two science teachers and four students. About 55 minutes focus group discussion was carried out with selected students and near about one-hour interview was carried out with Ethno practitioners and teachers. The collected information was transcribed and then translated into English and main themes were identified using the Rhizomatic approach by connecting the nodal point to identify main themes. Then each theme was analysed using the abductive approach to justify the participants' arguments. The finding indicates that Vedic and socio-cultural practice consisted of world peace and sustainable development ideas. Cultural students learned this knowledge by seeing their elders' day-to-day practice. Teachers are also seen aware of the effect of modernisation but show reluctance to implement it in school science teaching. Local as well as the central government could be serious to implement Vedic and Ethnocultural knowledge to preserve the earth as well as the whole universe. The Vedic and Ethno knowledge is seen fully supported for the decolonising western-based pedagogical practices.

A Comparative Study of Epistemological Foundations of the “Fundamental Reform Document of Iran Education System” and Rhizomatic Approach

A Comparative Study of Epistemological Foundations of the “Fundamental Reform Document of Iran Education System” and Rhizomatic Approach

Exploring Instances of Deleuzian Rhizomatic Patterns in Students’ Writing and in Online Student Interactions

Globally, it is a standard practice to study students’ academic writing by using linear academic-writing models. This study investigated instances of Deleuzian rhizomatic patterns in students’ writing and in online student interactions at an open and distance e-learning (ODeL) institution in South Africa. A convenience sample of 13 students’ paragraph writing samples and of 370 first-year students was used. All the participants were enrolled in a level-one module, ENG1503, in the second semester of 2020. The study followed a mixed-method approach, and utilized AntConc and AntMover to analyse the students’ writing samples, as well as Microsoft Power Business Intelligence (MS Power BI) and Gephi, in order to analyse and visualise online student interactions. When students’ writing samples were analysed in terms of keywords (e.g., key themes) by using the software applications employed in this study, various rhizomatic patterns were detected in the students’ text files. For example, the key-word frequencies of key themes, such as religion and cult, showed that these two key themes were used differently at the end of each concordance spectrum, thereby underscoring their varying rhizomatic patterns of usage in students’ respective text files. Online student interactions on both myUnisa’s ODF and MS Teams were visualized rhizomatically. The findings of this study underscore the importance of investigating and analysing students’ writing – not only from linear models, but also from non-linear perspectives, such as a rhizomatic approach. Additionally, they underline the significance of leveraging the opportunities offered by students’ writing analysis technologies, such as those employed in this study.

Ризоматический подход к проблематике инвалидности

The purpose of the research is to determine the possibilities of applying the approach based on the idea of the rhizome as a productive socio-philosophical foundation for theoretical understanding of disability issues. Scientific novelty lies in substantiating the statement that by considering disability issues from the standpoint of a rhizomatic approach it will be possible to develop promising disability theories that will meet modern needs. As a result, it has been shown that the possibilities of using this approach to study disability issues consist in recognising the heterogeneity and diversity of the studied group, which makes it possible to interpret disability as a manifestation of human diversity and not to reduce it to a generic deviation from the norm.

Emergence, multiplicity and connection: rethinking ethical discernment in qualitative research through a rhizo-ethics approach

Numerous qualitative researchers employ the Deleuzoguattarian construct of rhizome in their work. In this paper, we consider the ethical affordances made possible by the rhizome’s theoretical features to propose rhizo-ethics: an approach to ethical discernment in qualitative inquiry which engages with the Deleuzoguattarian construct of rhizome. Across an exploration of Deleuze & Guattari’s writing, educational scholarship, and further qualitative work that employs rhizomatic thought, we examine how engaging with a rhizomatic approach affords researchers the means to reconfigure research ethics hierarchies by decentralizing their position in the research context. Such a perspective generates possibilities to: acknowledge fluctuating power relations, enrich representations, embrace a relational onto-epistemology, and consider the interactions between human and nonhuman matter as ethically significant.

The “Flatness” of Deleuze and Guattari: Planning the City as a Tree or as a Rhizome?

Flat ontology has become an umbrella term for several theoretically based approaches, notably Delanda’s controversial reconstruction of DeleuzoGuattarian concepts. I highlight key divergences in Delanda’s “flat ontology” from that of Deleuze and Guattari’s “flattening” of multiplicities on a plane of immanence. The rhizome is arguably the concrete image of Deleuze and Guattari’s multiplicity, constituted by intensive relations, or becomngs, between heterogeneous singularities. A rhizomatic multiplicity contrasts markedly with the hierarchical dualism of the pseudomultiplicities of arborescent structures. Referencing Marston et al.’s “flat” site-ontology, I introduce sites as DeleuzoGuattarian eventspaces; emergent properties of entangled human and non-human relations and their capacities to affect and be affected. I select two spatial planning sites from urban fringe Australia, both of which involve significant transformation of (semi-)riparian habitat. One illustrates an arborescent system of thought and practice and the other a more rhizomatic approach which explores the situational potential of human/non-human encounters. I explore capacities of both sites to affect humans and non-humans and how the respective planning systems engage with them. I then question the possibility of rhizomatic planning practices, whether arborescence is inevitable, or whether a double-structure is possible, before concluding that a double-structure may afford glimpses of the bi-directionality or “flattening” of DeleuzoGuattarian multiplicity – “both/and” – an inclusive disjunctive synthesis of becoming.

Reflecting on Partnerships of Sustainability Learning: Enacting a Lewin–Deleuze–Guattari Rhizome

This paper works towards the enactment of a Lewin–Deleuze–Guattari rhizome. We assemble Deleuze and Guattari’s principles of the rhizome, Lewin’s idea of re-education, and reflections on the performance of one of the authors in the lecture hall, bringing into being what could be a rhizomatic partnership approach to sustainability learning in a higher education setting. The reflections are based on experiences delivering a sustainability module within a business education context, mainly for international students in Germany. The purpose of this paper is to illuminate possibilities of student–teacher partnership assemblages, aiming to motivate sustainability change agency on “people-yet-to-come”: those who are open to enacting difference, or multifaceted, heterogeneous, and often partial transformations addressing the current plethora of contemporary crises.

Педагогика онлайн-курсов: ризоматическое обучение

The paper presents the results of the analysis of Russian and foreign scientific and pedagogical literature devoted to various aspects of the rhizomatic approach which is used in the online learning. The author provides a brief description of its philosophical framework, states the peculiarities of the educational process organization in this approach, gives the interpretation of the learning process in the context of the rhizomatic approach, lists relevant characteristics of the main difficulties, as well as its difference from connectivism, another common online learning approach.