Rhizomatically researching with young children
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, p. 106). Power as affect ‘describes the forces behind all forms of social production’ (Colman, 2005a, p. 12). Thinking powers of affect(s) moves outside the negativity of power as domination towards a condition of becoming that manifests differently in different mo(ve)ments for all, including children. Braidotti explains that Deleuze’s configuration of power(s) ‘re-inscribes the reflection on the politics of the subject within an aesthetic and ethical framework centred on affirmation, …on the affectivity and the positivity of the subject’s desires’ (Braidotti, 1996, p. 305). However, Braidotti (1994c) argues that the internal logic of domination cannot be remedied by simply reversing the balance of power as this leaves the dialectical opposition intact. But dissolving the adult|child binary disentangles child and adult from disabling power relationships, instead recognising non-hierarchical relations of flows of power-fullness in which each is embodied in the other while simultaneously emerging from the other. When children are involved in research as active participants as generators and rhizoanalysts of data, power-full relationships, tense and dynamic in their interplay (Roy, 2003), are illuminated and open to critique.
reflexivity in doing and writing the research Reflexivity works to critique and deconstruct the inextricably intertwined relationships of subjectivities that are constituted in this research, by/through me as reader~writer~thinker~ researcher together with the subject matter with which I work – the literature and the research data. Reflexivity works with and against authenticity, so, as I conceive of myself from/with/in the lived experiences of my theoretically abstracted understandings, I can only be(gin) wherever I am, in a (con)text where I already believe myself to be (Derrida, 1974). In this, I am continually reminded that my thinking about and doing the research is constituted and affected by my historical understandings and that these contribute to the research processes and text. My thinking is thus opened to critique around various issues (Gergen & Gergen, 2000), such as my unique historical and geographic situated-ness, my personal investments in the research, my biases and the surprises that emerge from these, my choice of Deleuzo-Guattarian imaginaries that affect the research processes and the reading of the thesis-assemblage, the combination of philosophical, feminist, poststructuralist understandings that I employ and perspectives I choose to pass by. While I produce the research text, the philosophical understandings I use also produce me (St.Pierre, 2001). Thus my presence is significant throughout the research and the writing. A self-consciously reflexive approach is characterised by making connections among (my)self as writer, the writing, discourses involved and discursive acts that are both played out by the writer 155