Deleuzo-Guattarian Decentering of the I/eye: A Conversation with Jessica Ringrose and Shiva Zarabadi

Abstract

In this chapter, posthuman feminist researchers Jessica Ringrose and Shiva Zarabadi discuss schizoanalysis and intimate scholarship as ways to moveaway from the rationalist, Eurocentric, masculinist “I” in order to enable new and multiple forms of subjectivity that do not rely on otherization from an ideal norm of the humanist man. Instead, following Deleuze and Guattari’s notions of difference and becoming, the subject is fractured and becomes different in each encounter with time, space, others, feelings, memories, and self. Rather than clinging to the notion of a unified identity, Jessica and Shiva suggest adopting a “becoming-minoritarian” movement and attempting to exceed the trap of identity. The authors further discuss post-qualitative research methods that help to decenter this “I/eye”, including those involving schizoanalysis, affective intensities, art-based inquiry, and walking methodologies. Moreover, Jessica and Shiva argue that these can, and indeed, must, be taken up alongside multiple more conventional methods and made accessible to a variety of audiences so to have the widest impact. In experimenting with posthuman and post-qualitative theories, researchers must ensure that they are putting these theories to work in ways that can combat the massive social justice issues we currently face. In times of precarity, they contend, we must think differently while also using every theoretical and methodological tool at our disposal to make a difference in the world.

Citation

Ringrose, J. and Zarabadi, S. (2018), "Deleuzo-Guattarian Decentering of the I/eye: A Conversation with Jessica Ringrose and Shiva Zarabadi", Decentering the Researcher in Intimate Scholarship (Advances in Research on Teaching, Vol. 31), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-368720180000031017