Texts

Presentation texts from Rhizome of Critical Studies in Education of Adults Colloquium
(21 September 2012)

The importance of critical research in the era of knowledge capitalism

Kristiina Brunila

Hi, my name is Kristiina Brunila and I work as a postdoctoral researcher in the Centre for Sociology of Education in the Institute of Behavioural Sciences. I am also a deputy leader of the Unit of Cultural and Feminist studies in Education, I publish 24/7, write research proposals one after the other - and now after performing this competent and entrepreneurial researcher I want to take a deep breath and get Rhizomatic.

We have built Rhizome since 2011 with my dear colleagues. I am calling myself godmother of Rhizome because I’m willing to do what ever there is in my power to support this positively strange way of doing things.

Rhizome of Critical studies in education of adults represents a way of conducting research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical, decentralized ways of doing. The concept of rhizome is of course stolen from Gilles Deleuze. We who are already involved with Rhizome think that nobody can own Rhizome and at the same time anyone can share it with anyone. This kind of decentralized doing means that anyone who is Rhizomatic is capable of creating new forms of thought, writing, subjectivity, and politics. And because so many people are already involved I think we are ready for trying something new.

I want to say something about the process of acting as an academic subject in the era of knowledge capitalism. What is distinctive in contemporary global economic development is the action of knowledge on itself as the main source of productivity. This is what represents knowledge capitalism - quantity over quality, calculability and predictability. You know how funding bodies define the way reports must be submitted, demand retention of intellectual property rights over data etc. These trends are strengthening research that prioritises its ‘use-value’, as a key indicator of quality. So what I am saying is that quality debate in education research is not so much about quality as about creating the conditions in which research and knowledge production can be managed and steered. Researchers who are willing to ask a bit more difficult questions find themselves in awkward positions.

Several sociologists have argued that the beginning of the twenty-first century is characterised by a strong sense of disorientation about the purpose of education - and that this is integral to confusion about what society ought to expect from its children, young people and adults. This means researchers too. What are we here for exactly? I have noticed - and I am sure you have too - that researchers are getting tired, exhausted and cynical at the same time when they are producing more articles, more proposals, more everything than ever.

I have consistently found myself in a position where I am submitting myself to discourses I never initially chose. For example, I have learned to love to submit articles, I really love that feeling of finishing articles and then letting them go while starting a new one. I have learned to do the same with research proposals. And I dream about hearing “dear dr. Brunila, you have received one million euros, no, let’s be honest, ten million euros for you research project”. And that is what I am thriving for of course.

In the Academia, money means a position to be heard but in the era of knowledge capitalism it also means hush, hush hush, silence. There are so many things we cannot talk about. This is one example of the constant ambivalence of mastery and submission of knowledge capitalism we are experiencing. And at the same time I feel my subject is more or less true to oneself. When we talked about this with many colleagues we realized the importance of creating something new, creating collectivity, creating resistance and counter politics against fast knowledge.

Being a subject of power, a subject whose agency depends upon discourses I never actually chose, I feel the urge to ask how we can make sense of the desire, the willing to go on, in the era of knowledge capitalism, and most importantly, to be involved in such things like Rhizome wanting to promote non-hierarchical relations, decentralization and critical dialogue. Aren’t we a little bit grazy? We want to create something that is not pre-written; something that might be a challenge to get funded; something that is supportive in the era where we should stick knifes in our colleagues’ backs and compete.

How can we fight knowledge capitalism at the same time when knowledge capitalism is taking hold of our body and taking hold of our desires?

I have learned to believe that constant critical questioning of one’s own thinking produces at best confusion and instability in assumptions and ideas about the world. Being uncertain, being in state of perplex or at loss shouldn’t be a threat. At the best, this can encourage in-depth thinking and further critical questions.

If we consider problems regarding education, I honestly think that there are no outside positions available. We are part of the problem we are trying to resolve, whether we like it or not. Therefore, hunting for a more liberating or emancipatory approach for example in order to define “right or wrong” will only reproduce the problems that society and education already face. What I also consider even more important is to resist researching anything as issues that can be forced into a singular picture that will tell the whole truth about them.

Collectivity is based on the idea that knowledge is formed collectively. I think that promoting collectivity means focusing on the development of knowledge. Collectivity is about discussions but discussions are more than conversations. But this is challenging because discussion involves self-critique and fostering an appreciation for the diversity of opinions. In many cases it is about acknowledging one’s own privileged position and willing to do something about it. This seems to be something we cannot afford nowadays because we need to keep ourselves busy in performing specialists, those people who think they know it all.

To put it very very simply, spending time with discussion - another thing we do not seem to afford nowadays – would be able to provide an important way for us to become more open and to develop new understanding with one another.

Rhizome is already generating a critical strategy that works through a persistent critique of the theoretical. By critical I mean for example an orientation that is aware of the limits of knowing. Moreover, by acknowledging the relation between knowledge and power we can get a hold on power’s intentionality but also different ways of resistance.

I am very well aware that I am talking big words but I am willing to try this because quite honestly I don’t know if there is any other way.

Why ‘education of adults’ and not only adult education
Ulpukka Isopahkala-Bouret

In our new network, Rhizome of Critical Studies in Education of Adults, we like to talk about education of adults in a broad sense – not only about adult education as one academic discipline. This switch of words is meaningful. In our network we have people who study adults and adulthood in the framework of critical multiculturalism and global education, critical workplace and trade union studies, feminist studies, critical disability studies, aging studies, criminology, youth studies, and so on and so forth… We are very excited about this multitude of different approaches and research interests that are presented.

With Rhizome, we want to gain more visibility to research related to adults and adulthood, which is different from the mainstream adult education research. Rhizome demands a new agenda for research on education of adults. In Rhizome, we want to promote socially-oriented, multi- and interdisciplinary research.

My own research background is in the field of adult education and I have been in the board of the Finnish Society for Research on Adult Education. Therefore I want to share with you some observations from that field, which is the most familiar for me. There has been an ongoing debate about the status of adult education as an academic discipline: is adult education a distinctive field of research and study? How is it located in the field of educational sciences? And is it considered to be part of social sciences? This debate has not only been involving academic community, but also practitioners and policy makers.

There have been at least two reasons why this debate has been intensified. They relate to the discourse of lifelong learning. There has been a political intent to stop using age-based distinctions in educational provision, administration and funding. Therefore, some adult educators have worried that questions specific to adults and adulthood would be ignored and eliminated. There has been also a strong alignment of adult education with the interests of working life and economy, and partly new actors – non-educational actors - have taken an influential role in the field. One way to respond to this is to call for stronger, disciplinary role for adult education. However, Rhizome is not a forum where we want to do that. From the point of view of a research community, adult education cannot answer to these new kinds of social pressures by tightening its disciplinary boundaries. On the contrary, we need to collaborate broadly, and find new ways of looking at the education of adults.

On the other hand, the discipline of adult education has legitimated the importance of its own research by asking: how well it serves the needs of practitioners and decision makers. It is common to ask: Is this research applicable? Does it make educational or work practices better? How can we utilize the results of research? 

We believe that it is time to critically reflect the state of our research: Whose interests are we bringing to the limelight in our studies? What kind of ideal adulthood our research promotes? Contrary to pragmatically oriented research, in critical studies on education of adults we do not ask simply how we can improve things or how we can develop systems toward higher productivity and better quality. We want to ask also “Why?” We want to ask questions that reflect power: Why things are as they are? What are the intended and unintended outcomes? What kinds of interests are served? Who benefits from the situation? What are the prevailing discourses or ideologies? Who are included and who are excluded? 

We acknowledge the heritage of critical adult education (such as the tradition of critical theory and the work of Paolo Freire), and moreover, we see the potential in discursive, feminist, post-structural and post-colonial theories in the field of education of adults. So, what is critical in critical approach is to recognize how power intertwines with the education of adults in different contexts. 

The unstated politics of conditional hospitality 

Vanessa de Oliveira Andreotti 

Experiences of migration are complex and usually ambivalent. Having lived in five countries and worked with migrant and indigenous education in those, I have observed that experiences vary with internal individual and collective motivations, and changing external political climates, which are dependent on historical processes and contemporary events. The recent economic crisis in Europe is an example of an event that shows how discourses of scarcity and vulnerability can shift the political pendulum towards xenophobic and scapegoating responses to immigration. In this instance, many responses rely on two combined justifications. On the one hand there are traditional ingrained ideas of cultural and national exceptionalism that can ground both the need for expansion and/or parochial inward enclosures. On the other hand, there are more recent (and distorted) claims of European indigeneity based on notions of originality, origination, and threats of imminent invasion that rationalize dangerous forms of nationalism, siege consciousness and border defense[i]

This political shift in relation to migration was powerfully felt in my current geographical context: a small city in the North of Finland, where three fatal racially motivated crimes during the last 12 months barely made it to the news, except when a political leader at a national level called a murderer a hero in his blog. In my specific academic context, the shift was felt as a revival of neoconservative patriotism and a backlash against internationalisation, both ironically constructed as strategies of resistance to the colonizing forces of neoliberalism. As the only professor from the so called ‘Third World’ in the field of education in Finland, I experienced first-hand the intensification of pressures, and witnessed the same in the context of immigrant friends and students, especially those who carried the mark of their difference in their skin. To a different degree, it was also noticeable in the contexts of Finnish friends who challenged national consensus and homogeneity by daring to expose the plurality of the nation in their body, in the expression of their thoughts, or their life choices.

What surprised me the most was our difficulty to openly and publicly talk about this escalation of general explicit and implicit hostility. Conversations were often confessional and usually tempered with mixed feelings of anger, fear, guilt, unforgiveness and shame. How could we make visible what was unspoken? How could we articulate what was foreclosed, repressed and forbidden? How could we unveil what was hidden? And what price would we have to pay if we succeeded? Therefore, artistic expression, with its amplified appeal and its capacity to give voice to and provoke visceral responses seemed to be an obvious choice of genre for articulating these issues. The text ‘Brutal Kindness’ is a collection of specific voices and experiences in this period, both my own and other people's. It does not speak of breath and amplitude of moments – both joyful and painful of complex co-existences, but of the depth of specific historical violent patterns that have recently been magnified in our relationships. 

Brutal kindness   

We welcome you in our nation
Our borders open only to a few
We ask for nothing in return, except
That you recognize the deepest wisdom
That when in Rome, you pay tribute to the Romans

Therefore, you must
speak our language

admire our deeds

share our dreams

obey our laws

respect our rules

embrace our values

fulfill our expectations

mimic our behaviour

praise our talents

strengthen our economy

aspire to be like us

commit to staying here

dedicate your life to serving our people

and be thankful for our efforts to help you

We chose you amongst countless others, we are happy you are here

Our gift to you is our generous hospitality

We ask for nothing in return, except

That you acknowledge the ineptitude of your traditions

And the natural exceptionality of ours

Therefore, you must

show good manners

strive for your best

work (for less) twice as hard

pay your duties

be clean and organized

dress appropriately, smell nice

use words that we can understand

know your place

do as you are told

recognize your debt to us

eat everything in your plate

lay low, be happy, focus on positive things

entertain us with your culture, when requested

and jump off the balcony, if required

We give you access to the best education and welfare in the world

Our systems are based on equality and human rights

We ask you for nothing in return, except

That you appreciate the privilege

Of being allowed amongst us

Therefore, under no circumstance, should you

break our trust, bite the hand that feeds you

complain, express disapproval or discontent

expose our inadequacies, reveal our contradictions

disclose our fears, idiosyncrasies and insecurities

challenge our authority or understanding of reality

make up unreasonable accusations, question our principles

impose your meaning, attempt to restrain our speech

fuel internal dissent, speak of prohibited topics

intellectually or biologically inoculate unauthorized foreignness

defy our right to distinguish our heroes

outperform, outsmart, outshine us

reject our advice, incite questioning or scepticism

remind us of what we choose to deny

or speak of the past we want to forget

We will do everything in our power for you to properly fit in

Our extraordinary success was built on social trust, consensus and cohesion

We expect nothing in return, except

That you salute our openness, altruism and sense of justice

And sacrifice your difference for the greater collective good

Therefore, you will not mind when

your body and mind are held under surveillance

your confidence vanishes

your autonomy disappears

your will dissipates your language expires

your dreams fade away

your work is scrutinized

your freedom restricted

your voice silenced

your conscience muted

your mobility constrained

your capacity undermined

your life shaped into conformity

and your soul placed under arrest

We will give you a secure future in an incomparable country

You will recognize us as a formerly colonized people that never colonized others

And understand the necessity of protective measures

To secure our right to self-determination

We ask for nothing in return, except for your gratefulness

And that you do not offend us by wanting to leave

We just need to remind you that

We have zero tolerance for the crime of ingratitude

Your failures or choice not to conform to expectations

Will be met with silence and make your life really difficult

You will face unimaginable consequences

As a public reminder of the flaws of your character

Clear evidence that you have always been

an ungrateful servant

an incompetent labourer

an untrustworthy opportunist

an arrogant hypocrite

an undeserving waster

an unscrupulous traitor

an ignorant fool

a heartless liar

a conceited narcissist

a drama queen

a lazy scrounger

a dishonest monster

a sly thief a fundamentalist radical

and a ruthless extremist

who should have never been allowed to speak or to set foot in this country

---

[i] The EU enlargement advert film promoting the need for the expansion of the European Union is one amongst countless examples of similar narratives. It features a female Caucasian European protagonist being attacked by martial arts warriors from China, India and Brazil. She is able to control the aggressors by multiplying herself. The film finishes with the words: the more we are, the stronger we are (the video was withdrawn shortly after release due to accusations of racism, but can still be found on you tube).

Tiivistelmä Rhizome-esityksestä

Elina Ikävalko ja Tuuli Kurki

Pohdimme tässä puheenvuorossa, millaista kuljeskeleva, nomadinen – eteen, taakse ja sivuille tanssahteleva – tutkimus/kirjoittaminen voisi olla? Se voisi olla ainakin tutkijan ja tutkittavan, tietäjän ja tietämättömän välisen vastakkainasettelun horjuttamista, tiedon muodostumisen ehtojen perään kysymistä, siis tiedon paikantamista uudelleen…

Hahmottelemamme tutkimuksen ajattelemisen tapa haastaa ajatuksen tutkimusaineistosta ja tutkimuksen kohteesta jonakin tutkijasta erillisenä ja selvärajaisena kokonaisuutena, jota voidaan esimerkiksi numeerisesti kuvata. Samalla se asettaa kyseenalaiseksi myös itse tutkivan ja tutkimusta tekevän subjektin, sillä erilaisten aineistojen, käsitteiden ja teoreettisten sommitelmien takaa ei ehkä voidakaan paljastaa yksittäistä tekijää tai kokijaa vaan tutkiva subjekti hajoaa ja muodostuu jatkuvasti uudelleen yhdessä aineistonsa kanssa.

Kun ajatusta vakaasta, yhtenäisestä ja rationaalisesta subjektista aletaan purkaa, purkautuu samalla moni muukin humanismille tyypillinen ”totuus” tiedosta, tieteestä ja tutkimuksesta. Tutkimuksen ajatteleminen toisin ei siis ole itsetarkoitus vaan seurausta modernin, humanistisen tiedon subjektin hajoamisesta.

Tietoon ja tietämiseen liittyvän epävarmuuden ja vallan mekanismien oivaltaminen voi johtaa lamaannukseen, tutkivan subjektin halvaantumiseen. Aivan kuin ainoat tutkijalle tarjolla olevat positiot olisivat pelastajan ja itsensä ruoskijan paikat, kumpikin kiinni humanismin ihanteissa. Tutkija kyseenalaistaa oman oikeutuksensa puhua (puolesta, yli, ohi) ja tietää (paremmin, pätevämmin). Me tunnistamme toki itsekin tällaiset ajatukset. Sen vuoksi lähdimme etsimään ajattelun liikkeen mahdollistavaa käsitteistöä, ja löysimme kuljeskelevan ja hypähtelevän, poliittisen ja eettisen nomadisen subjektin.

Kuljeskelun kehkeytyminen voidaan jäljittää (muun muassa) Ranskassa 1950–70 -luvuilla vaikuttaneisiin situationisteihin ja näistä innoitusta saaneiden ”jälkistrukturalististen” filosofien kuten Michel Foucault’n, Gilles Deleuzen ja Felix Guattarin sekä myöhemmin feministiteoreetikko Rosi Braidottin kirjoituksiin. Deleuzen ja Foucault’n vallan analyysien pohjalta Braidotti on luonut nomadisen subjektiviteetin ja nomadisen tutkimuksen tekemisen ajatusta, joka kyseenalaistaa ajatuksen muuttumattomasta ja yhtenäisestä subjektista.

Tiukkoihin identiteetteihin ripustautuminen tekee subjektin sokeaksi omalle paikantumiselleen tai sille, mitä ympärillä tapahtuu. Tämän voisi ajatella viittaavan laajasti myös muihin kuin perinteisesti poliittisiksi miellettyihin identiteettikategorioihin (esim. nainen, homo, musta, vasemmistolainen), kaikkiin sellaisiin jämäyttäviin nimeämisiin, joihin kiinnittyminen liian tiukkaan tekee liittoumien luomisen (ja ajattelun liikkeen) hankalaksi. Politisoituminen ei siis tästä näkökulmasta edellytä jotakin tiettyä asemaa, identiteettiä tai kokemusta (esim. homo, nainen, siirtolainen, työväenluokkainen, prekaari). Tämä lähtökohta tunnustaa, että esimerkiksi edellä mainittujen nimeämisten alle mahtuu valtava ja keskenään ristiriitainen joukko positioita, joihin saattaa liittyä toisiaan risteäviä kokemuksia, joille ei ole kovin helposti nimettävissä kaikkia yhdistäviä poliittisia vaatimuksia. Kyseessä onkin enemmän läheisyyden vyöhykkeelle löytäminen ja joksikin-tuleminen (devenir) Deleuzen tarkoittamassa muutoksen mielessä.

Nomadinen, identiteettejä vastustava kuljeskelu on kokeilevaa ja toiminnan välineellistymistä pakenevaa. Se on vastarintaa ensinnäkin siksi, että tutkimuksen tekemisen metaforana kuljeskelu haastaa tutkijan auktoriteetin ja akateemisen tiedon ensisijaisuuden. Ajattelun metaforana se vastustaa ennakoitavuutta, valmiita päämääriä ja ”käytännönläheistä” (toisin sanoen helposti kaupallistettavia) tutkimustuloksia. Aktivismina kuljeskelu ei pyri puhumaan toisten puolesta tai asettumaan toisten ”asemaan” vaan tekemään kanssa, oman sen hetkisen paikantumisensa tunnustaen ja liittolaisuuksia luoden.

”Tuntemattomalle avautumisen” voisi ajatella olevan itsestään selvästi tutkimuksen tekemisen edellytys, mutta siitä on tullut yhä enemmän myös vastarinnan muoto, sillä sellainen orientaatio vastustaa kaikkea laskelmointia, ennakointia, suunnittelua, mallintamista ja suoraa ”hyödynnettävyyttä” ja siten managerialismin ja markkinoiden vaatimuksia. Nomadista tekemisen tapaa ei voi asettaa minkään palvelukseen. Myös mm. Lather kirjoittanut siitä, miten tarkoituksellisen "epäselvä", polveileva tai runollinen kirjoitustapa on yksi keino vastustaa ajatusta, että tutkimuksen tai teoretisointien pitäisi olla jotenkin suoraan hyödyksi, tuotteistettavissa ja sovellettavissa "käytäntöön" eli vaikkapa (opetus)hallinnon vaatimuksiin. Niin itsestään selvältä kuin se ehkä kuulostaa, vastarinnaksi riittäisi ihan vain tilojen avaaminen sellaiselle ajattelulle, kirjoittamiselle, tekemiselle, joka ei tavoittele taloudellista hyötyä tai ennalta asetettuja tavoitteita.

And in English:

What kind of would be research/writing that wanders and is nomadic? A research that would not try to draw a straight, logical line, but instead would prance and dance forward, sideways and backwards, and rather fumble and pass through (see Vähämäki, 2010, 115-116)? Well, at least, it could be about destabilising the juxtaposition between the researcher and the research subject, the knower and the known, repositioning the knowledge.

What we are doing here is to challenge the idea of research data and the research subject as something that is separated from the researcher, a distinct entity, which can, for example, be described numerically. At the same time, we call into question the researching subject itself, since different kinds of data, concepts and theoretical compositions may not be able to reveal any single doer. Instead the researching subject breaks down and keeps reconstituting again and again together with the data.

When the idea of a stable, united and rational subject becomes deconstructed, also the humanistic idea of the “truth” of knowledge, science and research becomes deconstructed. However, to think about research differently is not an end in itself but rather the result of a breakdown of the subject of modern, humanistic knowledge.

When one realises the uncertainty and the mechanisms of power in knowledge and knowing, one may be paralysed, as it can lead to the paralysis of the researching subject – as if the only positions available would be the positions of a rescuer or a self-accusing researcher, both closed to the ideals of humanism. Then the researcher questions his/her own legitimacy to speak (on behalf of, over, pass) and to know (better, completely).

We recognise ourselves these thoughts. That is why we started to look for concepts that enable nomadic thinking, and we found a wandering, political and ethical nomadic subject.

The notion of drifting can be traced back, among others, to the Situationist International in the 1950-70s France and to “poststructuralists” inspired by SI, such as Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and later Rosi Braidotti too. Based on the analysis of power of Deleuze and Foucault, Braidotti has written about the thought of nomadic subjectivity and nomadic research, which calls into question the idea of unchanging and uniform subject. Clinging to strict identities makes the subject blind to his/her own positioning, or to what happens around them. This might refer also to other identity categories traditionally perceived as political (e.g. woman, gay, black, left-wing), and to all stigmatised namings, which makes the creation of new alliances and the movement of thought difficult. The politicisation from this point of view, therefore, does not require a specific position, identity or experience (e.g. gay, woman, immigrant, working class, precarious). This starting point recognizes that, for example, the above-mentioned categorisations and namings include a huge and mutually contradictory set of positions, which may include intersecting experiences, which are not easy to be named in political demands uniting all. It is more about becoming (devenir) (Deleuze) as change.

Nomadic wandering/drifting that is oppositional to identities is experimental and flights operational instrumentalism. It is resistance because as a metaphor for research, wandering/drifting challenges the authority of the researcher, and the primacy of academic knowledge. As a metaphor for thinking, it opposes predictability, predetermined goals and pragmatic (i.e. easily commercialised) results. As activism, wandering/drifting does not intend to speak for others, or to settle into others’ positions but rather making and creating with others new alliances by recognising one’s own positions.

The opening to the unknown could be thought as a self-evident premise for research, but it has become more and more also a form of resistance, because such an orientation resists all speculation, anticipation, planning, modelling and direct utility, and thus managerialism and market requirements. Nomadic research can’t be set for any service. Patti Lather has written about deliberately ambiguous poetic writing as a way to resist the idea that research and theoretisations should have direct benefits and be profitable and applicable in practice, for example for the requirements of educational governance. As obvious as it may sound, it would be enough just to open up the spaces of resistance, such as thinking, writing, submission, which do not seek financial gain or predetermined goals.