Abstract:
In a discussion of Deleuze’s theorization of concepts, Todd May asks “what can a concept do with what has not been identified?” Or to put it another way – A concept is a way of addressing the difference that lies beneath the identities we experience” (2005, 19). Which is not to say that identities, concepts and experiences are linked in particular ways. The possibility of extending what a concept can do is also brought under scrutiny by Ann Burlein, in a piece entitled The Productive Power of Ambiguity: Rethinking Homosexuality through the Virtual and Developmental Systems Theory. Burlein draws on the work of Elizabeth Wilson to argue “Feminism needs to engage with scientific authority not simply at those sites where it [science] takes women as its objects, but also in the neutral zones, in those places where feminism appears to have no place or political purchase” (1998, 18–19). Why not feminist critiques of the liver or the stomach, she asks?” (23). Such styles of thought are the inspiration for this paper. We argue that queer critiques in education should not stop at places where Education takes queer bodies as its objects, but that queer theory has an important role to play in places where, at first glance, it appears to have no place or purchase.
Consequently, the focus of this paper is on the politics of Education’s Queer Assemblages. Our ruminations on what a concept can do, what it is allowed to do, and, on what people say or think it can’t do, draw on our combined histories of working in this field in Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and, internationally. First, we consider what a queer concept can do, both within and outside putatively queer spaces in education. Second, we identify some of the “neutral zones” of education where queer might have a role to play and consider what is involved in such undertakings. The politics we have in mind are irreducible to any one person, philosopher, institution or event. To be clear, this analysis does not see queer as having a particular root, but, rather, as always on the move.
Burlein, A. (2005) The Productive Power of Ambiguity: Rethinking Homosexuality through the Virtual and Developmental Systems Theory, Hypatia 20 (1) 21-53.
Hickey-Moody, A.C., Rasmussen, M.L., 2009, The Sexed Subject in-between Deleuze and Butler, in Deleuze and Queer Theory, eds Chrysanthi Nigianni and Merl Storr (Series Editor: Ian Buchanan), Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, UK, pp. 37-53.
May, T. (2005) Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction, Cambridge University Press.