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CSCXXX10.1177/1532708616634726Cultural Studies <span class="symbol" cstyle="symbol"></span> Critical MethodologiesLenz Taguchi
Article
Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies
Abstract
For this article, I ask how it might be possible to study the encounter between the practices that involve the concept of
the Neuro(n) and educational practices of teaching and learning. The article aims to experiment by thinking the concept
as method. This entails the doubled and entangled movement of tracing-and-mapping the concept ofin this casethe
Neuro(n). I suggest that the contemporary obsession with the Neuro(n) in the field of education emerges from the desire
to know more about the learning subject, knowledge, and the problem of how something new comes into the world.
Keywords
concept as method, Claire Colebrook, Deleuze and Guattari, the Neuron, neurosciences and education
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214 Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 16(2)
that exposes the entangled relationship between the life sci- micro-political resistance, aiming to be creative of yet
ences (especially the neurosciences) and the philosophical unknown potentialities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). Deleuze
problem of vitalism and, thus, how to make sense of the and Guattari (1994) write that we need to beware of engag-
principles of life, the arrival of being, and how (human) life ing exclusively in critique and rather give it [the concept]
can be maintained in the face of extinction. the forces it needs to return to life (p. 28). This is why an
active experimentation that aims to make things differ
differentiationis crucial to their micro-politics (Deleuze
The Aim and Objective and Concept & Guattari, 1987). The aim to achieve transformations of
as Method in a Nutshell the realities of disadvantaged people or other agents has
How might one study the intensive events of the contempo- also been a key characteristic of the 1980s and 1990s criti-
rary encounter between education and the neurosciences? cal and feminist poststructural theories from which the
What is produced in the connections between the neurosci- presently emerging feminist New Empirical or New
ences and disciplines such as cognitive psychology, the phi- Material theorizing and research has evolved (e.g., Barad,
losophy of mind,2 social psychology, and education? In line 2007; Braidotti, 2013; Haraway, 1988; Mol, 2002).
with the recent ontological turn to what has been labeled
New Materialisms and New Empiricisms in the humanities What Is a Concept and How Do You
and social sciences (Dolphijn & van der Tuin, 2012; Lather
Make the Concept Your Method?
& St. Pierre, 2013), this article aims to experiment by think-
ing the concept as method, as suggested by Claire When Claire Colebrook (2013)4 extends an invitation to a
Colebrook (2013) and taking the Neuro(n) as its example. collective of feminist educational researchers that we
Hence, the objective of this article is to rethink qualitative might begin to think of concepts as methods, she does so
inquiry and methodology inspired by Colebrooks (2008, with the hope that researchers engaged in issues of peda-
2010, 2013, 2014a, 2014b) and Deleuze and Guattaris gogy and education might reactivate their strong disciplin-
(1987, 1994) work. ary connection to philosophy. For Colebrook, philosophy
What, then, sets New Empirical and Deleuzio-Guattarian can be seen as the modest task of a pedagogy of the con-
research apart from the critical and poststructural episte- cept (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 12). This can be envi-
mologies from which they can be understood to have sioned as the pedagogical process of learning from and with
evolved? In a nutshell, this kind of research, including my the concept, by tracing its conditions of creation in ways
present take on concept as method, can be described in that can transform those conditions, and make it possible
terms of a doubled and entangled action or movement of for us to create new concepts and subsequent material-
tracing-and-mapping.3 On the one hand, this involves semiotic5 differing realities.
extracting events, problems, and concepts from the chaos of As a pedagogy, the concept no longer constitutes an
multiple realities. By tracing-and-mapping a concept abstract signifier of a phenomenon with an agreed upon
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987), we can learn something about meaning, but is itself an act, a verb, something created from
how it has become extracted from particular events to cap- and physically lived on a specific plane of thinking (Deleuze
ture or apprehend a particular problem, as Deleuze and & Guattari, 1994). The concept captures a material-semiotic
Guattari (1994, p. 158) write. On the other hand, this move- event in an ongoing process of doing (sense making) and
ment also involves setting up and creating new events, pos- becoming (differing) in its multiplicity of inseparable varia-
sibilities, problems, and concepts for a reality to come tions, write Deleuze and Guattari (1994). It is that tempo-
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1994). The mapping aspect of tracing- rary arrest of comprehensionas the event is taken in for
and-mapping involves connecting a concept to other con- questioning if you willwhich might reconfigure the
cepts in other territories on the map. This can be done by event, the problem, and the concept itself. This is what
performing what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) call asignify- makes the concept as method possible.
ing ruptures. In the performance of this doubled movement Let me clarify by retelling bits of the example provided
of tracing-and-mapping, differentiations can be created that by Deleuze and Guattari (1994) in the chapter What Is a
might deterritorialize the concept and accomplish recon- Concept? in their book What Is Philosophy? (pp. 15-34).
figurations with the purpose of resisting normalizing prac- Deleuze and Guattari insist that thinking begins with the
tices (cf. Lenz Taguchi, 2013; Lenz Taguchi & Palmer, creation of concepts. Philosophers, such as Descartes, con-
2014; Martin & Kamberelis, 2013). struct concepts and set up their specific plane of thinking,
Thus, the doubled movement of tracing-and-mapping is which can be understood as a horizon or an abstract
not about performing a critical genealogy or discourse anal- machine that has diagrammatic, graphic, or pictorial fea-
ysis to come to know how the present has become discur- tures. These diagrams or pictures are assemblages of
sively normalized and inscribed with references to past concepts with intensive features of desiring forces that cor-
events and practices. It is rather a method of affirmative respond to a particular problem (cf. de Freitas, 2012). They
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Lenz Taguchi 215
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216 Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 16(2)
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Lenz Taguchi 217
Therefore, what are some of the desiring lines of articu- question: Do you see this egg? With this you can topple
lation on this particular plane of thinking, and what are the [overthrow] every theological theory, every church or temple
major battles fought over (cf. Colebrook, 2010)? in the world. (p. 4). With this comment, he refers to both
religious and scientific convictions. He does not ask
DAlembert to observe the egg and turn that observation into
A Binary Regime of Signs: The Humanness a mathematical formula, which would be an example of clas-
of the MindHumanness Reduced to Brain sic rational thinking. Instead, Diderot asks him to see the egg
Matter following another line, aiming to a point in another direction,
outside the limits of mathematical logic. Stengers (2007)
On this particular surface where the Neuro(n) connects to edu-
notes that Diderot asks DAlembert to accept seeing the egg
cation, tracing-and-mapping will expose a battle over some
using other sensesaffect and emotionand to imagine the
fundamental requirements for educational practices: the prob-
developing embryo and the small chicken that breaks the
lem of what humanness and the brain and mind might be.
shell and comes out. The storys epistemological problem
These problems must be addressed before dealing with the
concerns whether learning is an effect of rational human
problem of how thinking and thus learning might be con-
thinking or an effect of the human subjects affective senses.
ceived. Using Deleuze and Guattaris (1987) language in this
As Stengers notes, choosing to think of learning as affective
tracing-and-mapping exercise, it is possible to spot two major
and subjective perception risks getting stuck at the other side
lines of exceptionally strong production of desiring force that
of the binary. The point here is to not accept the distinction
seem to swirl into their respective circles of convergence a
that grounds the binary.
multiplicity of successive singularities. These two circles con-
What have we put on the map so far? The Neuro(n) has
gregate a multiplicity of singular lines of thinking into two
been traced and mapped to a problem of humanness and
strong opposing molar lines that have become productive of
whether or not the human brain, mind, and Cogito/Self in
an almost passionate power-producing binary regime operat-
contemporary neuro-philosophy is understood in terms of a
ing in the contemporary humanities and social sciences.
human and brain-centered ontology or a reductive material
What we can extract from our tracing is a binary with a
eliminativism ontology of sheer brain matter. Central compo-
humanist metaphysics at one end, celebrating the unique
nents of the Neuro(n) that can be exposed in this exercise are
humanness of the mind and the self (Dennett, 2007;
the embodied mind/brain and plasticity in its interaction with
Thompson, 2010), and a humanness reduced to brain
the environment. When Stengers story about Diderots egg is
matter on the other (Clark, 2011). The former constitutes a
added on and put on the map, it connects this ontological
human bounded brain: the human is taken as the privileged
binary to the problem of epistemology and the production of
point from which life is known. The latter constitutes a
knowledge and learning. The components of rationality and
reductive materialist ontology of relations between the fir-
affect as components of the Neuro(n) are hereby provided.
ing of transmitting neurons connecting and interacting with
When we thus connect Stengers story about Diderots egg
each other and extending outside of the embodied brain
to the ontological binary sketched above, the epistemological
(Clark, 2011). The intensive force in the reductive account
binary of rationality (naturalism/positivism) vs. subjectivism
is constituted by a desire to more or less erase the human
(phenomenology/constructivism) can be put on the map in
subject and humanness (Colebrook, 2014a; 2014b). A
the territory that celebrates the unique humanness of the mind
reductive materialism converges the scientific disciplines of
and self rather than in the territory of reductive eliminativism
biology, neurology, and physics as mind, brain, and think-
and a brain of sheer matter. We add to that territory the epis-
ing reduces the Neuro(n) to sheer matter. Another less radi-
temological problem of how knowing for a human subject is
cal version is simply putting brain, body, and the world
achieved as an effect of either rational thought and/or affect
together again (Clark in Colebrook, 2014a, p. 14). This lat-
as in emotional engagement (Dennett, 2007). However, as we
ter idea of the embodied brain with its millions of interact-
shall see below, something else will happen as we perform
ing neurons that transform in relation to a world of
the move of an asignifying rupture on the map when we make
perceptions, material conditions, and affects, refers to a
another reading of Stengers story. Thereby, we follow
brain of plasticity and gene-expressions (epi-genetics).
another line and desiring force that escapes both these seg-
Isabelle Stengers (2007) shows how these major lines of
mentary molar lines and binary regimes.
articulation in fact constitute a very old Western conflict that
features dual idealist temptations: on one hand, a reductive
material eliminativism and, on the other hand, a reductive Following the Lines of the Components
humanist metaphysics. Cleverly, Stengers illustrates the
temptations of these dual desiring forces and connects them
Embodiment, Plasticity, Rationality, and Affect
to the problem of the construction of knowledge and learning In the above tracing-and-mapping, the major components
(epistemology) by telling the story about how the philoso- of the concept of the Neuro(n) are embodiment, plasticity,
pher Denis Diderot asks the mathematician DAlembert a rationality, and affect. If we understand concepts as
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218 Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 16(2)
intensities and centers of vibrations (Deleuze & the component of plasticity refers only to the internal plas-
Guattari, 1994, p. 23), these four components will be seen ticity of the brain in this line of convergence. This means
to resonate and interact closely with each other. In what fol- that plasticity here is not understood in accordance with the
lows, I will trace and map the lines of these components in more radical materialist and reductive line of articulation
a singular text featuring what is called neurodidactics to leaning towards the other side of the ontological binary
exemplify the collective enunciations and lines of articula- sketched above; that is, in terms of a brain extended outside
tions that form their respective circles of convergence on the human skull (e.g., Clark, 2011; Cutler & MacKenzie,
the map. 2011; Thompson, 2010). Instead, Olivestam and Ott (2010)
When the Brain Gets to Decide (Olivestam & Ott, 2010) explicitly write that their neurodidactical approach to learn-
is the title of this book that uses the prefix of the Neuro- to ing is specified as an intra-cranial field that extends the
outline how educational practices can be transformed into brain only as to be affected by social relations to other stu-
better practice when embracing knowledge from the neu- dents, the teacher and the learning-content (p. 111). In the
rosciencesto enact neurodidactics. When reading this tracing-and-mapping of the desiring forces in the theory
book, it is possible to see what Deleuze and Guattari (1994) and practices of neurodidactics, neuroscientific knowledge
mean when they write that the concept speaks the event can be understood as high jacked to converge with already
and is a function of a problem (p. 18); that is, when it does established educational practices to form new molar lines
the job of a particular problem. In this book, the concept of and segmentary practices for teachers to abide by to be
the Neuro(n) zigzags rhizomatically on a plane of already successful.
established educational theories to converge with them and
form a new stratified territory and new evidence-based The Problem of Vitalism and What Constitutes
regimes of practice. When the neurosciences encounter
these educational theories and practices, already stratified Humanness and the Arrival of Being
practices transform but are to be immediately re-stratified As already stated in the introduction, the tracing-and-
into new normalizing didactics. This is the process that mapping enacted for this article extracts a more comprehen-
Deleuze and Guattari (1987) refer to as reterritorialization. sive problem from which the Neuro(n) on this plane of
Following the intensive force of desiring production in thinking can be said to emerge. This problem concerns
this book (Olivestam & Ott, 2010), we learn that it is with vitalism as the imperative of grounding, defending or
knowledge derived from the neurosciences that we have deriving principles and systems from life as it really is, to
finally attained the evidence of behaviorisms ideas about use Colebrooks (2014b, p. 100) definition. For this article,
the importance of rewards to achieve optimal learning in the I will limit my focus to that aspect of vitalism that concerns
form of an embodied learning. However, because of the the becoming of the student as learner.
brains plasticity, this evidence should be combined with Vitalism can, according to Colebrook (2014b), be per-
established knowledge from sociocultural theory about the cived either as an active vitalism which assumes that life
importance of educational artifacts and the environment in refers to intentionally, acting, and organized bodies with
learning. Olivestam and Ott (2010) note that sociocultural limits and identities or a passive force of vitalism as a dif-
theory is similarly affected by findings from neuroscientific ferentiating field of powers without a preconceived image of
research. Cognitive theories have also been proven correct the living body.8 This passive power expresses itself in vari-
by evidence-based neuroscience. The authors show how the ous forms of, for instance, genders, so that every gender is
brain in a specific mode of rationality organizes and creates an individual actualization of a genetic and sociocultural
patterns during the learning process (Olivestam & Ott, potential for sexual differentiation of a singular event of
2010). Finally, progressivisms idea about learning by individuation (Colebrook, 2014b). Colebrook writes that a
doing, whereby both rational reasons as to why something body, as an effect of a passive vitalism, is formed through
is to be learned as well as the significance of emotional/ the sensual forces it encounters. In other words; there
affective engagement in learning are components equally would be qualities or powers to be sensed from which some-
supported by neuroscientific findings. The brain is embod- thing like a body that senses would emerge, a body being
ied and the body is embedded, as these advocates of formed from the sensual forces it encounters (Colebrook,
Neurodidactics conclude (Edelman, 2006, in Olivestam & 2014b, p. 101). The active vitalist force is constituted by a
Ott, 2010, p. 77). The validity of existing developmental synthesizing power of a human subject or a constructed sys-
and educational theories are, in this way, not only confirmed tem or idea that acts from a point of view or knowledge of
but also updated and given new stamina in their conver- the world. Contrary to this, the passive vitalist force is but
gence with neuroscientific knowledge. does not (intentionally) act. Rather, it becomes productive in
The theories of neurodidactics are clearly both material- its connections with other forces from a state of detachment
ist and reductive in character, but ontologically, they are in relation to action (Colebrook, 2014b). Colebrook (2014b)
still explicitly human-centered (anthropocentric). Hence, concludes: Whereas active vitalism would seek to return
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Lenz Taguchi 219
political processes to the will, intent and agency of individu- of vitalism (pp. 34, 156) that aims to take us back to the
als or subjects, passive vitalism is micropolitical: it attends meaning of life as part of one ecology and system of inter-
to those differences that we neither intend, nor perceive, nor connected life from which we somehow forgot we emerged
command (p. 106). With this in mind, let us return to the (Colebrook, 2010, 2014a). Colebrook will, however, and per-
tracing of the components of the neurodidactics example haps shockingly, refer to this as ultra-humanism and even
above and trace its vitalizing forces. hyper-Cartesianism. This is because Man, she says, has
always seen himself as an environmental being who affirms
The Student as a Becoming Man himself through a material world as a sign of his proper and
profound otherness in being more than himself in this con-
Versus the Student as an Extended nection to the material world (Colebrook, 2014b). Moreover,
Mind and Material Organism the grounding of life (despite the rejection of mind) can only
Neurodidactics as an intra-cranial field perceives vitalism be discerned through human reflection. By the end of the day,
and thus the arrival of being of the student as a becoming the world and the brain as matter is still determined for and by
(Hu)Man. This student must mature to learn how to think a Hu(Man) to feel, live/perform, or linguistically determine
and represent the world in interaction with his interacting (Colebrook, 2014b).
genetic and neurological properties. Until fully developed, How, then, does such ultra-humanism converge with
this is an incomplete and lacking human being. If we recon- educational practices and to what kind of vitalism does this
nect to Stengers (2007) binary of a reductive humanisms ultra-humanism refer? With reference to findings from the
metaphysics and a reductive material eliminativism, the neurosciences, the problem of how something new comes
production of the student as a becoming (Hu)Man is to be to the world is addressed from the point of view of the
found in the territory on the map of an anthropocentric emotional brain (Damasio, 2000) and the notion, In the
humanism. It thus constitutes an active vitalism, because beginning is affect: an emotion that may or may not come to
the problem of how something new comes to the world consciousness. The self is the feeling of this event, which
can only be answered via the (Hu)Man as the grounding is also to say that the self does not end with the borders of
substance of knowing to whom the world is given the biological body" (Colebrook, 2014b, p. 12). In terms of
(Colebrook, 2014a, p. 17). That is, the world is there for a education, teaching practices, then, should be adapted to
human subject, and knowledge can only be produced by a accommodate and regulate students emotions.
human subject (Lenz Taguchi, 2013). The social-emotional force of learning is materialized as,
Let us now instead put ourselves on the map in the terri- for instance, the widely promoted idea of social-emotional
tory of the other pole of the binarya material eliminativ- learning (SEL) practices (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki,
ismto explore it a bit more. In this territory, it is possible to Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011; Gormley, Phillips, Newmark,
trace the components of embodiment, plasticity, and affect to Welti, & Adelstein, 2011). Such practices focus on the social
an anti-cognitivist turn where the mind or the self is taken environment to understand how the brain is shaped by social
to emerge from life rather than being the privileged (human) relations and how we, as a consequence, can actively shape
point of view from which life is known (Colebrook, 2014b). it: human connections shape neural connections as inter-
A line of articulation of a more radical dynamism of plasticity personal neurobiology claims (Siegel, 2012, p. 3). These
suggest that we exist as the thinking beings we are, only practices engage schoolchildren in mindfulness meditation
thanks to a baffling dance of brains, bodies, and cultural and and enhance childrens self-management of emotions (Yoder,
technological scaffolding and human thought and reason is 2014). In the context of the contemporary field of Danish
born out of looping interactions with material brains, material school policy reforms, Dorthe Stauns and Malou Juelskjr
bodies and complex cultural and technological environ- have identified what they call a neuro-bio-affective manage-
ments (Clark as cited in Colebrook, 2011, p. 22). This is ment approach (Stauns, 2011). It is also materialized in new
what is sometimes referred to as anti-Cartesianism and a forms of school architecture (Juelskjr, 2014) and new ways
brain of bodily interaction (Cutler & MacKenzie, 2011). of organizing teaching and learning in relation to the stu-
In post-Cartesian neuro-philosophy, the rejection of mind dents bodily and neurological make-up (Stauns, 2011).
eventually refers to a turning back to the body and the stuff In terms of vitalism, we can see how an intentional synthesiz-
the world and we all are made of" (Colebrook, 2014a, p. 14). ing power of a human subject or a constructed system or idea
It also refers to a world and a richer expansive life from refers these practices to an active vitalism.
which [we] have become detached (ibid.). Thus, the compo-
nents of the Neuro(n) converge in the sign of the world itself Putting to Work an Asignifying
as grounding, rather than man as the grounding substance
(Colebrook, 2014a). The world as grounding can, as
Rupture
Colebrook (2014b) notes, be understood as part of a contem- Deleuze and Guattari (1987) explain that to get hold of the
porary influential line of thinking in terms of an organic form creative potentials that diverge from the segmentary molar
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220 Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 16(2)
lines, the tracing-and-mapping exercise needs to include repeatedly notes, a post-Cartesian move beyond man as an
enactments of asignifying ruptures. This means engaging in isolated thinker must not simply constitute a move back
a practice of estrangement by connecting to something dif- towards the body and the stuff we are already made of,
ferent or to something omitted or silenced to get away from but can instead constitute a move forward to the inorganic
taken-for-granted and common sense significations potentialities that exist now only in confused and all too
(Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). human composites (Deleuze in Colebrook, 2011, p. 26). A
Let us reread Stengers (2007) example with Diderot queer vitalist position comprises a state which is not in lack
asking DAlembert to see the egg. When Diderot asks in relation to a higher truth or essence of an all-encompass-
DAlembert to activate a mode of estrangement and follow ing nature. Rather, this is a state where the student is always
what we call a line of flight, he asks that he give the egg the in a state of differing, becoming different in herself or him-
power to challenge his well-defined categories, writes self, or what Deleuze and Guattari (1987) refers to as an
Stengers (2007, p. 4). For Stengers, this constitutes a rup- individuating process (that does not just concern human
ture in that it forces DAlembert to think outside or beyond beings). Colebrook concludes that we are nothing more
any already known categories (or temples) of thinking such than potentiality (Colebrook, 2014a, p. 12) or as she writes,
as rational scientific thinking or subjective affective rela-
tional sensing and knowing. Rather, this is a materialism No body fully knows its own powers, and can only become
that follows a line of thinking that forces us to activate an joyful (or live) not by attaining the ideal it has of itselfbeing
ethics of potentialities or political struggle by giving, in this who I really ambut by maximizing those potentialities in
case, the materiality of the egg itself the power to challenge ourselves which exceed the majoritarian, or which are not yet
actualized. (Colebrook, 2014b, p. 118)
us in unforeseen ways. With reference to Haraway (2008),
Stengers (Haraway, 2008) writes, accept seeing the egg and
accept grappling with the messiness of the world (p. 4). As part of the doubled movement of thinking the con-
Therefore, following the line of flight from this rupture, cept as method, let us set up a new event on this plane of
what might that messiness be in relation to educational thinking where the Neuro(n) connects to educational prac-
practices and how can it be understood to emerge from the tices to reconfigure that plane and the problem of vitalism.
problem of vitalism? This example concerns the event of an interdisciplinary
research event on neuroplasticity showing evidence of dif-
ferences in selective attention in children from different
The Student as Becoming-Child socioeconomic backgrounds (Neville etal., 2013; Stevens,
Thinking differently about being/becoming and difference Lauinger, & Neville, 2009). This research, a rare example
in line with Deleuze and Guattaris, Colebrooks, and New of a classical positivist experiment based on a hypothesis
Materialist and Empiricist thinking (Dolphijn & van der with very strong social justice implications, makes this
Tuin, 2012; Lenz Taguchi, 2013) can help us think the stu- event an enactment of an asignifying rupture in the present
dent not in terms of a becoming (Hu)Man or as an tracing-and-mapping of the Neuron. It is by doing research
extended mind and material organism, but instead as a in this particular paradigm, not to primarily know more
multiplicity with a diverging character always in transfor- about the brain, but with political hopes of an enactment of
mation and differentiation and becoming different in itself: the becoming-child that connects this research event to
a becoming-child (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 232- the omitted, left out, and silenced (Deleuze & Guattari,
309). In Deleuze and Guattaris writing, the child, the femi- 1987, p. 11); that is, children in North American underprivi-
nine, and the animal constitute an instability in relation to leged housing and schooling areas.
the stable, universal (male) subject. It is the very process of In this neuroscientific intervention study, preschool chil-
thinking and becoming different from the norm (Deleuze & drens auditory attention skills were measured with EEG
Guattari, 1987). Becoming-woman, becoming-child, or (electroencephalography) before and after a period of 8
becoming-animal is, thus, understood as a counter-active weeks of social-emotional training and changes in their
thinking that has the power to transform societal and mate- school and home environments. Significant change was
rial realities (Deleuze & Guattari, 1994, p. 109). seen as a result of changes in the brain due to its plasticity.
Let us return to the ontological problem of vitalism and Changes were more significant in the children from the
how the new comes to the world. In line with the idea of groups with the lowest social economic status (Neville
the becoming-child, Colebrook suggests a queer vitalism etal., 2013; Stevens etal., 2009).
that constitutes an affirmative possibility for thinking the In this research, neuroscientists and educators collaborate
world simultaneously without the taken-for-granted idea of in unique and rare experiments performed in a micro-political
the (Hu)Man and in terms of new possible becomings with alliance with the concept of the Neuron to show the process
and as an effect of the co-construction with yet unknown of differing in its very enactment. They do this byif only
potentialities (Colebrook, 2014, pp. 100-125). As Colebrook provisionallyproviding children from underprivileged
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Lenz Taguchi 221
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222 Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 16(2)
active human agents (Colebrook, 2014b, p. 101). Colebrook & language (pp. 73-95). New York, NY: Columbia University
writes on the Deleuzian idea of a passive vitalism, which refers Press.
to life as virtual and thus a power without the image of the liv- Dolphijn, R., & van der Tuin, I. (2012). New materialism:
ing body. Life as a differentiating field of powers, expresses Interviews & cartographies. Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities
itself in various forms of, for instance, genders, so that every Press. Retrieved from http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/
gender is an individual actualization of a genetic and social/ dod-idx/new-materialism-interviews-cartographies.pdf?c=oh
cultural potential for sexual differentiation (Colebrook, 2014b). p;idno=11515701.0001.001
However, as in all of Deleuze and Guattaris philosophy, the Durlak, J., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D.,
binaries they create are created to show their co-constitutive & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing stu-
nature and the co-dependence between them. dents social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of
school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82,
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Author Biography
different socioeconomic backgrounds: An event-related brain
potential study. Developmental Science, 12, 634-646. Hillevi Lenz Taguchi, PhD, (2001) Professor of Education and
Thompson, E. (2010). Mind in life: Biology, phenomenology, and Child and Youth Studies and co-director of the division of Early
the science of mind. London, England: The Belknap Press of Childhood Education, Department of Child and Youth Studies,
Harvard University Press. Stockholm University, Sweden.
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