Geophilosophy, rhizomes and mosquitoes: Becoming nomadic in global science education research

Abstract

This chapter enacts an approach to global science education research inspired by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's figurations of rhizomatic and nomadic thought. It imagines rhizomes 'shaking the tree' of modern Western science and science education by destabilising arborescent conceptions of knowledge as hierarchically articulated branches of a central stem or trunk rooted in firm foundations, and explores how becoming nomadic might liberate science educators from the sedentary judgmental positions that serve as the nodal points of Western academic science education theorising. This is demonstrated by commencing a rhizomatic textual assemblage that makes multiple, hybrid connections among the parasites, mosquitoes, humans, technologies and socio-technical relations signified by malaria in order to generate questions, provocations and challenges to dominant discourses and assumptions of contemporary science education. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.