Opening-up channels. Rhizo-mapping and dialogue in an online space. Exploring the possibilities of a localised art and design curriculum with primary art and design subject leaders in England.
Lawrence, A. Elizabeth (2026) Opening-up channels. Rhizo-mapping and dialogue in an online space. Exploring the possibilities of a localised art and design curriculum with primary art and design subject leaders in England. Doctoral thesis, Birmingham City University.
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Abstract
This thesis explored what would happen and what might be possible if empirical research was done differently with a group of primary art and design subject leaders who are predominantly situated in educational spaces where structural linearity plays out as the prevailing paradigm. The role of primary art and design subject leadership and localising the primary art and design curriculum were the focal drivers for this thesis. With rhizome (Deleuze and Guattari,1987/2021) as an underpinning concept, the aim was to decentre positivist research practices and enable non-linear, collaborative ways of researching with primary art and design subject leaders. Over a period of ten months and through six micro-E(e)vents, the inquiry took place in a online, nomadic space and involved primary art and design subject leaders in doing-data (Myers, 2017) and data creation.
Post-methods (Taguchi and Postila, 2024) were employed as part of the data-doing and data creation process, including rhizo-mapping (Sellers, 2013), the use of provocation (Aradau and Huysmans, 2014, Pangrazio, 2017) and collag(e)d rhizo-maps. Provocations were regularly introduced to the primary art and design subject leaders in the form of theory, research, art pedagogy and art-based practice. Their purpose was to rupture existing ideas and thinking around the role of the primary art and design subject leadership and the primary art and design curriculum.
Through dialogic-material interactions multiple data sets were created including the co-creation of digital rhizo-maps, transcripts of dialogue and video recordings of micro-E(e)vents. The data sets were re-mapped as collag(e)d rhizo-maps as part of the process of plugging in and thinking through concepts and narrowing down dialogic and digitally mapped data. “Plugging in” (Jackson and Mazzei, 2013:262) was deployed as a process to connect the data with theory and research including Deleuze and Deleuzo-Guattarian concepts, theory of power (Foucault,1975/1995), ethic of care (Gilligan, 2014, McLeod, 2017), and research on ecological agency
(Priestley et al, 2015).
The challenges of implementing post-methods became intertwined in human and ethical dimensions and familiar, linear institutionalised policies and practices. This caused minor-shifts in the inquiry process which resulted in a more gradual introduction and weaving through of postqualitative theory and methods. Shifting from a more outcomes driven, goal orientated foci, this thesis proposes a connecting of theory, research and educational practice through non-linearity. This may be enabled by opening-up channels in a non-hierarchical, collaborative, nomadic space (Gorodetsky and Barak, 2016,) where theory, research and practice connect and provoke on a mutual level, providing primary art and design subject leaders with greater scope to consider the possibilities of their art and design curriculum.
This thesis contributes to research into primary art and design leadership, curriculum development in primary art and design, the integration of post-methods (Taguchi and Postila, 2024), a growing body of research into non-linear conceptualizations of teacher education, through “minor (social) science” (Fox, 2024:1103) and the possibilities of a non-transactional model of continuous professional development for primary art and design subject leaders.
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