Decentering the “self” in self-study of professional practices: A working research assemblage

In this chapter, we deliberately attempt to reframe the “self” in self-study of professional practices by focus on how “self” can be conceptualized in ways that do not equate “self” with “I.” Drawing insights from Deleuze and Guattarian’s (1987) rhizomatic philosophy, and particular the concept of assemblage, the objective was to engage with a research assemblage to investigate its function and production. We – i.e., a doctoral candidate, who was researching his practice of teaching pre-service teachers, his two supervisors, and his critical friend – engaged with audio data from our meetings conducted throughout a four-year period. Zooming in on the research assemblage at times when we were provoked to reorganize, adapt, and enhance our systems of thinking (Ovens, Garbett, & Hutchinson, 2016), we highlight the nonlinear and fundamentally relational process of constructing knowledge in self-study of professional practices. We argue that the researcher-self became only one of multiple human and non-human components in a joint construction of knowledge. We suggest that self-study researchers can decenter the researcher-self by embracing a research stance of “coming into composition” (Strom & Martin, 2017) where the researcher engages with a research assemblage to construct joint understanding of teaching and learning. This stance to self-study requires researchers to make themselves into a rhizome.