Circling the Text: Nomadic Writing Practices

The sixth moment of qualitative inquiry demands that researchers rethink traditional definitions of ethical research practices. In addition, the crisis of representation demands that researchers rethink the function of writing in qualitative research. In this article, the author illustrates how she used Deleuze's ethical principles as well as Deleuze and Guattari's figurations of the rhizome, the fold, the nomad, and haecceity to address both of these issues in her study of the construction of subjectivity of a group of older, White southern women in her hometown. Mapping how her understanding of subjectivity has shifted as she has employed these figurations in her writing, she suggests that texts can be the site of ethical work as researchers use writing to help them think differently—an ethical practice of postfoundational inquiry—about both the topic of their studies and the methodology.