Materialism and Micropolitics in Sexualities Education Research

  • Pam Alldred
  • Nick J. Fox
Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

In this chapter, we establish a language and landscape for a new materialist practice of research in sexuality education. In the first section, we develop the materialist approach to sexuality and—by extension—sexuality education. Sexuality is not an attribute of a body, but an impersonal affective flow within assemblages of bodies, things, ideas, and social institutions, which produces sexual (and other) capacities in bodies. The second part of the chapter re-thinks social inquiry in terms of the micropolitics of the research-assemblage. From this perspective, research is a machine-like assemblage of things, people, ideas, social collectivities, and institutions. We conceptualise research as the hybridising of two assemblages: an ‘event-assemblage’ (for instance, some sexuality education practice) and a ‘research-assemblage’ comprising researcher, methods, audience, and contexts.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in to check access

References

  1. Alldred, P., & David, M. (2007). Get real about sex. Maidenhead: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  2. Alldred, P., & Fox, N. J. (2015a). From ‘lesbian and gay psychology’ to a critical psychology of sexualities. In I. Parker (Ed.), Handbook of critical psychology (pp. 200–209). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  3. Alldred, P., & Fox, N. J. (2015b). The sexuality-assemblages of young men: A new materialist analysis. Sexualities, 18(8), 905–920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  4. Allen, L., & Carmody, M. (2012). Pleasure has no passport: Re-visiting the potential of pleasure in sexuality education. Sex Education, 12(4), 455–468.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. Bale, C. (2011). Raunch or romance? Framing and interpreting the relationship between sexualized culture and young people’s sexual health. Sex Education, 11(3), 303–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  6. Barad, K. (1997). Meeting the universe halfway: Realism and social constructivism without contradiction. In L. H. Nelson & J. Nelson (Eds.), Feminism, science and the philosophy of science (pp. 161–194). Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar
  7. Barad, K. (2003). Performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs, 28(3), 801–831.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  8. Barker, M. (2005). This is my partner, and this is my partner’s partner: Constructing a polyamorous identity in a monogamous world. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 18(1), 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  9. Beckman, F. (2011). Introduction: What is sex? An introduction to the sexual philosophy of Gilles Deleuze. In F. Beckman (Ed.), Deleuze and sex (pp. 1–29). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  10. Bogue, R. (2011). Alien sex: Octavia Butler and Deleuze and Guattari’s polysexuality. In F. Beckman (Ed.), Deleuze and sex (pp. 30–49). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  11. Braidotti, R. (2006). Transpositions. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  12. Braidotti, R. (2011). Nomadic theory. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
  13. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
  14. Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  15. Butler, J. (1999). Revisiting bodies and pleasures. Theory, Culture & Society, 16(2), 11–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  16. Clough, P. T. (2004). Future matters: Technoscience, global politics, and cultural criticism. Social Text, 22(3), 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. Coleman, R., & Ringrose, J. (2013). Introduction. In R. Coleman & J. Ringrose (Eds.), Deleuze and research methodologies (pp. 1–22). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
  18. Coole, D. H., & Frost, S. (2010). Introducing the new materialisms. In D. H. Coole & S. Frost (Eds.), New materialisms: Ontology, agency, and politics (pp. 1–45). Durham: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  19. DeLanda, M. (2006). A new philosophy of society. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
  20. Deleuze, G. (1988). Spinoza: Practical philosophy. San Francisco: City Lights. Google Scholar
  21. Deleuze, G. (2001). Dualism, monism and multiplicities (desire-pleasure-jouissance). Contretemps, 2, 92–108. Retrieved from http://www.usyd.edu.au/contretemps/contretemps2.html
  22. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1984). Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
  23. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1988). A thousand plateaus. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
  24. Eng, D. L., Halberstam, J., & Munoz, J. E. (2005). Introduction: What’s queer about queer studies now? Social Text, 23(3), 84–85.Google Scholar
  25. Fine, M. (1988). Sexuality, schooling, and adolescent females: The missing discourse of desire. Harvard Educational Review, 58(1), 29–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  26. Flax, J. (1990). Thinking fragments: Psychoanalysis, feminism and postmodernism in the contemporary West. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  27. Foucault, M. (1981). The history of sexuality Vol. 1: The will to knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
  28. Foucault, M. (1987). The history of sexuality Vol. 2: The use of pleasure. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
  29. Foucault, M. (1990). The history of sexuality Vol. 3: The care of the self. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
  30. Fox, N. J., & Alldred, P. (2013). The sexuality-assemblage: Desire, affect, anti-humanism. Sociological Review, 61, 769–789.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  31. Fox, N. J., & Alldred, P. (2014). New materialist social inquiry: Designs, methods and the research-assemblage. International Journal of Social Research Methodology 18(4), 399–414.Google Scholar
  32. Fox, N. J., & Alldred, P. (2015). Inside the research-assemblage: New materialism and the micropolitics of social inquiry. Sociological Research Online, 20(2), 6. http://www.socresonline.org.uk/20/2/6.html. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  33. Fox, N. J., & Alldred, P. (2016). Sociology and the new materialism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  34. Game, A. (1991). Undoing the social. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.Google Scholar
  35. Gordo-Lopez, A. J., & Cleminson, R. M. (2004). Techno-sexual landscapes: Changing relations between technology and sexuality. London: Free Association Books.Google Scholar
  36. Grosz, E. (1994). Volatile bodies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
  37. Henriques, J., Hollway, W., Urwin, C., Venn, C., & Walkerdine, V. (1998). Changing the subject: Psychology, social regulation and subjectivity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  38. Holmes, D., OʼByrne, P., & Murray, S. J. (2010). Faceless sex: Glory holes and sexual assemblages. Nursing Philosophy: An International Journal for Healthcare Professionals, 11(4), 250–259.Google Scholar
  39. Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2013). Plugging one text into another: Thinking with theory in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(4), 261–271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  40. Jagose, A. (1996). Queer theory: An introduction. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
  41. Jagose, A. (2010). Counterfeit pleasures: fake orgasm and queer agency. Textual Practice, 24(3), 517–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  42. Johnson, R. (1996). Sexual dissonances: Or the ‘impossibility’ of sexuality education. Curriculum Studies, 4(2), 163–189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  43. Kitzinger, C. (1987). The social construction of lesbianism. London: Sage.Google Scholar
  44. Lambevski, S. A. (2004). Movement and desire: On the need to fluidify academic discourse on sexuality. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 10(2), 304–308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  45. Linstead, S., & Pullen, A. (2006). Gender as multiplicity: Desire, displacement, difference and dispersion. Human Relations, 59(9), 1287–1310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  46. Masny, D. (2013). Rhizoanalytic pathways in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 19(5), 339–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  47. Potts, A. (2004). Deleuze on Viagra (Or, what can a Viagra-body do?). Body & Society, 10(1), 17–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  48. Probyn, E. (1995). Queer belongings: The politics of departure. In E. Grosz & E. Probyn (Eds.), Sexy bodies (pp. 1–18). London: Routledge.Google Scholar
  49. Rasmussen, M. L. (2012). Pleasure/desire, sexularism and sexuality education. Sex Education, 12(4), 469–481.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  50. Renold, E., & Ringrose, J. (2011). Schizoid subjectivities? Re-theorizing teen girlsʼ sexual cultures in an era of “sexualization”. Journal of Sociology, 47(4), 389–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  51. Ringrose, J. (2011). Beyond discourse? Using Deleuze and Guattari’s schizoanalysis to explore affective assemblages, heterosexually striated space, and lines of flight online and at school. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43(6), 598–618.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  52. Sedgwick, E. K. (1990). Epistemology of the closet. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
  53. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of culture (pp. 271–313). Chicago: University of Illinois Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  54. Taylor, C. A., & Ivinson, G. (2013). Material feminisms: New directions for education. Gender and Education, 25(6), 665–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  55. Thomson, R. (1994). Moral rhetoric and public health pragmatism: The recent politics of sex education. Feminist Review, 48, 40–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  56. Thorogood, N. (2000). Sex education as disciplinary technique: Policy and practice in England and Wales. Sexualities, 3(4), 425–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  57. van der Tuin, I., & Dolphijn, R. (2010). The transversality of new materialism. Women: A Cultural Review, 21(2), 153–171.Google Scholar
  58. Widder, N. (2012). Political theory after Deleuze. London: Continuum.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2017

Open Access This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License, which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Pam Alldred
    • 1
  • Nick J. Fox
    • 2
  1. 1.Brunel University LondonLondonUK
  2. 2.University of SheffieldSheffieldUK

Personalised recommendations