Paper short abstract:

This paper considers disruptions of the research process as moment for re-attunement to both the research and to the broader social circumstances a researcher finds themselves in. Disruption can be a generative tool for reassessment and can help researchers to better situate their work in society.

Paper long abstract:

This paper considers how we might disrupt neoliberal production in the research process. Disruptions can occur when an expected flow of progression is interrupted by an unexpected event, and in the research process they can indicate aspects of the broader world that were overlooked or were not accounted for by the researcher. These interruptions are valuable precisely because of their unexpectedness and can potentially identify overlooked phenomena in the research itself when considered as part of the research process. Considering such concepts as "weak theory" Sedgwick (2003), Stewart (2008) or "low theory" (Halberstam 2011), this paper intends to examine both the frustration of disruption and also how welcoming disruptions into the research process can benefit both the research and the researcher. Disruption can inspire the interrogation of not only an individual's research process and objectives, but also of the structures and networks of collective relation that research and the people involved in the research process exist within. Using the method of schizoanalysis, I will be considering how the sometimes individualistic nature of conducting research methodologies can make disruption more difficult to deal with and will be considering how certain kinds of disruption may be associated with failure. I am positioning disruption as an opportunity for reassessment rather than a failure to account for or deal with unexpected circumstances. This paper will be considering how the messiness and malleability of lived experience must coexist with the regimented structures of research processes.