Riding the Lines of Flight – Lifelong Learning as a Rhizome requires Rhizomatic Research

Thinking about the future of educational research requires a conceptual resource that is itself both imaginative and multiple and at the same time articulates a world with those self-same characteristics. This is provided by the work of Deleuze and Guattari.  Discussion of the future of research is located in a context of lifelong learning in the contemporary moment of ubiquitous electronic communication.  I argue that  the research process, contrary to the model of science, can be better understood as rhizomatic rather than arborescent and powered by desire rather than objectivity.  Lifelong learning is a rhizome and requires a rhizomatic approach and sensibility on the part of the researcher. The hyper-connectivity of the Internet reinforces this development influencing the way research  is carried out and the way its knowledge outcomes are distributed and used – a research without hierarchy and authority.

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