Deleuze and narrative investigation: the multiple literacies of Sudanese families in Australia

Abstract

Sudanese families arriving in Australia bring with them a wealth of language and cultural resources that are currently not recognised by the Australian education system. This paper challenges such a position by investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians from a Deleuzian perspective. A Deleuzian perspective in education promotes the multiple literacies of the Sudanese Australians as a means to learn about and articulate important aspects of their changing circumstances. The families are not ‘othered’ or marginalised through this study, or compared to or against the normative cognitive functions that are produced by the current education system in Australia. Rather, an innovative way to look at the narratives of the Sudanese in Australia is explored by applying Deleuzian philosophy to education. Such a process uses the notion of the ‘virtual’ from Deleuze, which is a hybrid concept that engages with psychoanalytic and philosophical ideas from a fresh perspective. Such novel conceptual positioning is deemed necessary when investigating the narratives of the Sudanese Australians in order to think alongside the Sudanese in Australia. The final part of the paper takes the conceptual work from Deleuze and the investigation of the narratives, and makes pragmatic educational recommendations about literacy learning strategies for the Sudanese Australians.

Intra‐activity of humans and nonhumans inWriters' Studio: (re)imagining and (re)defining ‘social’

“…We focus mainly on theories by French scholars Deleuze and Guattari who wrote about the nomadic nature of knowledge and identity, and Derrida's notion of absent presence (see Kuby and Gutshall Rucker, for detailed explanation of the theoretical concepts of these poststructural thinkers). Poststructuralism offers an invigorating, fresh way of conceptualising and understanding literacy practices as scholars have begun to think with these concepts (Burnett and Merchant, ; Cole, ; Hagood, , ; Handsfield, ; Honan, , ; Leander and Boldt, ; Leander and Rowe, ; Masny and Cole, , ). Rhizomatic theory helps us to embrace and follow the unexpected ways students know/do/be/create literacies.…”

Becoming Australian: a review of southern Sudanese students’ educational experiences

“…Those who attended the homework centres in Greater Western Sydney found that the friendship, interest and learning support that was lacking in their relationships with their teachers was able to be established with the student volunteers who regularly assisted them after school (Naidoo, 2009). Typically, in a country that primarily values the white, Anglo-Saxon, middle class ways of knowing, the rich, predominantly oral linguistic culture that Sudanese children and young adults bring to their new country is rarely recognized in the Australian education system even though it has enormous potential to support their learning in English language and literacy (Cole, 2013;Major, Wilkinson, Langat, & Santoro, 2013). Sadly, the acquisition of language competencies alone is still not a 'free pass' to inclusion, acculturation or addressing the power balance in mainstream schooling (Due, Riggs, & Mandara, 2015b).…”

Sudanese Humanitarian Migrants in Australian Refereed Journals

“…A number of studies have explored language maintenance and changes in South Sudanese communities in Australia (Hatoss & Sheely, 2009;Cole, 2013;Cranitch, 2010;Hebbani et al, 2009Hebbani et al, , 2010. The findings of Hatoss and Sheely's study with sixty-four South Sudanese background secondaryschool children in Toowoomba revealed multiple uses of language in these students' daily life in this New South Wales town.…”

“…Alternative research concepts and advocacy of policy or practical strategies enrich the discussion and show the overflowing of themes, for example in Cole's (2013) application of Deleuze's (1994) ideas of the "virtual" and "narrative real" to South Sudanese multiple literacies (Masny, 2010). This explored South Sudanese migrant experience challenging common binaries.…”