‘I am everywhere all at once’: pipelines, rhizomes and research writing

The research process is usually construed as linear, from registration to graduation, defined by completion within a certain period. This notion of a linear ‘pipeline’ has been critiqued for its embeddedness in a managerial discourse and the way it constrains transformation. Here, we focus on how writing support gets ensnared in ‘pipeline thinking’, partly because of the dominant image of communication as a conduit, an image that shapes approaches to teaching research writing. Our experiences with the design, teaching and research of an online writing course unsettle fixed views of writing as a stable signifier of a position within, and completion of, the pipeline. We use Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome as a way of showing the paradox of research journeys—of keeping moving, while being located here, there and somewhere else. There is always an excess, something that spills out from pipelines. We offer snapshots of different kinds of data that express a ‘both-and’ rather than an ‘either-or’ logic: both course and resource, engagements within and beyond the course and writing as both process and product. Rhizomatic thinking allowed us to reflect on participants’ research journeys, our course design and research process, as dynamic encounters with the potential for creativity and transformation. This yielded questions about writing and literacy where the emergent qualities of curriculum, writer identities and textual ‘products-for-now’ are embraced rather than suppressed.