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- Volume 20, Issue 3, 2017
Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 20, Issue 3, 2017
Volume 20, Issue 3, 2017
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Decolonising the classroom
Authors: Patricia S. Parker, Sara H. Smith & Jean DennisonAbstractIn this article, we draw from our experiences in designing and teaching a graduate-level course on decolonising methodologies at a research university in the southern United States. Recognising the university as a colonised space, the course aspires both to question received methodologies in the Social Sciences and Humanities and to make the classroom itself a site to model and engage with the unending work of decolonising knowledge production. Waves of scholarship have called for the decolonisation of the histories and knowledges that shored up colonisation – for the empire to ‘write back’. Yet when students of colour, women, or people from the Global South enter the academy as graduate students or junior faculty, that implicit otherness is often reinscribed upon their bodies and used to discount their lived experience, words, and research. We offer an analysis of the classroom as an important site for decolonising work, discuss the participative process used to plan and structure the decolonising methodologies course we developed, and trace three commitments that are crucial for decolonising the classroom: (a) practising radical openness in which the teachers are guided by the students’ experiences in the academy; (b) interrogating research norms as critical sites of entrenched colonising practices; and (c) creating spaces that foster the co-production of knowledge. We conclude with possibilities for decolonising the classroom, as well as the limitations.
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Contesting the imperial agenda. Respelling hopelessness
Authors: Alisha M.B. Heinemann & María do Mar Castro VarelaAbstractActual hegemonic structures are imperial structures. They rely on the oppression and marginalisation of all of those who are produced and marked as the Other. Considering the profound impact of the epistemic violence that was deployed to build empires, it comes as no surprise that, to be able to decolonise the university, it will not be enough to change the curricula, to challenge the canon, to employ ‘diversity officers’, or to make the classroom more inclusive. Instead, this contribution proposes a deconstruction of the university and pleas for unlearning as a strategy that aims towards an epistemic change. Furthermore, in a deliberate attempt to save the unsalvageable – the European university – we call for the respelling of hopelessness.
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Being an Indonesian feminist in the North
Authors: Vina Adriany, Desy Ayu Pirmasari & Nur Latifah Umi SatitiAbstractThis essay adopts a collaborative autoethnography to unpack our experiences as Indonesian researchers and feminists during our study in a country in the Global North; the UK. In spite of the fact that Global North feminisms have expanded our understanding of gender issues, we cannot help but sometimes feel marginalised and invisible within these theories because, very often, they merely discuss the experiences of women in the North and homogenise the experiences of women in the South. Drawing on postcolonial theories, this essay explores our negotiation of identities as we attempt to decolonise such experiences.
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Decolonising the classroom
By Louise AutarAbstractTaking the concept of credibility as a focal point, this article explores inclusive and decolonised classroom dynamics in the Dutch universities. Though much has been written on diversity and decolonisation in higher education, from curricula to epistemology to recruitment, there is a dearth in the discourse when it comes to decolonisation of classrooms. Drawing on Sally Haslanger’s conceptualisation of ‘credibility’ in classroom dynamics (2014), I focus on the intricate ways of classroom interaction which can usher those present in retracting from participating and engaging in class due to micro-aggressions, intimidation, or oppression in any form. As class participation and engagement are pivotal to success in the current format of academia that values individual participation and visibility, especially so in the Humanities, special attention to credibility addresses how classrooms can be transformed into inclusive teaching environments for all. The main question of this paper is: how are inclusive classrooms, in which every attendee feels credible as a knowledge producer, created and sustained? Classroom dynamics are complicated when both visibly and invisibly ‘marked’ attendees join the classroom, as power dynamics, inherent biases, and (micro-)aggressions can become hurdles in the learning process. It is the coloniality (Quijano & Ennis, 2000) of the classroom and the overrepresentation of Man (McKittrick, 2014) which I first analyse to demonstrate the need for decolonisation of the classroom. Then, I show the innovative investigative lens that the concept of credibility can offer in analysing classrooms through an illustration. Based on this exploration of classroom credibility, tools to evaluate the coloniality of classrooms and strategies to decolonise the classroom may be formulated.
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Decolonising Theatre and Performance Studies
By Sruti BalaAbstractWhat does the demand to ‘decolonise the university’ imply for the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies? Based on questions and insights derived from the author’s own pedagogical practices and experiences at the University of Amsterdam, the article enquires into the intellectual traditions in the discipline of Theatre Studies that place questions of decolonisation together with a multi-axis, intersectional analysis of race, class, gender, sexuality, and global asymmetries. To what extent is the discipline of Theatre and Performance Studies still imperialist? What are the ways of acknowledging absences and invisibilities? How does embodied knowledge become knowable? The article reflects on how the question of the decolonisation of the university is inseparable from the question of defending the task of the university in social and political struggles, as a sphere of civic engagement. It equally emphasises the significance of theatrical and performative modes of engagement in these struggles. The classroom becomes a crucial site for the exploration of these issues.
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Emancipation on thin ice
Authors: Michiel De Proost & Gily Coene
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Editorial
Authors: Sara de Jong, Rosalba Icaza, Rolando Vázquez & Sophie Withaeckx
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