PERF219 Chapter Notes - Chapter 36: Identity Politics
Chapter Summary
Textbook: The Applied Theatre Reader, edited by Tim Prentki
and Sheila Preston, Routledge, 2009.
Chapter 36 – Introduction to Border Crossing
By Tim Prentki (pp.254-260)
The politics of voice and difference
- Differences must be accepted, not rejected/ignored.
- There is current debate on how differences should be regarded.
- Theories of difference have made important contributions to a discourse of
progressive politics and pedagogy.
- They have also shown theoretically flawed and politically regressive tendencies.
- It is important for critical educators to take up culture as a vital sources for
developing a politics of identity, community, and pedagogy.
- Culture is seen as an intermingling of multiple heterogeneous borders like history,
language, experiences, and voices.
- Educators need to approach learning as the production of cultural practices that
offer students a sense of identity, place, and hope.
- It is important that students receive the chance to find their voice.
- By listening to students’ voices, teachers become border crossers.
- Teachers must link the creation, sustenance, and formation of cultural differences as
a fundamental part of the discourse of inequality, power struggle, and possibility.
- Radical educational theorists view difference as an attempt to understand
subjectivity as fractured and multiple rather than unified and static.
Resisting Difference: Towards a liberatory theory of border pedagogy
- Difference can not be recognised un-problematically.
- Difference functions as a mark of power to name, label, and exclude particular
groups while having a legitimate excuse like nationalism.
- Liberals often take a dual approach.
- On one hand they fully embrace the issue of difference.
- On the other, they attempt to dissolve differences into the melting pot theory of
culture.
- Radical theorists also view difference based on the difference between groups and
identity politics.
- There are many problems with the radical theorist’s views.
- The relationship between difference, voice, and politics needs to be re-constructed.
- Schools and pedagogy need to be centred around difference as a critical notion of
citizenship and democratic public life.
- Critical educators need to provide opportunities and conditions for students to
engage in cultural remapping as a form of resistance.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Textbook: the applied theatre reader, edited by tim prentki and sheila preston, routledge, 2009. There is current debate on how differences should be regarded. Theories of difference have made important contributions to a discourse of progressive politics and pedagogy. They have also shown theoretically flawed and politically regressive tendencies. It is important for critical educators to take up culture as a vital sources for developing a politics of identity, community, and pedagogy. Culture is seen as an intermingling of multiple heterogeneous borders like history, language, experiences, and voices. Educators need to approach learning as the production of cultural practices that offer students a sense of identity, place, and hope. It is important that students receive the chance to find their voice. By listening to students" voices, teachers become border crossers. Teachers must link the creation, sustenance, and formation of cultural differences as a fundamental part of the discourse of inequality, power struggle, and possibility.
