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Exploring the Complexities in Global Citizenship Education
With a focus on the Global South, this book argues that awareness and discussion of the politics of equity and inclusion in global citizenship education (GCE) research are essential to the future of nuanced and effective research in this area. The book explores the notion of heavily regulated hard spaces to examine areas of institutional blindness and reflects on ways to negotiate the issue of sensitivity in an institutional context, exploring how one’s sensitivity relates to pedagogy and ethics. Through this in-depth metadiscussion of GCE research, the book provides a complex portrait of unique challenges in this domain and explores the nuanced experience of navigating temporal intersections of the global, the citizen, and education in geographically and thematically obstacled spaces. This book will be of great interest to researchers, policymakers, academics and postgraduate students in the fields of global education, comparative education, and educational policy. Lauren Ila Misiaszek, Editor, is Associate Professor at the Institute of International and Comparative Education, Beijing Normal University, China.
Critical Global Citizenship Education Edited by Carlos Alberto Torres University of California Los Angeles, USA
Theoretical and Empirical Foundations of Critical Global Citizenship Education Carlos Alberto Torres Educating the Global Environmental Citizen Understanding Ecopedagogy in Local and Global Contexts Greg William Misiaszek The Struggle for Citizenship Education in Egypt (Re)Imagining Subjects and Citizens Edited by Jason Nunzio Dorio, Ehaab D. Abdou, Nashwa Moheyeldine Teacher Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Edited by Philip M. Bamber Exploring the Complexities in Global Citizenship Education Hard Spaces, Methodologies, and Ethics Edited by Lauren Ila Misiaszek
Exploring the Complexities in Global Citizenship Education Hard Spaces, Methodologies, and Ethics Edited by Lauren Ila Misiaszek
First published 2020 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Taylor & Francis The right of Lauren Ila Misiaszek to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Misiaszek, Lauren Ila, editor. Title: Exploring the complexities in global citizenship education : hard spaces, methodologies, and ethics / edited by Lauren Ila Misiaszek. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Critical global citizenship education | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019028119 (print) | LCCN 2019028120 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138746954 (hardback) | ISBN 9781315180397 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: World citizenship—Study and teaching— Developing countries. | International education—Developing countries. | Education and globalization—Developing countries. Classification: LCC JZ1320.4 .E87 2020 (print) | LCC JZ1320.4 (ebook) | DDC 370.116—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028119 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019028120 ISBN: 978-1-138-74695-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-18039-7 (ebk) Typeset in NewBaskerville by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To Greg, deeply loving and wise: we make the road by walking. To my mentors, holding me on the way toward inéditos viáveis: I am because you are.
Contents
List of Contributorsix Series Editor Foreword: Between Hard Spaces and Metaphorsx Acknowledgmentsxiv 1 An Introduction Label: Blending New Colors— Enriching the Canvases of Global Citizenship Education
1
LAUREN ILA MISIASZEK
2 “Dancing in Chains”: Challenges for Practitioners in Citizenship Education and Citizenship Research in China
16
ZHANG WENCHAO
3 Notes on Global Reading: Critical Cultural Traversals, Transactions and Transformations
38
ROBERT J. TIERNEY
4 Politics of Emotions in Tanzania: Analyzing Global Citizenship Education Through Secular and Religious Lenses
69
SABRINA ELIYA MSANGI AND JOEL JONATHAN KAYOMBO
5 Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship: The Challenges of Identity Construction in the Age of Global Media Capitalism
93
YOOMI CHIN
6 Expectations, Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In: Exploring the Experiences of Highly Educated Eritrean Migrants in the United Kingdom SAMSON MAEKELE TSEGAY
112
viii Contents 7 Global Citizenship Education: A Method for Finding in Translation
140
SUSAN WIKSTEN
8 The Past, Present and Future State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe
163
LANCE S. MUNYARADZI BUNGU
9 Negotiating the Global and National in Citizenship Education: Historical Legacies and Its Complicated Neighbor in South Korea
178
HYUNGRYEOL KIM
10 Critically Countering Appropriations of Global Citizenship Education in the Indian Context: Hard, Gated and Unmentionable
191
SYED NITAS IFTEKHAR AND GREG WILLIAM MISIASZEK
Index215
Contributors
Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu is final PhD student in Comparative Education in Beijing, China. Yoomi Chin is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Arkaive Inc., an education software company. Syed Nitas Iftekhar is PhD from Beijing Normal University, China. Joel Jonathan Kayombo is Lecturer in the Department of Educational Foundation, Management and Lifelong Learning in the Faculty of Education of the Dar es Salaam University College of Education (DUCE), Tanzania. Hyungryeol Kim is Assistant Professor in the Department of Ethics Education, College of Education with a joint appointment with the Global Education Cooperation program at Seoul National University, South Korea. Greg William Misiaszek is Assistant Professor at Beijing Normal University, Faculty of Education, Institute of Educational Theories, China, and Associate Director of the Paulo Freire Institute, UCLA, USA. Sabrina Eliya Msangi is Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at the School of Humanities of the University of Dodoma, Tanzania. Robert J. Tierney is an international scholar and has been a Professor of Literacy Education and the former Dean at the University of British Columbia and the University of Sydney and has served on the faculty at Beijing Normal University and the Universities of Illinois, Arizona, Ohio State, Harvard and California. Samson Maekele Tsegay was a Program Coordinator at the University of Asmara and the National Board for Higher Education (NBHE), Eritrea, for about ten years. Susan Wiksten is lecturer in International Development Studies at the UCLA International Institute, USA. Zhang Wenchao is PhD in Education from Queens University, Belfast, UK.
Series Editor Foreword Between Hard Spaces and Metaphors
Doy por una metáfora todos los silogismos. . . .; la metáfora me enseña más, me alumbra más, y, sobre todo, encuentro calor debajo de ella, pues la imaginación sólo a fuego trabaja. Miguel de Unamuno1 I will trade one metaphor for all your syllogisms. . . .; a metaphor teaches me more; illuminates my path, and above all, I find warmth under it, reminding me that imagination works best when it’s on fire!2
Spanish philosopher and play writer Miguel de Unamuno would have been the perfect candidate crafting a Foreword for this book. His inquisitive and beautiful mind—always paying more attention to the density and tenor of each word rather than to the concepts behind them—gave us the exquisite epigraph of this Foreword. Allegories and analogies, in their own richness may defy formal logic or the power of syllogisms, impacting our imagination more than analytical or descriptive concepts.3 Synonyms and antonymns set the tone for contradictory extremes among concepts. Consider for instance metaphors like “hard places” and “soft places”, or “hard power” and “soft power” as extremes of a continuum signaling that there must be something in between them. Metaphors are not cold, measured, calculating scientific renditions. They are existential filings of lived experience. A painted canvas is a figurative language, a metaphorical depiction of a reality—or multiple realities—including in many instances the inner experience of the painter’s consciousness. Always expressing the dual movement of how the painter sees a state-of-things as they are or imagined, eventually crafting both goals at once. A painted canvas is how the painter memorializes that reality through a metaphorical craft and art of unique significance. Once the canvas is in place, colors, motives, figures, the ensemble is a palimpsest; a canvas with painted realities struggling to signify multiple layers and yet retaining, in the subjective sense of the
Series Editor Foreword xi reality, the dominant or crucial imaginary that may have motivated the artistic exercise. But is Kandinsky, as Lauren Ila Misiaszek seems to indicate in the epigraph to her introduction, the true symbol of the painter who has challenged our imagination or quenched our thirst for knowledge or beauty? Put it differently, is Kandinsky telling us the same story that Monet, Da Vinci, Frida Kahlo, or Picasso may tell us facing their canvas? There is no question that if we pick our favorite artist in the aesthetic representation of the real—whatever the real is, both at the “subjective” and “objective” configurations—we may have a different canvas, with a different sensorial experience. What would happen if we replace the figure of the artist by the educational scientist in this deluge of metaphorical journeys surrounding us, more so now with the power of the digital culture? Will the allegories and symbols4 be in fundamental opposition? The answer in this book is that if we replace the metaphor of the artist with the scientist in building a canvas we will find epistemologies, ontologies, ideologies, and very complex cornucopias of social and political representations impacting our imagination, knowledge, wisdom, policies, and practice; an impact to various degrees of differential convincing effectiveness. What if the forms, colors, shapes, the multiple layers of a canvas, in short the palimpsest, resembles analysis, method, theory, or data demanding that we should be persuaded by the facts, even if the facts are literarily and semantically socially constructed to such an extent that we may not fully appraise or understand. A semiotic reading of the narrative of Octavio Paz, the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature winner, may conclude his imaginary inviting us to live, perhaps to choose between the pyramid and the labyrinth as the strongest metaphors to understand the Mexican culture. In the same vein that the metaphorical choices of Octavio Paz do, this book offers choices. A canvas to understand how to live in hard places; a “global reading” for identifying and surviving the tensions constructed in the global imaginary of our post-truth digital culture; “dancing in chains” in China; Eritrean immigrants struggling “to fit” in the London global city; contested sensibilities in Tanzania’s “politics of emotions” read through sacred and secular lenses; constructing identity metamorphosis through the lens of “the other” in the Global North classrooms; global citizenship education facing the challenges of “culturally sensitive translations”; citizenship education in the “heavy regulated spaces” of post-colonial Zimbabwe; “negotiating spaces” between the global and the local citizenship given historical legacies of South Korea; countering appropriations of Global Citizenship Education in India “as a hard, gated and unmentionable space.” Metaphors often signal the presence of an ethical-mythical nucleus in civilizations and cultures. At some point in his long and productive
xii Series Editor Foreword work, Argentine and Mexican philosopher, theologian, and historian Enrique Dussel explored the “invention” of Latin America and the myth of modernity following insights from French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, arguing that language is not only a play of symbols. Because language constitutes identities, symbolism and symbolic representations are part and parcel of our coming to age as human beings. We are always living between, within and surely mixing with all sorts of myths, religious thought, intuition, and ethics—and by implication morality. If human beings by their very nature are ethical-mythical beings, by the same reason they are metaphorical. This books hints at the need to negotiate meaning-making through metaphors, signaling the need for the use of a theory of framing for global citizenship education. George Lakoff, the father of framing, with the publication with Mark Johnson of his classic book Metaphors We Live By went beyond the concept of ethicalmythical nuclei in human endeavor, arguing that conceptual systems in human beings are metaphorical. This book explores the Complexities in Global Citizenship Education: Hard Spaces, Methodologies, and Ethics. It is a welcome contribution to the world of metaphors in education. Do authors of the book situate themselves in the tradition of George Lakoff, recognizing that human language and the whole human conceptual system is metaphorical? Lauren Ila Misiaszek, the Curator of this global exhibition, asks how to enrich the canvasses of global citizenship education. Hence blending colors, presenting a palette, mixing in the humanities, blending brush strokes, ad-mirare the existing canvas; recognizing the landscapes of sensitivity, paying attention to the emerging colors from the epistemology the South; mixing in primary colors; recognizing the unpainted spaces; and labeling the painted canvases may constitute the analytical and symbolic path understanding metaphorical insights into the world of education. The conclusion of the introduction, which captures the thrust of the book, tell us that I will let the museum labels in the different parts of this exhibition (the authors’ self-expressed biographies, positionalities, titles, abstracts, and the text) speak for themselves. How do they understand “hard spaces” and firewalls? How do they mix together colors to enrich canvases of GCE? Where are their unpainted spaces? And what will stay with you as you leave our exhibition? As declared decades ago by phenomenologists Ernest Cassirer, Mircea Eliade, and Paul Ricoeur, human beings are ethical-mythical beings. Hence they should be by definition metaphorical. The question is how metaphors in global citizenship education may enrich the understanding and practice of this concept worldwide, or alternatively erase its potential value.
Series Editor Foreword xiii For instance, to destroy the liberal canvas, as George Lakoff so cleverly articulated in his book Don’t Think of an Elephant!, it is sufficient to attach the concept of liberal to those who “tax and spend”. How could one avoid that authoritarian populists, rabid nationalists, radical religious brands, fascists, or the alt-right will not undermine the concept of citizenship, more so global citizenship with their dominant metaphors? Claiming that “this land is our land,” strong racial and ethnic codes seem to speak with authority that minorities and immigrants are “invaders” to the Fatherland. Even more, the metaphor of “Blood and Soil” that inspired Nazism, properly coined in their marches and writings, offers a more powerful set of metaphorical symbolism to challenge liberal expressions such as democratic citizenship, cosmopolitan democracy, or global citizenship. This book offers a bias for hope. Metaphors outline symbolic contours of aesthetic experiences, so little studied in education and global citizenship. Let us listen to the call from the authors, and produce another metaphor that should be a call to action: Let us reclaim the concept of citizenship from racist, homophobic, misogynist, ethnocentric, and radicalized irrational religious and secular groups dashing our hopes for a better world through solidarity, hope, and utopia. Let us denounce their deleterious words, practices, and violence in the social networks and in daily life. Let us announce reclaiming citizenship as our battle cry; one that implements Jurgën Habermas’s goal of promoting Constitutional Patriotism at the local, national, and regional level, and Global Citizenship at the global level. Carlos Alberto Torres
Notes 1. Miguel de Unamuno. Obras Completas, I—page 313 https://archive.org/ details/obrascompletas03unam 2. Our translation. 3. How many times have we listened to someone in an intellectual debate claim that there is “the elephant in the room”; an idiom which describes a problem that everybody knows exists but nobody is willing to address. 4. Categorical syllogisms can be somehow represented by symbolic logic.
Acknowledgments
To all the subversive and loving people in my life, thank you: to Carlos, Francie, Jonathan, Liliana, Penny, Rob, and Sondra, for understanding that the seed is soft, to my parents, Debbie and Chip, for being my first teachers and forever-readers, to my family, expansively imagined, and to the Paulo Freire Institute and the Gender Network, for offering lifelong community, to N’Dri and Kanishka, for our journey together as the book was written, and to everyone who encouraged us along the way, to ChenWei, Lili, Lorin, and Wenchao, for keeping me grounded, to my research assistant, Aja, for weaving this together with grace, warmth, and wisdom, to my esteemed colleagues at Beijing Normal University, for welcoming my work, to my editors, Ellie and Matt, my reviewers, and everyone who dialogued with me, for moving the ideas onward, and to Greg, for seeing it all.
1 An Introduction Label Blending New Colors—Enriching the Canvases of Global Citizenship Education Lauren Ila Misiaszek A world of colors on the palette remaining . . . wandering . . . on canvases still emerging. —(Attributed to Russian painter and art theorist, Wassily Kandinsky [date unknown])
I live in a place in the world—China—that heightens my global experience with obstacles—material, mental, and emotional. These firewalls are indeed the perfect starting point and focus of this book. Writing about Global Citizenship Education (GCE)1 from China is itself an exercise in global citizenship, or a lack thereof. To write this chapter, I must go around censors. I turn on a Virtual Proxy Network (VPN) tool that allows me to use censored sites on the internet. But since the VPN is quite overloaded, Google picks up on the overload of internet traffic, demanding proof that I’m not a robot. I select “all of the boxes with traffic lights.” After playing a few rounds of gate-keeping games, I finally get in. Now I can use the far-superior online university libraries of institutions with more resources to globally valued information and—very slowly—download the references I need. I have many privileges and advantages within my global economic, social, and cultural capital: money for electricity, internet, an up-to-date laptop, and the best VPN; a foreign credit card required to buy a VPN in the first place; access to other university libraries; an understanding about how to quickly navigate these websites when they are working; time and space to navigate them. Still, small, mundane but noticeable embodied feelings of doubt, frustration, fatigue, imposter syndrome, and indebtedness often bubble up, “The position of indebtedness is the position of gratitude (Hochschild, 2003): the other must be grateful for being saved or being brought into civil society” (Ahmed, 2004). I dig up this free sample of Ahmed’s book on Google Books, presented to us freeloaders without page numbers, seemingly as a plagiarism deterrent. Firewalls and obstacles to the global flow of information and ideas provoked me to ask the central question of the book: How can one be a
2 Lauren Ila Misiaszek teacher, learner and researcher about global citizenship in “hard spaces” in the Global South? While the term “hard spaces” will be developed by the authors of this book, I initially defined it as: contexts that have been defined by multiple outside international actors and perhaps internally as well, as facing unique challenges to conducting GCE work; this may be because they are heavily surveilled and regulated spaces, because of political in/stability or another reason. This is not to say that surveillance does not exist outside the Global South or that it exists in all spaces in the Global South, but the focus will be on this intersection of hard spaces and the Global South. Yet, to various degrees, all spaces in which we are trying to do GCE work can be considered hard; thus, another consideration for this book is a focus on the authors’ reflections on any sort of taken-for-granted methodological or ethical “hardness” of their work. I came to thinking about the idea of GCE work in “the shadows” through six years of teaching a core PhD course entitled Comparative Education Research Methodologies for international students in China. During this time, I have not seen a book that confronts, responds to, and/or resonates with the realities of my students’ and my research contexts, nor responds to how they can do work on GCE in those contexts. Hardly a week passes without a new vignette from one of us about ethical and methodological challenges in these settings. In real time, GCE work in these settings is full of exasperating and mundane starts and stops, waiting periods, and back-tracking. As highlighted by a CNN article that came out as this book was going to press, Chinese censorship tactics are spreading and becoming a global model (Griffiths, 2019). In our “nervous present,” a term Chang (2014) uses in his Queering Citizenship exhibition curator’s notes, obstacled spaces won’t be going away and will instead certainly intensify in some ways— like these censorship tactics. Thus, learning to navigate these temporal intersections of the global, the citizen, and education in obstacled spaces—geographic, thematic—is worth examining.
Presenting a Palette For those of us creating a “canvas,” to draw on the epigraph, of GCE work in hard spaces, I propose a “palette”—a loose framework—on which to mix different “colors of paint”—methodological and ethical priorities. The framework is considered “loose” because, as there are myriad ways to mix these colors, so are there myriad ways to navigate this work. The colors take the form of guiding concepts as well as critical questions, presented in quick and uneven brush strokes. Instead of hiding from the fact that I have more questions than answers, I have chosen to use bullet
An Introduction Label 3 points to highlight questions throughout this chapter to encourage the reader to think along with me, inspired by “think piece” writing methodologies (Burke & Crozier, 2013). We can blend these colors together to enrich the canvases of global GCE discourses, such as that of UNESCO, which can feel like inaccessible art. The chapters in this book are an “exhibition” of these “emerging” canvases (Kandinsky, date unknown). While these colors have emerged from my thinking about GCE, I don’t just do work in global citizenship. I see this as a reality for most people working in the field; it is also a strength in terms of the perspective interdisciplinary work gives us. Indeed, this discussion has larger social science applications beyond global citizenship. This is because it is hard to find a current topic that doesn’t touch on at least one of Torres’s characteristics of GCE (see first endnote). Thus, while a GCE project is one “medium” to be created from this palette, the palette can also be applied to other “mediums.”
Mixing in the Humanities To confront the firewalls that I encounter in a medium as dauntingly saturated as GCE, I turn first to work in the humanities (and their intersections with the social sciences), considering that “fiction and poetry are doses, medicines. What they heal is the rupture reality makes on the imagination” (Winterson, 2011). The reality of doing GCE work in hard spaces often, in my view, ruptures our imaginings of what else might be possible as we try so hard to “paint within the lines” for our work to be considered legitimate. I often refer to a New Yorker piece on writer, professor, and 2016 MacArthur Fellow Maggie Nelson, known for her ground-breaking autotheory, “autobiographical writing that exceeds the boundaries of the personal” (Nelson, 2015). The author of the piece, Hilton Als, notes about Nelson’s experience with her graduate professor, the writer Wayne Koestenbaum, that: Koestenbaum’s work and guidance released Nelson from certain internalized academic expectations. She said, “I remember when I first met Wayne he told me, ‘Don’t get bogged down by the heavyweights.’ ” It sounds so simple, but it was very freeing advice. A sense of permission. (Als, 2016) In the same regard, I read Nelson alongside the work of Chilean poet and artist collective Tribu No’s “No Manifesto” (Vicuña, 1967, my emphasis), whose declaration has autotheoretical characteristics: We undermine reality from within, which is why we are subversive and loving. Furthermore, we are so minor and unknown as to delight in our freedom. . . .
4 Lauren Ila Misiaszek Have no fear. Our works will take years to manifest. We are not playing around. The interior of the seed is soft. IT is known only by living IT. Whatever IT is. IT is yet to be discovered. These pieces leave me asking, • •
What does IT look like for our work in the field? Can we explore GCE, engaging with, but without “get[ting] bogged down by the heavyweights”—whatever “heavyweights” might mean?
There is already a symphony of important intersectional critiques of GCE—see for example Abdi and Shultz (2008), Torres (2017), Abdi, Shultz, and Pillay (2015), de Oliveira Andreotti, Souza, and de Menezes (2012), Richardson and Blades (2006), de Oliveira Andreotti (2011), Misiaszek (2018a). Thus, • What is left to be said? This is especially true since most of the authors of this book are emerging scholar-activist-practitioners—“so minor and unknown as to delight in our freedom.” Indeed, “our works will take years to manifest . . . the interior of the seed is soft.” • What “critical conjunctures” can we capture in this moment, some of us not principally focused on GCE? This is a term often employed by this series editor, Carlos Alberto Torres, in his discussions with me about my own work ( Jones, 2012) to discuss the way multiple events come together at a specific moment in time. • How might these conjunctures be autotheoretical ? I argue that much of our work and research in GCE may benefit from an encounter with these humanities-based questions.
Blended Brush Strokes As we seek new spaces to paint outside the lines that are often so constraining, my eye is drawn to other bright, blended colors: • Aporia–This is a project concerned with “the in-between space of any knowing,” aporia (from Greek aporos [impassable]), and “stuck places” (Lather, 2002, p. 189). • Guerrilla—It is a look at “guerrilla,” in the “impromptu,” “without authorization” sense, “immediate”—(“we are on the ground trying to do this, what do we do?”) “responsive” GCE for stuck, aporetic spaces. • Small culture—Analysis rooted in the micro-level, in the “small culture” (Holliday, 1999, p. 237) nature of the spaces “rather than
An Introduction Label 5 representing them as evidential of national ‘large culture’ (Holliday, 1999, p. 237) practices” (Hett & Hett, 2013, p. 498). These are opaque, ambiguous “liminal” contexts that “elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate states and positions in cultural space” (Turner (1969) in Haywood and Mac an Ghaill [2012, p. 588]).
The Existing Canvas Bearing these colors in mind, I consider the existing canvas of GCE, asking, •
What are the liminalities of the research on the UNESCO-emphasized GCE cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavior learning outcomes (UNESCO, 2015, 2014)?
To unpack this a bit, consider one of the two key socio-emotional learning outcomes, “learners experience a sense of belonging to a common humanity, sharing values and responsibilities, based on human rights” (UNESCO, 2015, p. 22): •
How should the researcher navigate this learning outcome in a place where this is not a taken-for-granted base/starting point? • In a place where difference is not openly discussed, how should they navigate the socio-emotional learner attribute, to “develo[p] an understanding of difference and diversity (for example, culture, language, gender, sexuality, religion), of how beliefs and values influence people’s views about those who are different, and of the reasons for, and impact of, inequality and discrimination”? • What should the researcher make of the fact that a search of the term political sensitivity, for example, yielded no results on the UNESCO Clearinghouse on GCE (https://gcedclearinghouse.org/)? • Beyond international pressure, can there be new ways to more “authentically” come to GCE from within these spaces instead of just doing lip service to these targets? Instead of being a self-fulfilling prophecy of non-authentic engagement? How might this lip service “rupture” our imagination? • How can these “new ways” support more ethical GCE, if ethics are understood to be more than “just a voyeuristic tool to describe our pathologies” (Smith, 2016)? I argue that the UNESCO site’s undoubtedly and purposefully aspirational learning outcomes leave much in doubt for researchers in many hard spaces—including, to ground it geographically—while working in
6 Lauren Ila Misiaszek many UNESCO partner countries. Consider Sarah Ahmed’s idea that emotions work to shape the “surfaces” of individual and collective bodies (2004, p. 1). In the context of the doubt caused by these aspirational learning outcomes, I would ask, •
What do hegemonic GCE discourses (including the performativity of these discourses) do to actors in these contexts, including to the authors in the book?
Considering issues of equity in GCE, it is worth considering “sensitive” issues of emotionality of scholars working from the Global South, such as resentment towards these “international” learning outcomes and those “objects of resentment” who benefit from their implementation.
Landscapes of Sensitivity Sensitivity is a problematic concept, understood in practice to mean many different things—meanings that are often not understood by or visible to students, making teaching around ethics highly challenging, especially in hard spaces. A concrete institutional example of this is that I face the challenge of teaching students how to negotiate a system in which there are no ethics review processes in our context and often in their country of research. Moreover, ethics review processes are harder for students to understand when they are confusingly conflated with often literal rubber-stamping processes. For instance, the student thinks that getting permission to do the research equals passing an ethics review process. Furthermore, the students and I negotiate issues of research being considered “too sensitive” either in our context or in the context of the research, or both. Sensitivity is also a heterogenous concept. Both “insiders” and “outsiders” may understand sensitivity as a non-navigable deficit in a particular context which I argue is often unnecessarily limiting our work. Working the “stuck spaces” à la Lather (Lather, 2002, p. 189) requires more effort but is possible. Thinking about sensitivity, it is also useful to consider Sondra Hale’s reflection on over half a century of work in what I would deem hard spaces that “uncertainty can be very creative and that caution can give others a chance” (2014, p. 153). In doing so, conditions for our work can be cultivated with sensitivity, and can lead to projects rooted in “curiosity without condescension, openness without voyeurism, and participation without domination” (Charmaz, 2010, p. 202).
Emerging Colors From Epistemologies of the South Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s work has brought a number of useful colors to the palette:
An Introduction Label 7 The truth is that nouns continue to establish the intellectual and political horizon, defining not only what is sayable, credible, legitimate or realistic, but also, by implication, what is unsayable, incredible or unrealistic (de Sousa Santos, 2012, pp. 47–48, my emphasis). •
How might certain aspirational GCE discourses create a selffulfilling prophecy in the way their languages define what is “un/sayable, in/credible, or un/realistic”?
The blindness of theory entails the invisibility of the practice, and hence its sub-theorisation, while the blindness of practice entails the irrelevancy of the theory. . . . Under these conditions, the relation between theory and practice assumes strange characteristics. On the one hand, theory is no longer at the service of the future practices it potentially contains, and serves, rather, to legitimize (or not) the past practices that have emerged in spite of itself. (de Sousa Santos, 2012, p. 49, my emphasis) • •
How do theory and practice around GCE collide in hard spaces? Saying the unsayable—what colors does this add to conversations and research?
I argue that GCE in these contexts runs this “blindness” risk, given the epistemological and ontological differences, of not being able to serve the actual practices that are being conducted in its name in these contexts (de Sousa Santos, 2012, p. 50). The “exercise of work of translation” gets to the root of this project as it relates to contexts in which GCE, if not done carefully, in its aspirational role, may again perpetuate notions of some contexts as being a lost cause, “non-civilised, ignorant, residual, inferior, or unproductive” (de Sousa Santos, 2012, p. 60, my emphasis) which echoes work around deficit thinking: The work of translation concerns both knowledges and practices (and their agents). The ‘translation of knowledges’ assumes the form of a ‘diatopical hermeneutics’. This kind of work is what makes the ecology of knowledges possible. ‘Diatopical hermeneutics’ consists in interpreting two or more cultures, aiming to identify isomorphic concerns among them and the different answers they provide. I have proposed an exercise in diatopical hermeneutics apropos the isomorphic preoccupation regarding human dignity, bringing together the Western concept of human rights, the Islamic concept of umma and the Hindu concept of dharma. (de Sousa Santos, 1995, pp. 333–347; 2002, pp. 39–60; 2012, p. 59)
8 Lauren Ila Misiaszek I believe diatopical hermeneutics can help GCE free itself from words that have become so loaded in certain contexts that they become paralyzing and GCE then becomes a non-starter. But I am left asking about this work of translation when the words being employed by de Sousa Santos are, as least contemporarily, from a relatively privileged “safe” position, places from which concepts like counter-hegemony can be thrown around: The work of translation aims to clarify what unites and separates the different movements and practices so as to ascertain the possibilities and limits of articulation and aggregation among them. Because there is no single universal social practice or collective subject to confer meaning and direction to history, the work of translation becomes crucial to define, in each concrete and historical moment or context, which constellations of subaltern practices carry more counter-hegemonic potential. (de Sousa Santos, 2012, p. 61) • What if the potential must be separated from the notion of counter-hegemony in order to achieve that very effect? Clearly these are not words necessarily used with all actors, but de Sousa Santos posts them freely on his website, likely now enjoying protected “visitor” status in the most challenging contexts. I have previously considered the experience of shorter-term, visiting, senior scholars, noting that: Normalizing foreign talents in the system seems to bounce between a comrade and “special snowflake,” but short-term foreign faculty at conferences and universities enjoy a highlighted version, both positively and negatively of the hypervisibility and likely the same invisibility. . . . There is a privilege in autoethnography of the shorter term visiting foreign professor to China or to any place—the risks are, of course, lower. (Misiaszek, 2018b, pp. 106, 110) Of course, “heavyweight” scholars such as de Sousa Santos can and do use this privilege counter-hegemonically, but this positionality runs the risk of overlooking certain challenges for readers positioned with less privilege in these contexts. His work leaves me asking uncomfortable questions about counter-hegemony in certain contexts, and about doing GCE when that requires embodying this counter-hegemony, particularly for more vulnerable actors. In his work, it is not that repression is absent from the country contexts whose counter-hegemonic
An Introduction Label 9 movements he draws upon (historically or presently), and it is not that I wish to undermine the historical and current challenges and victories of these movements. Indeed, I have been fortunate to participate in them personally. They are my inspiration. However, I am interested in looking at how contemporary GCE is existing in spaces in the Global South where it has outwardly the slimmest of possibilities for making a difference; in other words, not just the Global South contexts but hard Global South contexts, however they might be defined by the actors involved. •
How can “limit acts” (Freire, 1970, p. 90) and inéditos viáveis (Romão, 2007, pp. 134–137) be understand in hard contexts?
I ask these questions because I am interested in re-imaging this canvas of engagement in GCE in these contexts. I argue that to do so requires new theoretical strategies: “surprise,” “artisanal” work, “committed witnessing” in order to “acces[s] what is new for some and very old for other people” (de Sousa Santos, 2012, pp. 50–51).
Mixing in “Primary” Colors Through these concepts and questions, this book has been one that, to adapt my work with Burke and Crozier (Burke, Crozier, & Misiaszek, 2016, p. 53), draws on elements of pedagogical methodology: “research becomes a form of pedagogy, as part of the process of meaning-making, learning and making sense of ourselves and our relation to others.” The pedagogical methodology began to become evident during a period of 18 months of carrying out iterative research, including an extensive literature review, an initial set of interviews, and explorations in conference papers on the methodology and ethics of this project. Through this process, the project took a major turn in form. The following pedagogicalmethodological note is worth sharing: I concluded that the theme of “hard spaces” to be explored in this book, which I have consistently found to be of interest to colleagues globally, necessitates giving space to other scholars to express their own experiences around this topic that are appropriate to their context, beyond quotes within a sole-authored book. I argue that this is because everyone doing this work has had to think through it very carefully methodologically because of the high level of sensitivity required to do this work in these contexts. Work in hard spaces demands methodological and ethical rigor, for our own protection, for the protection of those we are working with.
10 Lauren Ila Misiaszek Yet, I don’t want to sweep the previously mentioned initial interview questions—these “primary colors”—away, as they play an important, non-sentimental process role in this project: [T]hinking about your work around the words “global,” “citizenship” and “education”: 1) Do you know of anyone in your context doing a similar sort of research? If so, what differences do you see between their work and yours? 2) What have you heard in your reading/classes/from professors/colleagues that is not feasible/doable/possible in this context? a. Prompt: Have you ever heard/read anything that seems “fake,” like a fraud, inauthentic, in terms of this context? Tell me about that. b. Prompt: How about things that seem ambiguous? Unclear? 3) Thinking about the context in which you are working: a. Is there anything that you wish was being taught/said? (Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ “the unsaid”) b. What can be left unsaid? c. How does this dynamic affect your research/are there things you are uncertain about/how do you feel about these uncertainties? 4) Consider the relationship between the possible/the impossible. Thinking about your research, how do you interpret this relationship? 5) Think about the concept of sensitivities. When, if at all/from whom have you heard that something about your work might be sensitive? Do you think this is true; if so, why? 6) Think about the concept of silences. How does the notion of silences relate to your work? 7) Think about this concept of hard spaces (shared definition in above introduction). How do you understand this idea of hard spaces? 8) Show “No Manifesto” (Vicuña, 1967); consider this quote from an alternative Latin American art collective written in a manifesto style: “Have no fear. Our works will take years to manifest. We are not playing around. The interior of the seed is soft.” IT is known only by living IT. Whatever IT is. “IT is yet to be discovered”; what “seeds are soft” (not mature) in your research? What do you think will take a long time to manifest in your work?
An Introduction Label 11 9) What do you believe a group of other people doing such work could talk about to each other safely/with trust? Would you be interested in doing this? 10) As you finish this conversation, what, if any, feelings arise for you? Considering Tribu No’s declaration that the “seed is soft,” during one of these pilot interviews, one of this book’s authors, Lance Bungu, developed a highly useful natural analogy of trying to “water”—to do work on—the hard spaces—to turn them into “soft spaces” in order to generate “fruits.” I told him that I saw this as a “third space”—not a simple, predetermined hard or easy space, but the result of an intervention in the space rooted in the reality of the space. This reinvigorated my interest in “expanding the cultural imagination” around GCE (Chang, 2014), particularly through the social science/humanities nexus; a second project (Misiaszek, forthcoming) emerged focusing on this particular thread. Simultaneously, during that time, some of the original country contexts I had planned to conduct research around, such as Eritrea and Zimbabwe, took unforeseeable turns and various colleagues from these countries have been/are being affected by these changes both directly and indirectly, which in turn re/shaped this project in both predictable and unpredictable ways. Ultimately, authors from both of these contexts, Samson Tsegay and Lance Bungu, respectively, were able to find ways they felt comfortable with coming back into this book project, in far more interesting ways than we had intended at the outset.
Recognizing the Unpainted Spaces Yet despite the potential of this palette, sometimes the bigger story is what was not able to be captured in this book, the unpainted spaces on a canvas. My previous exploration of an idea that I call “autoethnonegraphy” in relationship to autoethnography is useful here (Misiaszek, 2018b). Autoethnonegraphy [is] a renegotiated form of autoethnography that recognizes and allows for gaps and silences in experience of writing about the self (89). . . . The positioning of the none in the middle of the word autoethnonegraphy is also symbolic of turning the word inside out, removing the humans involved from villainization and blame and instead focusing on the systematic residuals that are left from a process of autoethnography; I imagine it to be like feeling the logo on the inside of a silk-screened t-shirt—some of the colors and details may be missing, but the imprint, the impression, is still there. (94)
12 Lauren Ila Misiaszek Much of what is presented in the chapters that follow is more about systematic residuals—unpainted spaces—than the metaphorical “front of the t-shirt.” In an earlier work of mine (Misiaszek, 2017), I note that the precedent of this discoursal comfort reveals the inevitable discomfort of “try[ing] [things] out for size” (Ball, 2012). I am reminded of Freire’s inédito viável—characteristics of incompleteness, inconclusiveness, and unaccomplishedness (Torres & Romão, 2012; Romão, 2007). Being comfortable with the discomfort of working with these residuals and with a notion of the inédito viável is a way to acknowledge and navigate this difficult, firewalled world.
Labeling the Painted Canvases Since our understanding of art is subjective, one dilemma of curation is that a museum label on an individual object in an exhibition might give context to the person engaging with the piece. Yet paradoxically, it might also limit how they view that piece. The following nine chapters (our canvases) cross geographic, thematic, and temporal borders. Presented in conversation with each other, the canvases span contexts from the local to the planetary.2 They explore informal, non-formal, and all levels of formal education. They center Global South experiences in Australia, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, India, Kenya, Korea, Rwanda, Tanzania, the United States, and Zimbabwe. They engage with this introduction’s palette, and create their own, as they paint interwoven and expansive canvases (represented with +) around global citizenship education + ecopedagogies + epistemologies + Indigenousnesses + intersectionalities + secularism + religiosity + reading and writing + translations + migrations + post/ colonialisms + media + materialities + lifespans +. Just as visitors to a museum view artwork in different orders, skipping over some pieces, only to return for a later viewing, we also invite each viewers of our global exhibition to find their unique path. Beyond this, I will let the museum labels in the different parts of this exhibition (the authors’ self-expressed biographies, positionalities, titles, abstracts, and the text) speak for themselves. How do they understand “hard spaces” and firewalls? How do they mix together colors to enrich canvases of GCE? Where are their unpainted spaces? And, to return to the epigraph (Kandinsky, date unknown) what will stay with you as you leave our exhibition of these “canvases still emerging”?
Notes 1. For a full definition of GCE, I recommend returning to the first book of this series in which Carlos Alberto Torres (2017, pp. 16–19) presents an expansive definition of GCE through seven claims—characteristics—about GCE as an “ ‘original, necessary, and forward-looking mental framework’ ” (Wintersteiner et al., 2015, p. 3), “an intervention in search of a theory.” I abbreviate them here:
An Introduction Label 13 1) “Fundamental theoretical work in citizenship building at the local and global levels [. . .,] not only about concepts or theories but about policy and practical implications for educational reform”; association with Global Education which “enabl[es] learners to understand world issues while empowering them with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes desirable for world citizens to face global problems”; 2) “from a critical theory perspective . . . framed within a social justice framework” including “economic citizenship”; 3) “deal[s] with difference and diversity and never impose[s] a ‘neutral’ and ‘universal’ ideal of citizenship[;] cultural diversity, indigenous knowledge, critical post-colonial perspectives are embedded”; 4) involves multiple agents who participate and which are “arenas for confrontation and negotiation”; 5) involves the development of teaching methods; 6) requires institutional recognition across educational levels, “particularly important is teacher education”; 7) a way of learning; citing Wintersteiner et al. (2015, p. 4)[:] [which] ‘responds to globalization by expanding the concept of civic education to global society’; adopts the ethical values of peace education and human rights education; draws upon the ‘global society’ perspective provided by global education, which not only investigates global topics but more specifically merges the global and the local into the glocal; combines mainly these three pedagogical fields through the concept of global citizenship in terms of political participation as such, but particularly on the global scale.’ 2. For more on these spheres of citizenship, see Misiaszek (2015, 2018a), Gadotti (2008a, 2008b), Misiaszek (2011).
References Abdi, A. A., & Shultz, L. (2008). Educating for human rights and global citizenship. Albany: State University of New York Press. Abdi, A. A., Shultz, L., & Pillay, T. (Eds.) (2015). Decolonizing global citizenship education, Decolonizing global citizenship education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Ahmed, S. (2004). The cultural politics of emotion. New York: Routledge. Als, H. (2016, April 18). Immediate family: Maggie Nelson’s life in words. The New Yorker. Ball, S. J. (2012). Global Education Inc.: New policy networks and the neoliberal imaginary. New York: Routledge. Burke, P. J., & Crozier, G. (2013). Teaching inclusively: Changing pedagogical spaces. London: Roehampton University. Retrieved from www.srhe.ac.uk/downloads/ events/103_TeachingInclusivelyResourcePack.pdf. Burke, P. J., Crozier, G., & Misiaszek, L. I. (2016). Changing pedagogical spaces in higher education: Diversity, inequalities and misrecognition. London: Routledge. Chang, D. (2014). Queering citizenship. Retrieved September 8 from https:// cargocollective.com/derrickchang/Queering-Citizenship. Charmaz, K. (2010). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In W. Luttrell (Ed.), Qualitative educational research: Readings in reflexive methodology and transformative practice (pp. 183–207). New York: Routledge. de Oliveira Andreotti, V. (2011). The political economy of global citizenship education. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 9(3–4), 307–310. doi:10.1080/ 14767724.2011.602292.
14 Lauren Ila Misiaszek de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Souza, L., & de Menezes, M. T. (2012). Postcolonial perspectives on global citizenship education, Routledge research in education. New York: Routledge. de Sousa Santos, B. (1995). Toward a new common sense: Law, science and politics in the paradigmatic transition. London: Routledge. de Sousa Santos, B. (2002). Toward a multicultural conception of human rights. In B. Hernandez-Truyol (Ed.), Moral imperialism: A critical anthology (pp. 39–60). New York: New York University Press. de Sousa Santos, B. (2012). Public sphere and epistemologies of the South. Africa Development, 37(1), 43–67. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum. Gadotti, M. (2008a). Education for sustainable development: What we need to learn to save the planet. São Paulo: Instituto Paulo Freire. Gadotti, M. (2008b). What we need to learn to save the planet. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 2(1), 21–30. Griffiths, J. (2019). Democratic Republic of Congo internet shutdown shows how Chinese censorship tactics are spreading. CNN. Hale, S. (2014). A propensity for self-subversion and a taste for liberation: An afterword. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 10(1), 149–163. doi:10.2979/ jmiddeastwomstud.10.1.149. Haywood, C., & Mac an Ghaill, M. (2012). ‘What’s next for masculinity?’ Reflexive directions for theory and research on masculinity and education. Gender and Education, 24(6), 577–592. doi:10.1080/09540253.2012.685701. Hett, G., & Hett, J. (2013). Ethics in intercultural research: Reflections on the challenges of conducting field research in a Syrian context. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 43(4), 496–515. doi:10.1080/03057 925.2013.797753. Hochschild, A. R. (2003). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling (20th anniversary ed.) Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Holliday, A. (1999). Small cultures. Applied Linguistics, 20(2), 237–264. Jones, L. I. (2012). Liberating Praxes of Latin American women educators in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Argentina. Journal of Feminist Studies of Religion, 28(1), 197–214. Kandinsky, W. (date unknown). Lather, P. (2002). Ten years later, yet again: Critical pedagogy and its complicities. In K. Weiler (Ed.), Feminist engagements: Reading, resisting, and revisioning male theorists in education and cultural studies (pp. 183–195). New York: Routledge. Misiaszek, G. W. (2011). Ecopedagogy in the age of globalization: Educators’ perspectives of environmental education programs in the Americas which incorporate social justice models. Ph.D., Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (Publication No. AAT 3483199). Misiaszek, G. W. (2015). Ecopedagogy and citizenship in the age of globalisation: Connections between environmental and global citizenship education to save the planet. European Journal of Education, 50(3), 280–292. doi:10.1111/ ejed.12138. Misiaszek, G. W. (2018a). Educating the global environmental citizen: Understanding ecopedagogy in local and global contexts. In C. A. Torres (Ed.), Global citizenship education, globalization and the politics of equity and inclusion. New York: Routledge.
An Introduction Label 15 Misiaszek, L. (2017). Online education as “vanguard” higher education: Exploring masculinities, ideologies, and gerontology. Gender & Education, 29(6). Misiaszek, L. I. (2018b). China with “Foreign Talent” characteristics: A “Guerrilla” autoethnography of performing “Foreign Talentness” in a Chinese university. In Y. Taylor & K. Lahad (Eds.), Feeling academic in the Neoliberal University: Feminist flights, fights and failures. London: Palgrave. Misiaszek, L. I. (forthcoming). Aesthetics in global citizenship education: Restless explorations, experiments, and intimacy. In C. A. Torres (Ed.), Critical global citizenship education: Globalization and the politics of equity and inclusion New York: Routledge. Nelson, M. (2015). Riding the blinds: Micah McCrary interviews Maggie Nelson. M. McCrary (Ed.). Los Angeles: LA Review of Books. Richardson, G. H., & Blades, D. W. (2006). Troubling the Canon of citizenship education. New York: Peter Lang. Romão, J. E. (2007). Sociology of education or the education of sociology? Paulo Freire and the sociology of education. In C. A. Torres & A. Teodoro (Eds.), Critique and Utopia: New developments in the sociology of education in the twenty-first century, (131–138). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Smith, G. H. (2016, April 9). Discussant response: Session: Border crossings and ethical praxis: Global educational pursuits within and across Cultures (WERA symposium). AERA Annual Meeting, Washington, DC. Torres, C. A. (2017). Theoretical and empirical foundations of critical global citizenship education. In C. A. Torres (Ed.), Global citizenship education, globalization and the politics of equity and inclusion. New York: Routledge. Torres, C. A., & Romão, J. E. (2012). Redes institucionais na América Latina: Construindo as ciências sociais contemporâneas e a educação. Revista Lusófona de Educação Redes Insitucionais na América Latina. Construindo as Ciências Sociais Contemporâneas e a Educação, 21, 13–32. Turner, V. W. (1969). The ritual process: Structure and anti-structure, The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures. London: Routledge & K. Paul. UNESCO. (2014). Global citizenship education: Preparing learners for the challenges of the 21st century. Paris: UNESCO. UNESCO. (2015). Global citizenship education: Topics and learning objectives. Paris: UNESCO. Vicuña, C. (1967). The no manifesto of tribu no. Published online on September 15, 2015. Retrieved June 20, 2019, from http://makemag.com/the-no-manifestoof-tribu-no-by-cecilia-vicuna-2/ Winterson, J. (2011). Why be happy when you could be normal? London: Jonathan Cape. Wintersteiner, W., Grobbauer, H., Diendorfer, G., & Reitmair-Juárez, S. (2015). Global citizenship education: Citizenship education for globalizing societies. Klagenfurt, Salzburg, and Vienna, Austria: In Cooperation with the Austrian Commission for UNESCO.
2 “Dancing in Chains” Challenges for Practitioners in Citizenship Education and Citizenship Research in China Zhang Wenchao Introduction As an emerging topic in China, the concept of citizenship education is not familiar to the majority of people, even to some educators. Naturally, the incomplete comprehension and inadequate experience lead to diverse misunderstandings and confusions. Surrounded by these problems, the practice related to citizenship education is usually assumed as difficult and discouraging. However, is citizenship education really as difficult as people assume? What are the difficulties and challenges? With more and more people paying attention to citizenship education in China, these questions are expected to be confronted and answered. Considering this situation, this research focuses on uncovering some realities for the practice and research of citizenship education in China, aiming to provide some specific examples for those who are interested in this topic or prepared to research in this field. In addition, I hope this research could provide some references for educators or researchers in other Global South countries which have a similar situation of citizenship education as China. Despite the level of difficulty, an increasing number of educators and researchers in China have become dedicated to the field of citizenship education and intend to promote the improvement of this field. However, various challenges and ambiguity are waiting for them throughout the practice. Because of the hurdles and limitations, the expression of “dancing in chains” has been adopted by a teacher in an interview to illustrate the general situation for the practice of citizenship education. It explains the complicated relationship between the challenges and the practice in which the constraint from various challenges is unavoidable, yet the practice is persistent. This expression also nicely describes the situation for citizenship research: the research practice coexists with various challenges. Among these practitioners, I am an early-stage researcher who focuses on citizenship education and democratic education. In this research, I precisely
“Dancing in Chains” 17 realize the practice of implementing and researching democratic education in Chinese public schools. This chapter is mainly rooted in my two-year ethnographic study on the implementation of democratic education in two Chinese schools. As a kind of qualitative methodology, ethnography is characterized as the one which could generate rich comprehension of particular social phenomenon, especially for contextualized studies (Lillis, 2008). By requiring researchers to immerse themselves into social settings, ethnography assists researchers to obtain empirical insights that are undetectable from outside (Reeves, Peller, Goldman, & Kitto, 2013). Considering these features, this research employs ethnography to capture details and identify hidden relations within the complexities of citizenship education. In order to vividly represent the difficulties for practitioners, I intend to utilize interviews and vignettes inside schools to illustrate challenges within specific contexts. In addition to that, since autoethnography is a method which could specifically advance sociological understanding of different topics (Wall, 2008; Ellis, 2004), I apply autoethnography to disclose the opacity and ambiguity about conducting citizenship research through thick description of my research experience. To verify my experience of challenges and pursue different strategies to address these challenges, I also carried out interviews with another citizenship scholar, Bowen (pseudonym [all names including schools’ name and persons’ name I use in this chapter are pseudonyms]), whose research topic is citizenship education in Chinese universities. He witnessed and experienced similar dilemmas as I did on citizenship praxis and research in China. By presenting and describing these challenges within specific contexts, I attempt to provide some references for researchers who plan to conduct relevant studies or those who are interested in Chinese citizenship education to help them build a more dynamic and comprehensive understanding of the praxis of citizenship education in China. This chapter includes two parts. Part 1 describes the real situation, full of delightful achievements and challenging risks, of the implementation of citizenship education in Chinese public schools, which aims to assist people who engage in citizenship education to develop a better understanding of this field and get prepared before carrying out their practice. Part 2 focuses on my own experience as a researcher undertaking citizenship research in China. I present all the challenges and dilemmas I experienced while doing my research. My complicated feelings towards those difficulties as well as the process of pursuing solutions are described and analyzed with vignettes and reflections. Discussions between me and the other citizenship scholar around this topic are also presented to provide more examples and stimulate deeper thinking on citizenship research practice.
18 Zhang Wenchao
Part 1: The Implementation of Citizenship Education in Chinese Schools Background of Citizenship Education in China Since the late nineteenth century, when the concepts of democracy and citizenship impacted on the feudal monarchical system and people’s political ideas in China, the development and evolvement of citizenship education began. Over the past century, the definition as well as content of citizenship education transformed constantly, affected by the national political system, ideology, international context and so forth. Despite many changes, the significance of citizenship education never faded and has become increasingly important within the current context of China. In the Chinese educational system, the expressions of citizenship education and democratic education don’t exist and never appear in textbooks. Yet contents related to citizenship education, as illustrated by Lei (2010), Zhong and Zhang (2015), are embedded in the structure of curricula, which are embodied in ideological and moral education, ideological and political education throughout compulsory education and higher education. In addition to that, as in a period of reform and transformation, some government documents on the issues of goals for education and the state also reflect the requirements and emphases of citizenship education. The 2001 promulgation of Basic Education Curriculum Reform Outline called for respect for students, the cultivation of a democratic atmosphere, and the equal relationship between teachers and students. The new curriculum highlighted the objectives of cultivating students’ consciousness towards democracy and law, and fostering their sense of social responsibility (Cui, 2001). In 2010, the Ministry of Education published the Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020). In this document, the government attached great importance to the cultivation of so-called creative talents, which refers to the transformation of modes of teaching, the establishment of a supportive environment for independent thinking, participation and innovation. In terms of school management, it aimed to continually develop a system of autonomous management, democratic decisionmaking and democratic supervision (The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China, 2010). Two years later, in 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China announced the proposition of “Core Values of Chinese Socialism.” Goals, purposes and norms of the state, society and individual citizens are explicitly stated with a high emphasis on democracy, freedom, equity and nomocracy, all of which are closely connected with the connotation of citizenship.
“Dancing in Chains” 19 In a way, all these reforms and policies signal the evolution of citizenship and citizenship education in China. Given this context, many educators devoted themselves to the exploration of citizenship education in the face of this wave of transformation. Achievements of Citizenship Education in Schools Gregory (2000) argues that a behavioral interpretation of democratic principles is more useful, compared with a strictly conceptual interpretation. Therefore, apart from developing comprehension of citizenship within a Chinese characteristic background, a great amount of effort has been devoted to exploring the integration of citizenship education into school life. Such endeavors have made great achievements, as the practice indicates in some schools, especially in both of my research schools. Located in the capital of China, Beijing, both of my research schools, the Central City Middle School and the Sunflower Middle School, advocate the application of democracy in their school life. Compared to the Central City Middle School which is an old school with more than a hundred years’ history, the Sunflower Middle School is a new school which was established several years ago. I spent a whole year in each school for data collection, observing and interviewing students, teachers as well as school leaders. Almost every day, I had several casual conversations and informal talks with people to learn about democracy and democratic education from their perspectives. Thirty-one formal interviews and focus groups with different interviewees and 190 observation records were conducted until the end of my fieldwork. Some parts of transcript for these interviews and observation will be used to illustrate the following themes. The Cultivation of a Friendly Environment and Humanistic Culture To respond to the advocacy of transformation in those reforms, different levels of participation and democratic modes of school management are prioritized and experimented with in practice in both of my research schools. As a result, a series of reform measures are put into practice, which brings about a positive and dramatic change. First of all, a warm and friendly environment as well as a humanistic culture are created, within which teachers and students have a better experience and feeling: SUNFLOWER MIDDLE SCHOOL: RESEARCHER: What do you think
is the biggest difference between this school and the one you worked in before? YUYAO (A TEACHER): In terms of school management, it’s very lenient here, including for teachers. (The environment here) is humanistic, very humanistic. For example, teachers’ families are allowed to enter and eat at the canteen. If no one can look after our children in some
20 Zhang Wenchao special circumstances, they are permitted to attend the meeting with us. And it’s easier to ask for a leave without being blamed by school leaders . . . . . . . In traditional schools, rules are usually implemented barely with flexibilities. Leaders are afraid that one exception of the rule may lead to other’s imitation and more rule violations. RESEARCHER: So, this means easier management? YUYAO: Yes, the execution is quick and strong, but teachers are more stressed. This is not necessarily positive for efficiency. Teachers might feel too stressful to be in a good mood, which will lead to a bad influence on students . . . . . . . The humanistic environment here makes people feel relaxed and comfortable. Teachers are encouraged to have time for recreation, such as watching movies. It is believed that the comprehensive knowledge and understanding teachers gained will become the sources of teaching, a person with good mood would be able to bring happiness to others. Aside from these, it is also advocated to respect others and different personalities. I totally agree with these viewpoints (Yuyao, personal communication, May 3, 2018). CENTRAL CITY MIDDLE SCHOOL: XINYU (A STUDENT): Compared
to my former school, the management style here is more open by giving us more freedoms. For example, in my former school, students are not allowed to bring snacks or drinks to school, but we have a school shop and vending machines here. All things are regulated in my former school, even student’s hair style is stipulated. Boys’ hair is not allowed to grow longer than 3–4 centimeters, girls can only have short hair. It might be the strictest school in this region. In my current school, we do have regulations, but they are not as detailed as those in my former school. There is still room and space for us (Xinyu, personal communication, January 22, 2018).
The Development of Participatory Curriculums and Activities Second, various school activities and practical curriculums are designed for the sake of students’ all-round development rather than merely focusing on knowledge from textbooks and examinations. By arousing students’ enthusiasm and passion, such activities successfully engage students in many areas they are interested in. In Central City Middle School, a student-managed café at campus has been run for several years. It was a student rather than an adult who proposed the idea of opening a café at the school to provide convenience for purchasing drinks and a relatively independent place for activities organized by student themselves. To achieve this goal, an elaborate proposal including how to run the café and such details as the source of funding was written and submitted to the school committee.
“Dancing in Chains” 21 In tradition, nearly all school activities are designed and organized by adults to maintain the peaceful environment and the neat order. Since school leaders worry that students may make trouble or produce chaos when they have autonomy for some activities, students’ involvement is usually avoided in that process. Considering this tradition, it is a surprising and amazing decision that the Central City Middle School not only permitted students’ application for opening a café, but also provided the start-up capital in the form of an interest-free loan. It is worth mentioning the café paid off the loan within a year, and startlingly could then begin to make profits. Although the founder graduated in a few years, numerous students now compete to serve as the manager for the café, which has already become a model for students’ participation and autonomous management. As for the Sunflower Middle School, a good example could be students’ full participation in organizing a spring outing. In tradition, as a whole school activity, the spring outing is invariably designed and organized by school leaders in order to ensure students’ safety and security. “There isn’t any law or principle dealing with school security events, and there is barely protection for schools. Even though it’s due to students’ personal reason, the security incidents are ascribed to the negligence of school management. Principals need to solve the problem by themselves. It might bring a big trouble for the school if parents are unreasonable. In some news events, parents requested for hundreds of thousands RMB as compensation” (Yuanbing, personal communication, April 2, 2018). Facing potential troubles as these, however, in Sunflower Middle School, the principal and school leaders bravely took the risk and involved students throughout the process of designing and organizing. Except for designing a destination and a route for the spring outing day, students were required to explicitly outline the adoption of means of transportation, planning meals, safety measures, time schedule, the specific arrangement for the funding usage and the backup plan in some special circumstances. The final selected plan within the class after several rounds of competition must undergo a defense of questions, as well as the ultimate decision of approval from the review committee. Instead of merely consisting of adults, the committee includes student representatives, teachers and a school leader. By receiving funds from the school, classes that pass the defense are able to implement their plans. Others will need extra adjustments to their proposals. A failure in the second defense would bring about staying at campus on the spring outing day. This activity is evaluated as the most popular school activity by students, as it is a fully engaging whole process experience. Instead of being stipulated by local government as usual, increasingly school activities are being designed and developed by students themselves. By participation, students are able to experience a variety of roles and tasks, which with no doubt promotes students’ comprehensive
22 Zhang Wenchao development throughout the process. Nevertheless, the encouragement of students’ autonomy and participation won’t last for long without the matched mode of management. It’s obvious that arbitrary management cannot foster necessary conditions for a high degree of students’ engagement. In regard to this, the mode of democratic management is explored within two schools. Democracy in School Management Aside from schools’ atmosphere and students’ participation, democratic modes of school management are employed and explored in different situations. In both of the schools, it is no longer the principal or any school leaders who have exclusive power to make decisions by themselves. To improve the quality and the degree of people’s satisfaction of decision making, individuals, including teachers and students, are supported to raise their opinions. In terms of the channel for expressing viewpoints, similar events are organized in the two schools simultaneously. A specific period of time is provided when students can propose suggestions for school management from diverse perspectives. In Sunflower Middle School, some students used to make suggestions about improving the online services of the school’s logistic support. In Central City Middle School, the prohibition against using a wireless network is canceled based on an elaborated proposition, submitted by a student, after a heated discussion around this topic at school. As for teachers, they are capable of providing advice at teachers’ representative conferences, through their subject teaching groups or grade groups. It should be mentioned that these channels of suggestion are not merely a form treated as extraordinary features for showing off, as some schools do; they are applied so as to enhance the quality and efficiency of school administration. It is the tremendous change of educational perceptions and adamant actions for reform that led to these significant achievements. In spite of that, teachers and school leaders come across masses of dilemmas and challenges in their everyday work. According to the sources, those difficulties and stresses could be divided as external challenges and internal challenges. External Challenges The external challenges include a mixture of sources including judgments from parents and society, requirements from the local educational administration and pressures from the comparison with traditional schools. Yet all these challenges are generated around one topic: the college entrance examination and the modes for recruiting students. The so-called national unified university and college entrance examination system has its roots in the history of Chinese education, one of
“Dancing in Chains” 23 which would be the nationalistic idea for education which emerged and developed along with the establishment and evolvement of the new China since 1949 (Chu, 2015). It is regarded as the most critical examination in one’s life because of the big transition it brings about. Over a period of time, students who successfully enrolled into a university were described using the metaphor of “a safe deposit box” by reasons of being definitely allocated to the certificate of graduation and the degree as well as a job. However, this highly controlled single mode gave rise to an increasing number of problems. Firstly, graduates’ qualities cannot be ensured due to the easiness of graduation. As disadvantages for the allocation system, graduates often get a job hardly related to their majors but find it nearly impossible to move. Considering the system doesn’t serve the social demands well, desires to reform the enrollment system have been heatedly discussed and experimented in some regions since 1992 (Chu, 2015). In the Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development (2010–2020), the whole chapter written about the examination system not only highlights the urgency of transformation, but also provides the direction for innovation. In accordance with those requirements, a series of measures including the adjustment for examination subjects and types of examination questions, and the implementation of universities’ independent recruitment, are gradually put into practice. Given this background, the effects of the examination have begun to alter slightly. Even so, deemed as a baton, the college entrance examination is still regarded by the majority of people in all walks of life as the most crucial standard for the quality of education. In fact, the examination itself doesn’t influence schools at all until it is converted to pressures by different stakeholders. When investing plenty of time in activities or school management, it is parents who first start to worry about the potential decline of examination scores for their children, which become the initial source of stress: NINGWEI (A TEACHER): It
usually takes a long time for the mode of democratic education to take effect. Parents are impatient to wait and see the delightful outcomes (Ningwei, personal communication, May 18, 2018). HONGYI (A TEACHER): Parents’ recognition and understanding of democratic education would influence school’s actions. If parents only believe in examination scores and are reluctant for students’ participation in other activities, teachers or school leaders will feel pressured to carry out activities (Hongyi, personal communication, May 24, 2018). Influenced by the effects of the college entrance examination, it has become a common perception for parents that the outcome of
24 Zhang Wenchao education is tied to students’ scores on examinations. Although some parents begin to recognize other aspects of students’ development, such as the ability of expression, participation, the examination score is still a decisive factor for predicting the result of the “final fateful examination.” So significant is the college entrance examination that parents don’t dare to relinquish their supervision. Every regular exam could be a measurement for judgment which raises their vigilance and provides a basis for further solution. Notwithstanding that the teacher Ningwei didn’t provide a detailed definition here for “delightful outcomes,” it can be inferred within the context that they might be abilities or accomplishment fostered by democratic education rather than recent exam results. In this situation, with less emphasis on examinations, parents potentially lose the measurement for judgment which makes them feel anxious and impatient. In addition, as the second main source of external stress, local educational administrations inspect schools by regularly evaluating their examination scores, not only the college entrance examination scores. A traditional evaluation approach adopted by district educational administration is called “two scores and one percentage.” “Two scores” represents the average score for all students and the highest score gained by students at the school, “one percentage” denotes the percentage of students who pass the examination. This could be a harsh evaluation for principals which may subsequently lead to all teachers’ fear and panic: XIAODONG (A TEACHER): In
some traditional schools, I heard that the principal is required to “sit on a red chair” which means he (or she) will be ranked on the basis of the result of students’ examination within a list of local schools. It’s a big pressure for principal. To convert this pressure to production, principal often pass these pressures to teachers. In some schools, a regulation called “eliminating the last teacher” is carried out, which means that the teacher whose class ranks last in examinations will be dismissed. Teachers are really scared of that (Xiaodong, personal communication, May 15, 2018).
In this conversation, the teacher didn’t provide a definition of the term “sit on a red chair,” but I got an elaborated explanation for this expression from a Chinese general’s memoirs. “At that time, all students’ transcripts with rankings were posted together in public. The name of the one who ranked last would be ticked in red, we call it sit on a red chair” (Tang, 2010). In this explanation, “sit on a red chair” is used as a metaphor to manifest the bad result of an examination. It could be considered as a warning or stimulation to remind students of putting more effort in studying by making them feel embarrassed. As seen from the interview, this method is still used for the assessment of schools in some regions.
“Dancing in Chains” 25 No such regulations applied for teachers in my research schools, but this results in the big pressure bearing on principals as a consequence. Indeed these schools are treated as symbols of the educational reform, yet people’s hope and high expectation for the improvement of education become another external pressure for schools and teachers: HONGYI (A TEACHER): I heard
that our school is regarded as an alternative model for the educational reform. The whole society is looking forward to the outcome and achievement we can make. Many people are waiting to judge whether the education for all-around development can succeed in China. If our students can get good outcomes for university enrollment, they would endorse our educational approaches. If not, they may lose confidence completely in the concept of democratic education. Nobody has the patience to wait ten years to judge our work and attribute students’ good qualities and capabilities to our endeavors. They can’t wait that long. Therefore, we are really pressured (Hongyi, personal communication, May 24, 2018).
Related to people’s expectations, these reform schools are inevitably compared with traditional schools. In this case, the mode of democratic education is overshadowed by the advantage of the traditional mode of school management, such as the high efficiency for solving problems: NINGWEI (A TEACHER): Compared
with schools without democracy, we will be defeated on account of the working speed and efficiency. Without discussion and participation, they can finish things much faster than us (Ningwei, personal communication, May 18, 2018).
Bearing all these stressful opinions and actions, many teachers, as those in both of my research schools, resolutely devote themselves in the exploration of feasible and suitable practice of democratic education, notwithstanding that plenty of problems are waiting to be addressed inside schools. Internal Challenges Compared with external pressures, internal challenges are more concrete and real for teachers. The appearance of them always intertwines with specific problems which are urgent. Solutions to these challenges may have instant impact on daily school life. In other words, the internal challenges educators encountered throughout the implementation of democracy have to be addressed directly, if external pressures could be carried or neglected temporarily.
26 Zhang Wenchao As the advantages that are brought about by participation, many new problems also appear for teachers. The fluctuating emotional state is the prime issue that needs to be dealt with: XIAODONG (A TEACHER): Although
we are provided with more freedoms here, we often don’t know what and how to do when new problems emerge. We usually feel exhausted to find solutions for those problems. It’s never good when I can only obey the leadership arrangement, but it also hurts when I face all dilemmas without finding any useful solutions (Xiaodong, personal communication, May 15, 2018).
This is a vivid and authentic description of teachers’ emotional state every day. They are seeking ways to balance students’ participation in activities alongside time spent on the preparation for examinations. It seems these are two unrelated things. One may ask, as I did too, what needs to be balanced between them? “It’s the time and energy.” Some teachers answered this simultaneously. The time and energy students have is limited. If they are consumed for some events, there will be less left for others: XUYAO (A TEACHER): Participating
in school activities, in a way, increases students’ burdens. Since they are not skillful at particular abilities, such as writing proposals, making power points and so forth, they need to invest a huge amount of time in studying and doing the preparation work, which sometime results in a low efficient studying in the following day due to the lack of sleep (Xuyao, personal communication, May 3, 2018).
Similarly, this also happens to teachers. On account of the number of classes for one subject that is stipulated, the more classes that are spent on organizing activities, the less that can be used for teaching strategies about examinations and doing exercise. Educators’ concern about this balance could be proved by a quote from a lecture given by a school leader from the Central City Middle School. “Within the current educational background in our country, a school won’t survive for long if it completely ignores the importance of the college entrance examination” (Heran, lecture, April 4, 2018). There isn’t any teacher who dares to run the risk of ruining students’ and the school’s future, but the reform needs to be carried on. This challenging relationship between the current social evaluation system and the attempt in the new educational conception of democratic education is described impressively by a teacher in Sunflower Middle School. “In fact, we are dancing in chains” (Xinhong, personal communication, May 21, 2018). In this metaphor, the implementation of democratic education is depicted as dancing and the restriction from the current evaluation system is compared to chains.
“Dancing in Chains” 27 The difficulty is shown obviously, but the determination for carrying out democratic education is also expressed explicitly: dancing doesn’t stop due to the negative influences from the chains. Despite the difficulty level, solutions are still being figured out by teachers. The balance is continually explored and detected dynamically in every event or class, which means educators would make decisions based on their former experience of the arrangement. Time and requirements for activities would be adjusted in accordance with the consequence and efficiency of previous activities. Likewise, this approach is employed when balancing the extent of students’ participation and cooperation in activities. It is obvious that fixed standards are not applicable for all situations, adjustments need to be made during the process of implementation. In addition to this, ways of resolution to some problems are still under exploration. For instance, it is mentioned by several teachers that although being provided opportunities for expression, students find it difficult to raise valuable ideas. “Sometimes it’s just like throwing a stone in to a sea, I even cannot see the splash,” teacher Xiaodong said, “when students have no idea towards the topic, I feel like it’s a waste of time and opportunities and I am upset about it” (Xiaodong, personal communication, May 15, 2018). As another teacher indicated, as students were not raised in a democratic environment until they entered their current schools, they have been accustomed to obeying teachers and instructions without any objections (Xuyao, personal communication, May 3, 2018). Lacking habits of expressing themselves and the democratic modes of thinking leads to this phenomenon, yet these abilities cannot be fostered within days or weeks. Apart from problems with students’ knowledge base and ability, the system of school management is still immature and needs to be improved. Significant progress can be seen in the fact that in Sunflower Middle School, school regulations are made based on the participation of all people in the school, consisting of teachers, students and school leaders. This regulation is favored by its specific descriptions and strong instructions for various situations. However, as for some areas that are not stated, such as some moral issues, teachers have difficulties in judging and providing appropriate instructions. Offering instructions becomes harder due to a lack of punishment procedures. “Schools don’t dare to write down punishment rules in case they will be accused of corporal punishment,” as teacher Xiaodong indicated; “the whole country lacks some specific provisions that clearly define and describe the punishment in the field of education. We don’t know the boundaries, so we don’t dare to give punishments. The only action we take when students violate rules is organizing a talk with them. If worse, we have a talk with their parents” (Xiaodong, personal communication, May 15, 2018). These measures may not be suitable in all circumstances, especially for students
28 Zhang Wenchao who lack self-control. Hence, this makes it harder for teachers in daily management. In terms of expressing personal opinions towards school management, the channels for both students and teachers are diverse in the two schools. Nonetheless, one defect reflected in both schools’ practice is the deficiency of feedback from the school leadership, which could be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, there isn’t a particular person who is in charge of giving feedback. In addition to that, sometimes school leaders are too busy to reply to those opinions. The shortage of responsible persons and particular response time lead to the suspension of problemsolving, which also has negative influences on teachers’ and students’ positivity in participation. Confronting tremendous challenges within an increasingly supportive context, educators are constantly and persistently seeking strategies without hesitation for the sake of cultivating a better educational environment that is beneficial for students’ growth. Improvements are always made in the process of detecting and solving problems. The recognition of problems lays a foundation for problem-solving and paves the way for future improvement of democratic education in schools. Just as teachers come across difficulties in the implementation of democratic education, researchers have to confront a series of problems when carrying out empirical studies as well.
Part 2: Challenges for Conducting Citizenship Research Challenges and Solutions for Contacting and Selecting Research Objects My first big shock of my own practice came when I started trying to identify potential research subjects. Since the topic of my research is to explore the implementation of democratic education in Chinese public schools, I attempted to find some Chinese schools which advocate and carry out democratic education according to my research plan. To reduce the scope of research objects, I talked with some relevant Chinese scholars and identified a range of schools, but the final research objects still need to be selected and determined. How can I contact those schools? Who should I contact with? Where can I find their contact information? How should I communicate with them? A bunch of questions came along when I was to build contact with schools. Drawn from my previous experience of doing projects with schools, I know each of these questions is a potential hurdle which could affect the continuance of the research. With an apprehensive feeling, I started searching information about those schools on the internet. This procedure is very time-consuming on account of the underdeveloped school websites. Some schools don’t have websites, others which have websites
“Dancing in Chains” 29 usually don’t show their contact information. Hence, I struggled with the whole process, thinking about any possible ways to find their contact information. From my searching experience, I learned that although school websites don’t provide contact information directly, some information might be useful as ladders to reach others. For example, some websites show the name of the principal and all his or her titles. Then, by searching the principal and some of the titles, it might be possible to find another organization or institution he or she belongs to, which provide their emails or contact numbers. Or even sometimes, those principals could be found as the contact person for some events or activities in the website notice board. This strategy assisted me to get most schools’ contact information. Choosing Suitable Means of Sending Invitation Letters When sending introduction and invitation letters, I was very careful on choosing the means of delivering. According to my experience, most Chinese people don’t use email as the main working contact method. People don’t check their mailbox regularly which usually leads to a very late response. Many people even get used to sending a text message to remind recipients to check emails. Therefore, as long as I can find their cellphone numbers, I would send them a text message for requesting contact. To be on the safe side, I sent emails at the same time, yet the text message has the priority. Waiting for Response Waiting for response is the second challenge for me. I suffered every day from the uncertainty and my anxious feelings, worrying whole days if any school would reply and accept my request. I wrote down my feeling reflections during this process: Doing research is just like exploring a vast wilderness with swamp, you walk all the way alone. You can’t design a complete route in advance, since you won’t know where the swamp is and whether you will be overwhelmed. Every step is mixed with the feeling of hope and fear. The fear is not only because of the possibility of being swamped, but also due to the unclear result. You spend a lot of time considering and planning for the next step, but you still have to wait and see if you made a false step. The process of waiting is the most suffering and torturing part. (self-reflection, May 15, 2017) I waited for several days, and didn’t get any response from any of them, which made the level of my anxiety rise again. What should I do next?
30 Zhang Wenchao How can I get in touch with those schools? These questions kept buzzing around in my head. In a book about researching on hidden populations, such as gangsters, Wiebel (1990) emphasized the method of introduction to initiate fieldwork with challenging research sites. Considering this method, I commenced to seek help from my friends. I planned to find someone who knows any of those identified schools, principals or other potential schools to help in introducing me. Eventually, I found two friends who knew two of the identified schools, and a friend who was related to another potential school. Critical Elements for Getting an Introduction to the School As for gaining access to schools, Brewer (2000) claims that introducers who have closer ties to schools have more ability to vouch for researchers. This rationale also works when establishing contacts. The introduction would be much easier if the introducer has a closer relationship with some school members. Except from this, the role of the school member is also of importance. If that person cannot make decisions about the research, the introduction won’t be successful either. This happened to me when one of my friends, a teacher at a potential school, tried to introduce me and my research to her grade leader. The leader refused to share his (or her) contact with me indirectly as what my friend replied to me: YIWEN: My
leader said he (or she) cannot decide about your entry to the school for doing your research. He (or she) suggested you contacting with the headmaster first. If the headmaster agrees, things will go smooth then (Yiwen, personal communication, May 14, 2017).
For this reason, I didn’t manage to establish a contact with that school. However, things were different with the other two schools. For the first school, my friend is an educational journalist who always reports news about the school and the headmaster on an educational newspaper. He called the principal first and introduced me briefly. Soon, I got a reply. For the second school, my friend works with a member of the school leadership committee. She introduced me and my research, then I was asked to submit my research material for consideration. As a result, with the help of my friends, I successfully got in touch with two schools. For these successes, two elements play pivotal roles. The first element is that the contacted school member should have the ability to make decisions for the research being conducted. The second element is that the introducer has already earned trust from that school member. Trust can be transferred as the contacted teacher in the second school illustrated: XIAOJUAN: I’ll
let you come and talk about your research mainly because we trust Yangbing (my friend). Yangbing has good personalities
“Dancing in Chains” 31 and characters, and I think people with similar characters will be together and become friends (Xiaojuan, personal communication, October 16, 2017). This phenomenon doesn’t only happen to me, the other citizenship scholar, Bowen, also came across similar situations when he contacted his research objects. His research objects are university teachers, so he needs to get contacts of teachers. Bowen: “It’s nearly impossible to get contact from my potential research objects who have no relationship with me. They treat the topic very sensitive and don’t want to risk talking with somebody they don’t trust. The majority of teachers said they won’t accept interviews or research invitation from those who don’t belong to their universities, but if there is someone who has relationships with them, a brief introduction could fix this problem. I finally got in touch with my research objects and earned the permission to talk with them with the help of a professor from that university” (Bowen, personal communication, June 9, 2018). Obtaining contact is closely connected with the stage of access negotiation. It doesn’t equal to gaining access, but it indicates the possibility of doing that. Acquiring access is often a central concern for qualitative studies (Lochmiller & Lester, 2017), but the process of gaining access is often more complex than expectation (Atkins & Wallace, 2012). Addressing Challenges for Gaining Access to Research Sites Advance Preparation Before First Meeting Berg (1998) suggests researchers explore as much information as possible about the research site before entering to the field. I think it’s also crucial and advisable to seek and grasp information and opinions about the gatekeeper who has the power to grant access. In my research, those two leaders who can make decisions for my research are gatekeepers of two schools, respectively. The first meeting with gatekeepers is critical for gaining access. With this in mind, before my first talk with the principal of the first school, I searched news about the school and read several books written by him, in which I learned a number of interesting viewpoints towards democratic education. Other than controlling and intervening, he attaches significance to trust, support and instruction for schooling which provides a fertile soil for the cultivation of equal relationship between teachers and students, students’ participation and autonomy. These contents later became critical topics of our discussion. By weaving my introduction and request with those topics, our conversation went smoothly with a happy result. He ultimately consented to having me conduct my research in his school.
32 Zhang Wenchao The effect of advance preparation is not merely providing discussion topics, it’s also beneficial for creating a good and positive image of the researcher. The first impression researchers make could be crucial for gaining access. Scholar Bowen and I reach a consensus on this issue: BOWEN: While
negotiating with teachers in my field, the understanding and comprehension I obtained about my research topic showed how earnest and professional I am. This is advantageous for building trust with teachers which paves my way for entering the field (Bowen, personal communication, September 2, 2018).
Identifying Gatekeepers’ Concerns as Soon as Possible Apart from the advance comprehension about schools and gatekeepers, the potential negatives they considered for granting access may also affect the result. When negotiating about gaining access, one major concern is expressed by teacher Xiaojuan, the gatekeeper of the Central City Middle School: XIAOJUAN: Your
whole research should be developed on the basis of the authentic practice happened in our school. How will you guarantee this? Can you provide me some reasonable solutions? Then I would consider your application (Xiaojuan, personal communication, October 16, 2017).
Attention shall be drawn on conversations like this which specify the gatekeeper’s concerns and requirements. Their concerns might be the guidelines for the following negotiation. The concern about research authenticity provides me the direction for further negotiation, we reached an agreement that they will read my paper before publication. Conforming to this promise, this chapter has been checked by both of the research schools before publication. From this negotiation, the skill I learned is listening carefully and identifying gatekeepers’ concerns as soon as possible. A clear comprehension of gatekeepers’ worries is the basis for an efficient communication. More Gatekeepers and Various Influence Factors for Access It is argued by Reeves (2010) that there could be different levels and categories of gatekeepers, rather than only one, that influence the fieldwork. I got past the first gatekeeper when the teacher Xiaojuan intended to appoint me as an internship assistant for a grade leader who turns out to be the second gatekeeper. Since the grade leader was leaving for a business trip, teacher Xiaojuan decided to ask him for permission after the trip, which delayed the time of gaining access again. It seems every
“Dancing in Chains” 33 small factor including people’s working schedule may affect acquiring access! After three weeks of waiting, I gained access after a talk with the grade leader. Necessary Qualities for Researchers Throughout the process of acquiring access, patience and persistence are significant qualities for success. A seemingly simple meeting may require several weeks of waiting, but it would be a big loss if missed. Teachers usually have an intense workload and sometimes are too busy to reply or even forget about the research request. Teacher Xiaojuan used to express this, “I planned to neglect your application if you don’t insist on follow up with me about it” (Xiaojuan, personal communication, October 16, 2017). Even so, repeating requests directly may annoy or irritate gatekeepers, which will make the situation worse. It is usually helpful to apply some skillful techniques to remind the gatekeeper that you are still waiting for their responses. For example, you can reply under their new updates of social media accounts, or kindly requesting if more material about the research is needed. Employment of skillful strategies should be considered carefully with flexibility according to different situations. With the big hurdle conquered, the door to a new world is opened. However, there is still distance between the entrance and realities in the field. Confront Challenges for Field Immersion I spent weeks in the field initially, feeling aimlessly, restlessly, doubting about my ability and my research every day. I aimed to attend school activities, but I had no idea what activities were being carried out, what activities I could attend, and how I should ask for permission. I realized it was very difficult to get close to realities in the field, as I wrote in my reflection: After two weeks in the field, I realize my role shifts between a teacher and a researcher frequently, but I feel like I am still wandering between a school’s concrete boundary and a virtual boundary. Although I have entered to school, it seems the door of the real campus life doesn’t open to me. I feel as if there is a transparent glass room in front of me. I can see something clearly, but others are ambiguous. I am eager and anxious to find the entrance, yet no door could be found. (self-reflection, November 2, 2017) This situation overwhelmed me every day, which made me feel exhausted and hopeless for proceeding with my research. I felt like falling down into
34 Zhang Wenchao a well on the way of exploring the real school life. The feeling of panic and anxiety surrounded me, and nothing I could see except darkness. Establishing Trust With People and Getting Close to Realities in the Field Russell (2005) states researchers need to build mutual trust with the researched people for the sake of learning and understanding about their real life. To gain trust sounds simple when it’s with friends, but to gain trust with people in the field, researchers may feel confused about where they should start. To establish trust, it’s necessary to first become familiar with people. For this purpose, I seized every possible opportunity of introducing myself to teachers the first time I met them and kept greeting them each time I encountered them. “Hi, teacher. Nice to meet you! I’m a PhD student for education and now conducting my research about democratic education in your school.” These opening words were repeated dozens of times every day in the first few weeks and I also requested humbly and boldly to attend classes or activities organized by those teachers. These introductions and requests were potential ropes that could drag me out of the well. At the beginning, I felt a bit awkward and so did teachers. Nonetheless, things gradually got better several weeks later. SUNFLOWER MIDDLE SCHOOL:
In canteen, a totally different situation from the past: Teacher Linning came and greeted me, talked actively about my new haircut. Teacher Jianghong gave me a nickname and treated me at lunch when she recognized I forgot to bring my meal card (a special card for paying at the canteen). A teacher introduced me to another one and said: “she is the doctor who helped me with my work yesterday.” Teacher Xiaoduan and Duanping came to sit and ate lunch with me (vignette, November 14, 2017). These changes indicate teachers began to accept me and got used to my appearance at school. Carey, McKechnie, and McKenzie (2001) concluded, after analyzing their personal experience of doing research with diverse populations, that trust could be gained by means of participating in the researched people’s life. Just as they said, trust increased progressively between me and the teachers in my appearance at various school occasions, my participation in all sorts of activities, and casual talks with teachers. Besides, these provide more opportunities for further immersion into the field. In the course of talking, teachers frequently mentioned interesting activities related to my research, which gave me directions of participation. The degree of participation, as Pole and
“Dancing in Chains” 35 Morrison (2003) note, varies in different ethnographic studies. It also differs across activities in the same research. Nevertheless, the deeper the participation is, the easier to gain trust from people in the field. I felt the trust between teachers and me increased substantially after I attended a research trip with the whole school, working as an instructor of a group of students. After my participation in the trip, several teachers began to seek help from me about doing research. An associate principal even requested I join a working team for the application of an international school certificate. Seeking More Information About School Activities Even so, there are still some days that researchers may not get useful information about activities. In that case, the school’s notice board and posters in the corridor could be very useful activity reminders. I arrived at the school at nearly 11 am, doubting if there’s still some activities I could participate in. I saw a poster of a lecture for the whole school on the wall of the corridor which would begin in a few minutes, so I run for that (self-reflection, October 26, 2017). Joining the working group of social media is another approach to get information. As I mentioned above, many Chinese people don’t use email as the main working contact, but other social media are always used as a working medium. Gaining access to the social media working group could be the access to the information of all the events happening in school. Every activity would be published or reminded about there. However, it’s not easy to find an appropriate time and occasion for the request of joining the group. The request should be proposed at least after getting familiar with people in the field. I spent a long time waiting until I got permission for the research trip. It was before the research trip when I was invited to the working group by a school leader, which was attributed to my role of a teacher during that trip. Despite that the adoption of social media varies in regions and time, a burgeoning application, Wechat, which had more than 889 million monthly active users until 2016 (Penguin Intelligence, 2017), has become the most popular software within schools currently as a convenient working network. Issues When Finishing the Fieldwork and Withdrawing From the Field Considering the ethical issues about harm and exploitation, it’s inappropriate to exit from the field immediately after data collection (Atkins & Wallace, 2012). I exited from schools at the end of a semester when students and teachers were to have the summer vocation. I chose this time not only because it’s the end of a time cycle at school, but also because it’s the regular time for all people saying goodbye to each other.
36 Zhang Wenchao Researchers may lose all the trust relationship they build in the field if they withdraw from the field without any explanation. Although data collection is finished, it’s better to keep a good relationship with, and leave a good impression for, people from the research site. Since it’s very easy to meet people from the same area, a happy ending is beneficial for researchers’ future development in the working field. Given this reason, a farewell message or talk are appropriate. The content of the farewell should at least include two parts, explaining the leaving plan and expressing gratitude. If there is a chance, it would be better to do this in person especially with gatekeepers. I organized two farewell talks with two gatekeepers separately before the summer vocation and sent a farewell message to all the participants in my research. Numerous kind and touching responses were received from school leaders, teachers as well as students, which put a happy end to my fieldwork. It’s a big release and relief after the closure of the fieldwork. However, the exhausting work is worthwhile because such precious experience increases my comprehension about the field of citizenship education and deepens my understanding of undertaking citizenship research in China. Conclusion As an emerging topic in China, citizenship education is still being developed and explored. Although it is struggling and painful for both practitioners and researchers, the endeavors are worthy and valuable. As a teacher illustrated, “this mode of education is the development orientation for all schools in China” (Ningwei, personal communication, May 18, 2018). A lot of teachers have acknowledged that the traditional and highly controlled mode of school management can no longer satisfy the requirement of society and the country’s development. Responding to fierce competition in the context of globalization, calls for the cultivation of creative and international talents who are independent and capable of participating in international affairs indicate that citizenship education and democratic education are directions for the development of Chinese education. As a researcher, I am also feeling positive for the future of citizenship education and democratic education in China, not only because of the supported context, but also because of educators’ persistent endeavors and devotion in this area. I believe that in the near future the balance between “the chain” and “the dance” will be gradually improved, more achievements and more interesting research will be made by an increasing number of schools and researchers.
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“Dancing in Chains” 37 Berg, B. (1998). Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Brewer, J. (2000). Ethnography. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education. Carey, R. F., McKechnie, L. E., & McKenzie, P. J. (2001). Gaining access to everyday life information seeking. Library & Information Science Research, 23(4), 319–334. The Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China. (2010). The outline of the national medium- and long-term program for education reform and development (2010–2020). Beijing: The Xinhua News Agency. Chu, Z. (2015). 以人为本的教育转型 [People-oriented education transformation]. Zhejiang, China 浙江大学出版社, 107–120. Cui, Y. (2001). 新课程 “新” 在何处?—解读《 基础教育课程改革纳要 (试行)》[What’s new in new curriculum: The interpretation of the basic education curriculum reform outline]. 教育发展研究, 9, 5–10. Ellis, C. (2004). The ethnographic I: A methodological novel about autoethnography (Vol. 13). Altamira: Rowman. Gregory, M. (2000). Care as a goal of democratic education. Journal of Moral Education, 29(4), 445–461. Lei, Y. (2010). The transformation of citizenship education at universities in the People’s Republic of China from 1998–2006 (Published doctoral dissertation). Columbia University, New York, United States. Lillis, T. (2008). Ethnography as method, methodology, and “Deep Theorizing” closing the gap between text and context in academic writing research. Written Communication, 25(3), 353–388. Lochmiller, C. R., & Lester, J. N. (2017). An introduction to educational research: Connecting methods to practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications. Penguin Intelligence. (2017). Research on users and insight of business opportunity in 2017. Retrieved from Tencent Technology website http://tech.qq. com/a/20170424/004233.htm#p=4. Pole, C., & Morrison, M. (2003). Ethnography for education. Maidenhead: McGrawHill Education. Reeves, C. L. (2010). A difficult negotiation: Fieldwork relations with gatekeepers. Qualitative Research, 10(3), 315–331. Reeves, S., Peller, J., Goldman, J., & Kitto, S. (2013). Ethnography in qualitative educational research: AMEE guide no. 80. Medical Teacher, 35(8), e1365–e1379. Russell, L. (2005). It’s a question of trust: Balancing the relationship between students and teachers in ethnographic fieldwork. Qualitative Research, 5(2), 181–199. Tang, D. (2010). 李宗仁回憶錄 (上) [Memories of Li Zongren]. 遠流出版公司. Wall, S. (2008). Easier said than done: Writing an autoethnography. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 7(1), 38–53. Wiebel, W. W. (1990). Identifying and gaining access to hidden populations. In E. Y. Lambert (Ed.), The collection and interpretation of data from hidden populations (pp. 4–11). US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration, Rockville: National Institute on Drug Abuse. Zhong, M., & Zhang, J. (2015). Analysis of the citizenship education of China’s junior high school stage. Asian Education and Development Studies, 4(2), 190–203.
3 Notes on Global Reading Critical Cultural Traversals, Transactions and Transformations Robert J. Tierney
The proposal for global reading emanates from discussions of cosmopolitanism grounded in critical theory as well as global citizenship informed by Indigenous, eco-pedagogical, socio-cultural considerations and ethical consciousness across reconfigured borders in our mangled media world (Abdi, 2015; Andreotti & De Souza, 2011; Beach & Tierney, 2016; Butler, 2011; Freire, 1973, 2006; Grigorov & Fleuri, 2012; Hepp & Krotz, 2014; Kakutani, 2018; Kamberelis, McGinley & Welker, 2015; Lankshear & McLaren, 1993; Laverty & Gregory, 2017; Misiaszek, 2015; Morgan & Tierney, 2018; San Pedro, 2018; Santos, 2007a, 2007b, Santos, 2013: Stein, 2017a, 2007b; Torres, 1998, 2015). Aspirational global meaning making is imagined as operating in ways that are multi-layered but dialectically oriented across space and time in ways that respect diverse interests, different materialities including the fusions of meanings occurring globally, locally and across communities (Leander & Sheehy, 2004; Massey, 2005). It involves a mix of materiality and mobility, advancing community, building networks and fostering cooperation, understandings and relationships at the same time as readings heed local centripetal forces including sovereignty and security and centrifugal global influences (de Freitas & Curinga, 2015; Lam & Warriner, 2012; Levinas, 1981, 1993, 1995; Luke, 2011, 2018; Robertson, 1985; Rizvi, 2009; Singh, Fenway, & Apple, 2005; Stornaiuolo, Smith, & Phillips, 2017).1 For the global cosmopolitan and those who live on the border or are dealing with forms of global interoperationability, reading and writing might already involve a form of stepping across the line, shuttle diplomacy and border-crossings at the hands of creative and critical dispositions and craft sometimes spurred by cultural commentators, fellow readers, societal critics and artists (Gutiérrez, et al., 2017; Horowitz, 2012; Hull, Stornaiuolo, & Sahni, 2010; Luke, 2004, 2018; Nelson, Barrera IV, Skinner, & Fuentes, 2016; Tierney, 2006, 2018b). It represents a shift from positivism, commodification and standardization to critical humanism and cultural disruption in the interests of the cultural eclecticism (e.g., Enciso, 2019; González, Moll, & Amanti, 2005: Ladson-Billings, 2014; Marshall & Toohey, 2010; Paris, 2012; San Pedro, 2018; Rogers & Soter, 1996).
Notes on Global Reading 39 It is hoped that global meaning making can have an extended reach— beyond oneself or one’s communities to cross-border engagements that may have a regional or planetary relevance. The reach may bridge to others allowing for cross-border trade. Or, the cross-border extensions could lead to the development of multilateral spaces and agreements that are mutually beneficial. They might verge on supporting spaces that befit the notion of a public sphere suggested by Habermas (1989)—that is a space or spaces for the exploring of topics or issues (with the appropriate representatives and stakeholders). The deliberations might be guided by cultural practices and tenets grounded in respectful reciprocity and, as Martha Nussbaum (2018) suggests, not distracted by the “tit for tat” oppositionalism, narcissism and attacks between parties. In the interests of an ethic of cross-cultural respect and responsiveness, global meaning makers should be divested of the conceit of universalism and heed diversity and situatedness enlisting a form of decolonization. Rather than egocentricism, global readers interrogate their predispositions and approach—especially, being vigilant of pre-existing assumptions, the cultural boundedness of their approach and the potential influences of their own insularity and attitudes of impunity. Arrogance may perpetuate faulty presumptive reading and may mask ignorance and the possibility of complicity with cultural appropriation. Certainly, for global meaning making to have integrity, readers should operate with an ethic of respect of cultural norms including expectations of community relative to consultation and engagement (King, 2015). Our worldly readings and writings represent expressions filtered by reflexivity are critical consciousness embedded within socio-cultural systems that embrace diversity and empowerment, not subversion or subordination. It is as if the reading of the world involves a form of fused concentric circles that move back and forth from self to others (e.g., Gutiérrez, Baquedano-López, & Tejeda, 1999; Purcell-Gates, 2006). A reader’s global meaning making is dependent upon the reader’s discernments as they read the systems at play from observations and prospecting primary sources, enlisting various perspectives, pondering, seeking patterns and predictability via linkages, bridges, networks and affiliations. As New Zealand Maori scholar Linda Smith (1999, 2005) has discussed with respect to Indigenous research ethics, cross-cultural readings may be better negotiated bottom up with ongoing respect for participation, self-determination and community concerns. Such befits Howe’s (1999) discussion and proposition of tribography where the focus begins with the local or Indigenous rather than embedded or subordinated by the mainstream’s ways of knowing and decision-making. As Davis (2018) foregrounded, in researching and advocating for aboriginal water rights in Australia, key to understanding the dynamics of communities is appreciating and respecting the democratic practices of negotiation within
40 Robert J. Tierney and across communities. In the case of aboriginal communities, as it has for thousands of years, decision-making is done in ways tied to an egalitarian diffusion and interconnectedness within and across communities that can be quite invisible to the culturally uninformed eye.2 Indeed, the attitudes and actions of global readers may be misguided if these pursuits are seen as equivocations or paternalistic or pursued without adequate and appropriate reverence or consultation. Readings are apt to lack integrity if the readers act upon pre-set formulations without deconstructing one’s own positionality and without the guidance of cultural insiders. Indeed, culturally responsible meaning making may be beyond a reader’s grasp or lead to assimilative distortions if the reader is uninformed or their approach is prone to a form of detached objective meaning-making. Unfortunately, cross-global readings have a mixed history. For example, comparative educational research has a history of paternalistic approaches befitting a Eurocentric colonial orientation. As Keita Takayama, Arathi Sriprakash and Raewyn Connell, in Toward a Postcolonial Comparative and International Education (2017), suggested, the founding fathers of comparative education have approached “the other” in a Eurocentric fashion—examining “the other” from a western perspective. Likewise, studies of Indigenous populations regardless of epistemologies (positivist to constructivist to critical or Indigenous) have been shown to be research conducted from the outside in—rather than research that is participatory or supportive in nature (Phillips, Phillips, Whatman & McLaughlin, 2007; Rios, Deion & Leonard, 2018; Dion, Gabel, Rios, & Leonard, 2017). Often studies that tout empowerment involve approaches that excludes a full embrace of community consultation and pursue forms of commodification divorced from the interests or cultural property considerations of communities. The lack of alignment of scholarly tenets with diversity extends to the knowledge economy that retains systems that perpetuate a form of western exclusivity and egocentrism. As bibliometric analyses of the leading scholarly journals have exposed, the preponderance of scholarly journals is quite exclusionary, rarely including studies, theories or even citations from southern or eastern scholars (Rogers, 2017; Trigos-Carillo & Rogers, 2017; Tierney & Kan, 2016: Tierney, 2018a). Global meaning makers will need to check their own cultural moorings as they navigate the morass of cultural forces in play. Befitting a tendency to be cocooned or remain in one’s own cultural bubble, global readers must wrestle with moving beyond themselves. Their socio-political condition might be perceived as independent, but global meaning makers would be naïve to imagine that they are not involved consciously or unconsciously with affinity groups (even scholarly organizations) undergirded by a global infrastructure (corporate and governmental) that both filter and fashion what they read and how they think and act. Universities are not without guilt as they appear to endorse western
Notes on Global Reading 41 imperialism as their approach to internationalization. Regardless of the increased diversity and internationalization of students, there often seems to be a penchant for standardization including a fixed model for learners and global citizenship that may be complicit with an agenda that is tied to universalism and the reproduction of forms of cultural assimilation or socialization that is inherently aligned with privileging certain cultures (usually western) over others.3 As Tuck and Yang (2014) point out a master narrative persists. As they state: “the academy as an apparatus of settler colonial knowledge already domesticates, denies, and dominates other forms of knowledge. . . . It sets limits, but disguises itself as limitless” (p. 235). As Tuck and Yang argue it “hurts people who find themselves on the outside or the underside of that narrative. History as a master narrative appropriates the voices, stories, histories of all Others . . . yet disguises itself as universal and common” (p. 235) While the nature of the empires may have changed our modern-day wired and digital global state has many of the same features and influences of the landgrab that occurred when the British, Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese explorers claimed possession of much of the world displacing or making subservient Indigenous peoples as they shaped their colonies in their image. Certainly, nowadays the global knowledge economy represents a non-eclectic world reflecting a mix of neo-liberal ambitions, westernization and global structures that can run “rough shod” over non-western and Indigenous interests. In the age of digital marketing, our political, economic, religious and consumer profiles may be set up with an even more expansive colonizing approach. Our internet behavior as well as background data may contribute to a funneling of “political” information befitting our discerned profiles. Despite the free reigning appearance of the digital world, its use has been political in ways that may advance slanted readings and advance forms of cultural egocentricism (Beach & Tierney, 2016; Deuze, Blank, & Speers, 2012; Kim, 2016; San Pedro, 2018; Stornaiuolo et al., 2017). A global reader’s meaning making is never untethered from the reader’s and writer’s own history, predisposition and positioning despite the influence of mainstream imperial forces of colonization and nowadays the marketing ideas crafted to fit one’s emerging internet profiles. The fusing fits with descriptions of various forms of criss-crossing, translanguaging and other means of hip hopping by meaning makers across their communities. That is as persons brush against one another’s cultures, their engagements befit the recent descriptions of cross-border meaning making and the boundary negotiations that exist through translanguaging (e.g., Nelson, Barrera IV, Skinner, & Fuentes, 2016) and line stepping. As Gutiérrez et al. noted: an instantiation of boundary crossing where an individual deliberately and consciously pushes against society’s ideological constraints. Rather than seeing boundaries as static, we recognize their
42 Robert J. Tierney dynamism . . . identifying and testing a line, the line-stepper learns how and where lines are permeable and the available latitude in their enforcement. (2007, p. 53)
Making the Shift to Global Reading The shift to global reading entails support for readers and writers to navigate cross-cultural concerns—that is supporting meaning makers moving beyond their own cultural bubbles and self-interests to weighing information from multiple informants and multiple sources: various exchanges with friends, colleagues and others—being sure to do so reservedly and respectfully. It entails support for forms of shuttle diplomacy shifting from passive readings to pro-active engagements for, with and behind others—being an ally and advocating interrupting the systems, practices and dispositions that might objectify, commodify, exploit or nullify diversity. It extends to being an activist with but respectful of the cultural ways of knowing and doing of others. If global meaning makers are to expand their understandings and support of others, they will need to move outside beyond their own shadows. Global meaning makers should confront the hegemonies that privilege some but limit others. In some cases, global meaning makers may need to deconstruct their roles and own complicity, complacency or compliance with restrictions that serve to enculturate, assimilate and marginalize. For academics, this might include confronting or challenging the Eurocentric tendencies or the marginalization of “other” occurring within universities and perpetuated by institutional alignments with the global knowledge economy. For educators, it might entail scrutinizing our pedagogies that position cultures as objects of study and not ways of being. Educators should examine whether educational practices are more monocultural or monolingual than multicultural or multilingual and whether the systems advance socio-political practices that discount diversity in the interest of reproducing historic privilege. Global readings should look to disrupt rather than to perpetuate forms of governance and practice that exclude “others” and preclude participatory forms of deliberate democratic decision-making, and cooperation among peoples. The proposal for global reading being espoused is premised upon aspiring to forms of globalism that entails multiple readings across spaces, people and times and beyond oneself. These readings would occur across multiple levels that are more extensive and mangled than nationalistic or protectionist. The global readings that are proposed embrace multiple epistemologies including alignments to planetary, Indigenous and other ways of thinking. The espoused approach to global readings strives for a parsimony between local and global that is interoperative and cooperative—flowing, hybridized, fused, multilateral,
Notes on Global Reading 43 border-crossing, multicultural and respectful—that is, not tribal, divisive, bourgeois, state-mandated, uniform nor subordinating. The aspired global readings involve forms of participation involving multiple public spheres befitting the communities’ approaches to decision-making and development. The negotiations might occur with communities among reader participants around societal issues (health and welfare, services, cultural practices, communication, education, spirituality, food supply, governance, law and order) or might entail opportunities for critical and creative expression of one’s identity. Integral to their development will be the meaning makers’ relationships to social transformation as activists or allies or cultural development workers (Bishop, 2009, 1994; Butler, 2011; Campano, Honeyford, Sánchez, & Vander Zanden, 2010; San Pedro, 2018; Simon, & Campano, 2013). Some Keys to Global Meaning Making Global reading is not an approach that cannot be scripted, rather it flows from key elements. As espoused in an earlier paper, global reading: is not a scripted reading of the world following a strict protocol applied in a singular or monolithic fashion. The dynamic processes are by their very nature diversified, multilayered and multifaceted involving fusions and adaptations of ideas and styles. Global meaning making involves transactions that are situated and not standardised anchored in ethics aligned with respect, reciprocity and ecological global eclecticism . . . . . . Global meaning making entails cultural protagonism. For those engaged in international pursuits, it entails straddling multiple locals in different countries, including spaces where racism, classism, and ethnic and various other forms of discrimination may be deep-seated, almost intractable and perhaps perpetuated unless challenged. . . . address(ing) the tug of war between homogeneity and heterogeneity, privilege and responsibility, global and local. It involves what Hymes (1990) described as a kind of dialectic between insider-outsider perspectives. Global meaning making is rarely solitary; engagements are participatory. It involves multiple dependency—colleagues and collaborators with local knowledge, Indigenous histories, migrant pasts and cultural moorings in other places—Oceania, Asia, the Americas and Africa. (Tierney, 2018, pp. 11, 15) Global readers need an array of resources (access to sources, strategies, skills and attitudes) if they are to bridge, traverse and accommodate for multiple languages, different epistemologies, varying cultural practices, jurisdictional variations and a consciousness of self as they read and pursue actions in the interest of others. Lest certain signifiers are missed,
44 Robert J. Tierney it is suggested that it should involve approaches to meaning making informed by cultural studies including histography but also guided by approaches that are formative and empowering—participatory engagements with the aid of cultural intermediaries. At one level, a reader’s sophistication in terms of engaging with these worlds is relative—anchored in pre-existing knowledge about the world across people, places and times along with a reader’s adroitness at moving across space and time within and across borders in the company of others and adjusting oneself to the norms and expectations of others. At another level, to engage globally meaning makers need to read and write their worlds as they seek to know themselves in the company of others. Reading and writing involve stepping inside and outside of or to the side of one’s world to observe, engage with and respect the world of others. These engagements involve criss-crossing global times and spaces with stealth, flexibility, visas or other forms of worldly skills and attitudes. As suggested in other papers (e.g., Tierney, 2018), meaning makers might pursue: • • • • • • •
Interrupting existing frames especially cultural hegemony; Decolonizing and opening spaces for the sovereignty of and respect for diverse cultures and their self-determination; Accommodating cultural dynamics within and across communities: via adaptation, translanguaging, fusion, border-crossing; Reading self; deconstructing identity as one engages with diversity, indigeneity, decolonization; Being mindful: finding a higher moral plane; Interrogating truth/post-truth; Being activist or actionist.
Implicit in these notions there were also features such as the following: • Developing channels of communication, bridges for traversing spaces, collaborations, responsiveness and support; and • Pursuing transformative change. If these goals are unpacked further, there appears to be at least eight keys that offer overlapping synergies important to global meaning making. 1. Contemplating Global Presence, Positionality and Purview Global reading involves contemplating the state of the world, the cacophony at the global intersections of worldly trafficking of ideas or forms of personal diplomacy as one engages with the world and an interrogation of existing and possible alliances that cross borders geographically or ethnically or in other ways. Many of us are engaged in
Notes on Global Reading 45 global or cross-cultural events daily (face to face or virtual, synchronized or asynchronized) from relationship building to trade in ideas and alliance building to global disputes and wars. It is as if our lives involve a fusion of global and cultural matters involving cross-border considerations of time, space and peoples. They involve our interactions with our neighbors, with family or colleagues locally and abroad. For some of us, international engagements are particular—they involve international projects overseas or with a global network of collaborators. For all of us, however, global affairs such as migration, climate change, Indigenous matters, populism are difficult to disregard as they are not just newsworthy, but influence our material lives.4 These are matters not outside of our realm of experience; they are within all of our purview. Essentially, they represent an ongoing reckoning of ourselves as planetary beings locally and globally. 2. Exploring Resources and Multiple Viewpoints To make discerning judgements,5 global meaning making demands readers to engage with multiple and diverse stakeholders along with a wide range of texts. To engage globally nowadays entails various matters: travel and trade, housing and health, food and water supplies, economic development, governance, but also matters of unity and division around religion and ethnicity including hate crimes, terrorism, the criminal code, security issues especially as they intersect with matters of race, economic circumstances, gender and sexuality. To explore such matters, there is a plethora of material: news releases, briefings, policy documents, judicial considerations and essays on documents from legislation to scientific evidence (quantitative and qualitative), court decisions to first-hand accounts and daily encounters with events and people that have a global currency. They might also include tweets, Instagram, blog commentaries and solicitations crafted for micromanaging one’s views.6 Undoubtedly, the trade in ideas occurs increasingly across digital corridors that support rapid-fire exchanges across various networks including some prone to be marketing their representation of ideas and interests (Kress, 2003; Beach & Tierney, 2016; Frazer & Carlson, 2017). As global exchanges swell especially via the internet and social media, it is not without experiencing growing pains. Any global exchange can be influenced by fear, prejudices, slanted characterizations and past histories, in an age of global exchanges via the internet, they can be enhanced or tinged by forms of microtargeting of perspectives. Indeed, our text worlds have been shown to be susceptible to misrepresentation and prone to forms of microtargeting for nefarious reasons—political and economic. Further, the approach of meaning makers using the internet may lack criticality and be neither ardent nor dialectic nor reflexive. For example, a study by the Stanford History
46 Robert J. Tierney Group suggests most internet users’ approach to searching and judging information to be severely limited (McGrew, Breakstone, Ortega, Smith, & Wineburg, 2018; Wineburg, & McGrew, 2016).7 Communications can be positive and generative if discerning and respectful, but negative and reckless if approached with pre-set views and without criticality. Indeed, global developments may herald an expansion of global exchanges, but mask the extent to which global engagements beget indoctrination or are prone to purposeful shaping of certain perspectives over others. 3. Exploring Multiple Viewpoints and Approaches: Reading Across Time and Space Into, Beneath and Beyond Global meaning-making entails readers exploring multiple sources, engaging in frequent consultations, adjusting points of view and reconsiderations tied to a consciousness of the times, places and the people involved. It may be that multiple global readings are needed with various readers in partnership or in support of one another. Essentially global readers crossing borders should operate recursively, seeking various perspectives remaining conscious or, if possible, suspending their own biases as they explore read, listen and learn with refrain. In terms of resources, the global reading assumes that the reader will access a range of texts that have credibility. Reading across time and space involves seeking and acting upon understandings of the place of text materials and the standpoints that preclude and guide their orchestration and layers of provocations whether global meaning making relates to political events (such as the assortment of texts around government pronouncements, legislation, commentaries etc.) or literary works (e.g. poems, novels, films) or everyday exchanges (e.g. Skype, Instagram, e-mail) between parties strewn across people separated geographically, politically and temporally. Such readings might involve various probes as ideas are questioned, cross-checked with one’s own experience or explored by various other forms of investigative procedures such as post-holing or other corroborating practices. Reading might entail a study of ideas and ideologies, the veracity of accounts of events, the credibility of claims or other forms of rhetorical analysis such as analyses of persona or argumentative elements tied to evidence, warrants and claims (e.g., Sheehy, Scanlon, & Roesch, 2016; Toulmin, 1958). At the same time, they might explore the saliency of matters through the lens of others. 4. Probing Socio-Political Currents Global readers need to probe the socio-political undercurrents. In the political realm, they need to consider the systemic forces at play
Notes on Global Reading 47 (Connell, 2007; Connell, Collyer, Maia, & Morrell, 2017; Spivak, 1988, 1990, 1999; Stein, 2017b). In a fashion consistent with analyzing speech acts, persona and identity, they should be examining texts in terms of how authors are positioning themselves, the subject of their texts and audience using a lens that illuminates the power dynamics and hierarchies in play (e.g., Austin, 1962; Crumpler & Tierney, 1995; Gibson, 1969; Lakoff, 2016/2017; Lemke, 1995; Moje & Luke, 2009; Searle, 1969). They should consider the racial, ethnic and gender positioning being employed as well as the methods for doing so (including assessing factualness and claims) and that readers are likely to be faced with a degree of indeterminacy as they weigh what they read against the political motives of different texts. They will need to check for slants, vested interests, a range of rhetorical ploys along with the changing status of truth in those post-truth times (Bump, 2018; Kakutani, 2018). A reader may need trustworthy resources—commentators, experts and cultural informants—to serve as a help line to make well-reasoned and credible decisions. Such should not be assumed as straightforward, as it may entail readers avoiding egocentrism and divesting themselves of self-righteousness as they enlist their past and self-consciousness to explore and seek to understand the interests, ways of knowing and discernments of others. Oftentimes, cultural understanding requires a paradigm shift. For example, as Takayama (2009) and Shi and Li (2018) have explored, a lock step application of western critical thought can involve a form of overreach if applied in the non-western world. Or, as Park (2018) suggests, drawing upon Chen’s (2010) discussion of Asia as Method, if one were to look at Asia one should engage in “a paradigm shift to look at Asia with a de-imperialized, de-colonized, and de–Cold War mentality” (p. 760)8. Or, as N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba (2016) argues in her paper “The Ubuntu Paradigm and Comparative and International Education: Epistemological Challenges and Opportunities in Our Field,” African readings should not be supplanted or displaced by European texts denying agency to African voices within or from Africa. She argues that readers should be aware of this neglect and explore meanings that are informed by texts from southern sources rather than fall prey to perpetuating western exclusivity. They should take care to check on their assumptions and understanding of the worlds of others including the mainstream forces at work that indoctrinate or afford certain licenses and views over others.9 5. Contemplating Self and Positionalities Global reading entails finding ways to learn with and from others and to do so reflexively—unpacking one’s position as one engages with others by invitation and permission versus intervention and imposition. Oftentimes global approaches are confounded by ignorance, arrogance,
48 Robert J. Tierney equivocation and egocentrism that is more akin to narcissism than acknowledgment, collaboration, partnerships or respectful exchanges. It is as if global meaning makers need to be aware of their own signature and their position and investment in terms of the issues presented. As they form and posit views they should do so reservedly and respectfully— in a fashion that acknowledges themselves, their sources and evidential bases including their collaborators. Again, global readers may need to move beyond the bubble of their own views of the world. As Laverty and Gregory (2017) have argued it befits the pragmatism of Charles Peirce, Dewey, Richard Rorty and others that view meaning making as confronting egocentrism “as a site for radical inter-subjective, inter-generational address and response, and for the radical questioning and subversion of personal, societal and cultural ways of life” (p. 521). As they stated, it: promotes inquiry as a socially embedded, experimental, and indeterminate process of self/world reconstruction . . . a site for radical inter-subjective, inter-generational address and response, and for the radical questioning and subversion of personal, societal and cultural ways of life. (Laverty & Gregory, 2017, p. 521) Global readers should approach their meaning making in ways that are not patronizing, colonizing, informed but not defined by self-interests. Cross-cultural readings might be informed by “on the ground” engagements with people and their communities in conjunction with shared experiences Sometimes events or personal encounters can lead to some of the most transformative enlightenments and engagements that interrupt complacency and parochialism quite directly. For example, the news of natural disasters or the terrorism and violence that has impacted schools, religious gatherings and communities. Such events can bring to the surface a range of issues existing in our lives: concern over global terrorism and the rising white supremacist movement, the consequences of interconnectedness with global media, the debates around the precipitousness of hate speech from tweets to blogs or tied to political policies. Sometimes, readers might engage vicariously through texts, film or poetry or other means. For example, James Baldwin’s If Beale Street Could Talk (Baldwin, 1978) offers a journey that is vivid with reverberations that reach within and across lives, races, times of African Americans in the US. Coupled with timeless classics such as “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, “The Color Purple” or the poems of Maya Angelou, or speeches such as those by Martin Luther King or songs such as “Glory” by John Legend and Common, meaning making have platforms that build cultural awareness, transform cultural interactions and spur social actions. In Australia, where racism toward its indigenous population abounds, various events, books
Notes on Global Reading 49 and court deliberations can help illuminate the systemic socio-political forces at play and exposed the rampant discriminatory practices. A video production, Babakiueria (Barbecue Area)10 offered a satire to engage white Australians with their own racism in Australia by reversing the role of the colonizers from the Europeans to Australian aboriginals. In so doing, the film serves as a vehicle by which a non-Indigenous audience is confronted with their own racism and subordinating as well as enculturation practices (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 1986, 2006). Such satire, coupled with various other scholarly books, can and have exposed the systemic forces that undergird the racism that has shaped Australia culturally and help expose what had remained hidden—Australia’s hidden Aboriginal history, including genocidal practices (e.g. Pasco, 2014; Willmott, 1987). For North American readers, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America (King, 2012) may provide a similar platform especially coupled with other native American novels. 6. Transforming: From Connoisseur to Activist As with activism, global readings involve “thinking, talking about, researching and theorizing about what is going on, what they are going to do next and how to analyse the situations they face, whether in relation to attending a demonstration, a meeting, a confrontation with institutional forces or planning the next action or campaign” (Kinsman, 2006, p. 134). Budd Hall (1978) and Choudry (2015) describe engagements in activism as a form of continuously testing, acting on, trying out and repeating the cycle as one moves forward. Haluza-Delay (2003) suggested there was often an assumption “that knowledge uncovers the oppressive structures and confronts power. However, it is not the ‘knowledge’ alone that does this, but the process by which the knowledge is taken up and used in the community, altering ‘common-sense’ ” (p. 86). It occurs as the reader’s explorations, expressions, exchanges and enactments find the light of day especially if they involve the politics of equity, including race, gender, ethnicities, class and sexuality. Such befits Gramsci’s (1982 discussion of the intelligentsia as being involved not traditionally, but organically in the interests of the subaltern. It is consistent with a model of reading and research that some characterize as formative and that aspires to be transformative. As Goodwin (2012) suggests: “an orientation to inquiry with an obligation to action” (p. 3) involving participation tied to local interests and pursued cyclically. The goal are forms of engagement that are transforming in the interests of the pursuit or movement. It shifts their role to that of a supporter and ally (Bishop, 2009) rather than distant observer, critic or director. Essentially, the espoused global reading is pursued with an eye to making change not just critique; it fits with interrogating the systems
50 Robert J. Tierney of power in play, but also pursuing ways to change them in the interests of emancipation or Gramsci’s view of and the need for organic intellectuals engaged with the public rather than remaining cocooned in their academic theorizing and studies.11 In other words, the activism and transformative change that is imagined moves beyond examinations, self-study, respectful collaborations to exploring transformative change. In some ways it befits some of the tenets espoused already but it moves beyond a consideration of the present and its critique on a number of fronts to planning change and development. It may entail contemplating and working toward paradigm shifts that support cultural developments in community. For the educator, it might involve helping students exploring ways that breathe life from communities into schools and vice versa. For the researcher, it may entail contemplating participatory forms of research exploring issues such as water use, needs and practices in communities. Or it might entail exploring the transformative pursuits in various community sites. To date, even our research with cultural others such as Indigenous groups has been quite anemic in terms of empowerment as researchers have tended to acknowledge and collaborate but to the researchers’ ends rather than communities’ sustainable future. The activism of global meaning makers is one that fits with tenets of respect, trust-building, responsibility and self-determination. Readings and actions might be fashioned not unlike what Patti Lather (1986) pursued in exploring what she deemed as validity essential for “rigor” and “vigor” and, at a level, befitting Freire (1973) “conscientization” or transformative change or what Lather termed as “catalytic validity.” To this end, she explored the work of Carol Gilligan (1982) examining the moral development of women distinct from men and the work of Paul Willis (1981) exploring the working lives of youth disaffected from schools. Patti Lather’s explorations of their work applauded the pursuit of the world views of others, but lamented their failure to triangulate, the failure to engage the respondents or participants with the information that was gathered and the claims that were offered in ways that might be transformative. Media can serve as a vehicle for such activism—especially given the digital capabilities within reach. For example, digital handheld tools afford individuals and groups access to video making and other forms of media production as a means of exploring one’s worlds or engaging in forms of civic activism. As Greene, Burke, and McKenna (2018) recently uncovered we have seen a rise in participatory research initiatives where educators and youth pursued various uses of digital media to address social issues relevant to the youth, involving expressions by the youth and if there was a traction with the community. For example, Rogers, Winters, Perry, and LaMonde (2015) demonstrated various digital media can be used as a means for youth who might be disenfranchised
Notes on Global Reading 51 to speak out about societal issues including matters of their identity. As Rogers et al. described the enlistment of digital resources supported “as expressions of resistance to the inheritance of the broken promises of democratic citizenship and their ability to imagine new possibilities of public engagement” (p. 2). The youth that they observed were involved in “juxtaposing . . . hybridizing . . . remixing” (p. 102) as forms of counter-narratives and speaking for themselves and being heard by others. As Frazer and Carlson (2017) found in the use of memes with images to challenge constructions of Australian aboriginal understandings, memes functioned: not necessarily to formalize some clearly articulable political position but to challenge the colonial arrangement and produce something new (which is essentially anti-colonial). But this is a politics without unity, in the traditional sense. It is closer to . . . “fluidarity” rather than solidarity—“a plurality of disparate groups com[ing] together in a kind of unified disunity.” (in Guattari, 2000, p. 11) 7. Bridging and Leveraging Transformative change is rarely straightforward, and endeavors to do so require careful contemplation and meaningful engagements with stakeholders, including participatory forms of decision-making and approaches to moving forward that are respectful of the communities involved. Transformative change is political at various levels—within and across communities and various subgroups and individuals with the communities, various agencies that serve the communities as well as the institutions that govern the agencies. Take, if you will, efforts at transformative change for indigenous communities. In various communities there have been countless efforts to remove the yolk of colonialization and instead breathe life into schools by moving away from standardized and culturally estranged education to culturally responsive and sustainable education. In some Indigenous communities, we have seen the development of Indigenous ways of knowing as core educational developments (e.g., New Zealand Kaupapa Ma¯ori theory; see Smith, 1990; www.rangahau.co.nz/research-idea/27/). In Australia, however, it remains a struggle. Most recently, it has manifested itself in various forms of activism to recent efforts around the “Uluru Declaration of the Heart” that seeks formal recognition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and their ways of knowing (see: http://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/uluru-statement-heart). And, it is apparent in communities striving for a political foothold as they represent the community interests including the land in ongoing economic and educational matters. Australia’s Indigenous communities
52 Robert J. Tierney struggle to be heard and to have their rights respected by the colonizing government. They have sought reconciliation but also leverage through constitutional change, through court cases challenging erroneous constructions of others (e.g., Mabo). Because aboriginal sovereignty over their own affairs is rare, other forms of leverage have become a focus. Adroitly, a reading of these circumstances has some aboriginal community seeking other forms of positioning to the same ends such as cooperation and contractual agreements that elevate the possibility of community development by and for communities. For example, Daryle Rigney and his Aboriginal community (Ngarrindjeri), in hopes of attaining a degree of sovereignty and self-governance, have engaged in forms of contractual relationships with the federal and state governments around their water problems. The Ngarrindjeri community (located at the mouth of the Murray River—Australia’s longest and perhaps the river that is considered among the most vital to its sustenance) has been involved in an effort to re-balance the power dynamic between themselves and the settler government. As Daryle Rigney and his colleagues detail, the community with agility positioned themselves enlisting settler law to have agency. As Rigney and his colleagues stated: In 2007, they consolidated their governing authority in a peak political body, the Ngarrindjeri Regional Authority (NRA) . . . . . . . built upon an existing Indigenous political culture. By providing a central point of political administration the NRA both enabled the coordination of activities carried out by the various Ngarrindjeri governance organizations and established a unified point of contact for communication and negotiation with the state. Employing principles of contract law, the negotiation regime initiated by Ngarrindjeri is geared towards the creation of legally binding accords known as Kungun Ngarrindjeri Yunnan Agreements (KNYA). The KNY process does not designate fixed outcomes, but rather clarifies a starting point for respectful communication between interested parties. Every KNYA requires parties to commit to listening, discussion and negotiation over any and all management matters concerning Ngarrindjeri jurisdiction over their peoples and their Country. Importantly, in accordance with contract law, the negotiation can only proceed when there is a formal procedural recognition of the capacity of each partner to enter into the negotiation and agreement process. This necessarily includes an a priori recognition of the NRA as a peak political body that registers the fact of Ngarrindjeri sovereignty over their (unceded) territories. (Rigney, Bignall, & Hemming, 2015, pp. 339–341) For Daryle Rigney, this is a tricky place even as a member of the Ngarrindjeri community. For outsiders, this is space that would be even more
Notes on Global Reading 53 tricky to negotiate and indeed, an outsider’s knowledge, commitment and vested interests might be considered suspect. Outsiders may view themselves as emancipists, but be seen as having the vestiges of colonization, imperialism, racism, objectification, commodification, universalism, individualism and simplification which fail to address the complexities and differences in the realities, interests, histories and epistemologies of diverse cultures. Global reader/activists may need to search for an ethical compass to address what seems paradoxical and a form of activism that befits the circumstances and communities being supported or partnered. Global readers and researchers can find themselves slipping from advocate and ally to cultural interloper engaged in a form of colonization and appropriation. Global readers might be ardent,12 but their meaning making should be pursued in a fashion befitting the kind of contrapuntal reading espoused by (Said, 1979)13 and more recently Takayama (2018) as he examined how our global perspectives need to confront how modernism and colonialism perpetuated forms of racism. From the perspective of Indigenous scholars, it could entail what Maori scholar Linda Smith (2005) suggested in the context of discussing ethics for Indigenous research: For Indigenous and other marginalized communities, research ethics is at a very basic level about establishing, maintaining, and nurturing reciprocal and respectful relations, not just among people as individuals but also with people, as collectives and as members of communities, and with humans who live in and with other entities in the environment. The abilities to enter pre-existing relationships; to build, maintain, and nurture relationships; and to strengthen connectivity. (p. 97) As Ali Abdi has warned, activism should advance cautiously, lest it unwittingly advances an agenda which is assimilationist (Abdi, 2015). As Aman (2017) illustrated in his discussion of Bolivia, there is a constant as westerners control the words to describe and indeed appropriate or control even the manner of change. For example, as Aman noted in Bolivia, they began to enlist the language of the Indigenous such as interculteridad in ways that detracted from its use by the Indigenous groups. Respectful global meaning making requires practices that avoid outside imposition or the appropriation of others in the outsider’s image or in ways that displace the societies, communities and individuals they might be seeking to read, study or support. Accordingly, global meaning making may need to thwart what has been the dominant research norms that have deferred to forms of standardizing rather than differentiating others, objectivity and detachment over participation, cooperation and consultation. Unfortunately, as recent reviews of Indigenous research have revealed, in the majority of cases, regardless of epistemologies, most studies have
54 Robert J. Tierney been anemic in terms of commitments to empowering communities and the ethics of engagement. For example, as Dion et al. (2017) note, a limited number of the hundreds of Indigenous research studies have focused on empowerment including even those conducted from a critical perspective or constructivist orientation or touting Indigenous methodology. Systemic changes on other fronts are instructive in terms of leveraging change. The recognition of LGBTQ rights in a number of countries has involved demonstration, “allyship” but on a number of occasions the support of politicians and the judiciary. In his essay, “Stonewall and the myth of self-deliverance,” Kwame Anthony Appiah (2019) discussed how LGBTQ rights moved forward in the United Kingdom and the United States. As he noted in New York at the time of the memorialization of the historic Stonewall demonstration: It mattered enormously, then, that the old-guard gay advocacy groups organized an annual Stonewall demonstration. It also mattered enormously that after the 1971 demonstration, the reporter Joseph Lelyveld published an account in The New York Times that was long, detailed and, read in its historical context, deeply sympathetic. Unblinkered journalists in the mainstream media were indispensable to the cause. The story of gay rights is the story of gay activism—but it is not only that story. It’s the story, too, of black-robed heterosexuals like Margaret Marshall, who as the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court wrote a 2003 decision declaring that same-sex marriage was entitled to legal recognition. It’s the story of mainstream politicians like Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who decided about a decade ago that he wanted New York to become the first large state to legislate marriage equality. Mr. Cuomo blamed the failure of a previous effort on infighting among the advocacy groups, and he called them to heel. Then—with the assistance of rich Wall Street donors—he engaged in the usual wheeling and dealing and arm-twisting to wrangle the bill through the Legislature. He signed it in 2011. In the UK, he noted a similar story, where a largely unheralded Welsh politician steered various social reform acts of the UK parliament ensuring LGTBQ rights not by “allyship” or as a result of lobbying, but by this social reformer’s grit, commitment and “finely honed” political skills. 8. Reading Global Reading or Making Meaning of Global Meaning Making One of the essential premises of the proposal for global reading is tied to pursuit of a global multitopian planetary commitment that is eclectic
Notes on Global Reading 55 (Tierney, 2017). It is an approach to meaning making that does not use a fixed model but takes shape with one another across circumstances and efforts to read and transact with one another and self in ways that involve a reflexive consciousness that is multilayered, multidimensional, multifaceted multidirectional and mobile. Global reading requires the active engagement of self in the world of others. It involves engagement with self in ways that are active, critical and ongoing. Indeed, global reading is viewed as a form of active conversation with self as one engages with others and their lives in a manner that is transactional and dynamic. Listening with an understanding of the situatedness, norms, conventions and language of others may be a step but it is also important to find one’s own voice in global life engagements. In some ways, the proposal for global reading has parallels to the critical pedagogical orientation suggested to reading and writing life stories (one’s own and those of others) as antecedents for examining cross-cultural differences (Marshall, 2019). As Appadurai (2005) commented this is not just a matter of ecumenicalism and generosity, but requires suspending certainty and opening oneself up to debate, to differences and consider grassroots internationalism as a crucible for emergent new forms of global ethics. Reading global reading could be viewed as akin to the ongoing foreign policy tied to shared and changing planetary interests. It would be anchored in accommodation of and respect for differences but aligned with humanism without suppression or violence to others.
Closing Remarks The importance and complexity of reading or writing in our worlds should not be underestimated; they are integral to our local and planetary participations and citizenry responsibilities. Our exchanges support mundane and complex engagements in ways that may be instrumental or requiring contemplation. In socio-political terms, reading and writing are spaces where communications across people and places occur tied to local and global concerns; they are the sites for grand conversations and vehicles to interrogate experiences, ideas, feelings, attitudes, actions and law as well unify, rally, challenge and change. The proposal for meaning making tries to overcome some of the systemic forces that may hamper global meaning making and democratic reckoning with self and societies in these post-truth times that seem more exclusionary than eclectic. The framework for global meaning making and the keys posited for global reading represent a patchwork of suggestions befitting a partial map for moving forward. At times, it befits a conversation with self that seems fallible, at time wrong-handed, but mostly incomplete and unsafe but fortunate to occur with the support of colleagues willing to steady the hand.
56 Robert J. Tierney In his book Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End (1998), John Willinsky ended his unmasking of the imperialistic underpinnings of educational developments worldwide with retorts to examine our identity in the context of this legacy with a view to ourselves as foreigners. At the same time, he warned us not to become cathartic about identity and not to shy away from operating across cultures or globally. Willinsky (1998) suggested that our engagements should have less the appearance of imperialist and more the form of critical culturalists working across borders with a view of themselves as foreigners in support of others (see Kristeva, 1991; West, 1990). Tensions may arise as international developments collide with local issues, such as native languages, cultural practices and so on. Within the larger context of global forces, there may cultural, social, economic and linguistic oppression. As Leslie Roman (2004) argued, some of the developments that have arisen to serve diverse populations have been liberating and profitable for some but inhumane and inequitable for many. She maintains that global pursuits need to be linked to human rights issues. As she stated, the pursuit of education should be viewed as “an opportunity to claim democratic praxis through a decolonized curricular, pedagogy and educational policy” (p. 231), and to do so requires educators who can read cultures with various lenses and engagements that “focus on human rights that is not abstract and universalizing” (p. 252). It requires global meaning makers who are not paralyzed, but peel back the layers as they negotiate the various terrains and peoples involved, implicated and influenced by a form of critical reflexology which is dialectical toward ethical considerations which may be more complex, nuanced and situation-specific. As Ali Abdi (2015, p. 16) warns, we should be alert to those tendencies that give the appearance of eclecticism, but operate as a European predestination to save non-cultured natives from themselves . . . we should not discount . . . the need to see beyond the fog of the still problematically benevolent political correctness as the creators of the new scholarship are somehow oblivious in turning the gaze upon themselves and societies. At the same time, global reading can be looked at through an ecological lens that questions the influence that the research has on the ecology of our diverse cultures especially the impact on our epistemologies over time—the extent to which our research builds upon and complements the local or traditional ways of knowing or displaces or contributes to their extinction, as de Sousa suggests their epistimecide. I concur with Kohlberg, there may be need for a seventh level of moral principle to which global reading and research should aspire—a level which looks more broadly at the ethics of decision-making aligned with a fuller and
Notes on Global Reading 57 ongoing consideration of the future of a society (Kohlberg, 1981). As Appadurai (2005) commented this is not just a matter of ecumenicalism and generosity but requires suspending certainty and opening oneself up to debate, to differences and consider grassroots internationalism as a crucible for emergent new forms of global ethics. It is consistent with Santos’s suggestion of the need for a shift from science as the gatekeeper or metonym for knowledge to being positioned as one of its constituent’s knowledge along with other knowledges. As he suggests, it warrants a shift from knowledge as regulation to knowledge as emancipation (de Sousa Santos, 2007, p. li). Global meaning making is a proposal that is intended to challenge the tendency to equivocate about matters of diversity and cultural spaces that supports a dynamic form of cultural humanism and ecological togetherness that unmasks our identities when self-righteousness, privilege, whiteness and other dominating tendencies remain unchallenged or invisible. It is not something that is imagined as being able to be done alone or in a fashion that is singular in terms of time, space, cultures and ways of knowing. It befits approaches to meaning making that involve self and others accepting eclecticism in consultation with readings, interests, perspectives and the fusions arising from cross-border journeys done outside of but not blind to and challenging mainstream cultural hegemonies. As global readers engage in these matters and perhaps engage in advocacy and change, they should not assume infallibility or certainty. The global reader should remain self-conscious of their limitations at the same time it is hoped that they would make visible their beliefs, their reasoning and how they checked on the meanings that they discerned including their missteps, uncertainties or perhaps their sense of being lost or out of place, unable to discern the cultural signifiers and lacking in the dexterity to position themselves to understand their own cultural imprint on their readings. Global readers should realize that their vision combined with craft involves negotiations with the material world and other views that might be more fluid than fixed and more momentary than sustained. Meaning making may involve a mix of romance and eroticism, risk and discovery that can be frustrated by one’s self—the lack of a “steady hand”—and uncertain predispositions. Advocates for global meaning making should recognize that they are engaged in a journey that may be tricky and for which there may not be a map or fixed destination.
Notes 1. For the constructivist, meaning making is recognized as situated and as such governed by local and global transactions that reckon with one another in a fashion that befits the tenets of responsive evaluation (Guba & Lincoln,
58 Robert J. Tierney 1989). From a postmodernist framework, the meaning making needs to be examined in terms of if it is governed by relativism (e.g., Peters, 2017, 2019). For the sociolinguists, the meaning making might be viewed as forms of planned based speech acts involving transactions between parties tied to a consideration of each other’s goals and interests (e.g., Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). From a sociological perspective, culture is viewed as ongoing, situated and in motion rather than anchored in its past; consideration is given to the systemic forces that are at play especially the hierarchies within which power and privilege are afforded within and across societies (e.g., Bourdieu, 1991; Misiaszek, 2019). For the postcolonialist, they might be examined in terms of cultural accommodation and self-determination (e.g., Andreotti & De Souza, 2011). 2. As Davis (2018) stated: within traditional Aboriginal societies, notions of collective agreementmaking that resonate with democracy were pervasive largely because there was an egalitarian diffusion of power rather than concentration of power in one leader. Power and authority in tribal groups was vested in Elders with no concept of hereditary chiefs that exists in other Indigenous cultures so there was no assumption of leadership simply on the basis of genealogy. Elevation to a leadership position was determined by a fusion of the merit of the individual and the consensus of the group and were restricted to the most intelligent and diligent and those who had the most knowledge of religious and ceremonial affairs. The closeness of the group and its interdependence also meant that the community could use public opinion to encourage people to meet their obligations. While there was no concept of election within traditional culture, achieving influence or gaining a strong voice in decisionmaking was effectively granted by the rest of the group. But while certain people were more influential than others, no one had ultimate power. (p. 9) 3. This befits Australian aboriginal educator Robert Morgan’s notion of relegating Indigenous learners as “guests” (Morgan, 2018). 4. The number of international students is in excess of 200 million per year, the number of international scholars (short and long term) to the US alone over 45,000—specifically, the Institute of International Education reported in 2011 that there were 1,369 professors, 26,370 researchers and 18,106 short-term scholars on a J-1 visa in 2009 in the United States. The number of international travellers is in excess of 1.25 billion annually and the size of cross-border migration globally in excess of 250 million per year. 5. This fits with what Maori scholar Graham Smith (2015) refers to as pursuing a 360-degree view of their reading including a reading of their reading. 6. It is estimated that on average 450 minutes per day are spent consuming or posting media across the globe, more so in more developed countries (e.g., Americans report spending over 600 minutes per day). The exchange via the global internet is in excess of 100 billion exchanges by the over 4 billion internet users across various platforms including nearly 2 billion websites that they access. If we use academic publishing as a proxy, the magnitude has risen at least 3.5% annually for two centuries [?] and is now rising even more substantially. It is estimated that there are some 5,000–10,000 publishers and 8–9 million scholars in 17,000 universities worldwide (e.g., Ware & Mabe, 2015). In terms of journals, there were at least 28,606 academic journals across all fields in 2016, growing from 15,896 in 2000. For education there were at least 1,067 scholarly journals in 2016 growing from 356 in 2000. In terms of documents or articles in these journals and other sources (across all fields of science), there were at least 1.9 million peer-reviewed articles
Notes on Global Reading 59 published in 2010 and 1.8 billion full-text articles downloaded and further increases estimated to be 20% by 2016 [update?] (Research Information Network, 2010; Potter, 2017). In terms of readership, estimates based upon survey data indicate academics on average read (peruse, explore, etc.) over 250 articles per year and for around 90 minutes to 120 minutes per day, nonuniversity scientists read on average maybe 50% as much. (King & Tenopir, 2004; King, Tenopir, & Clarke, 2006). Various websites can be accessed for these details. They include: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SM.POP.TOTL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.ARVL www.internetlivestats.com www.zenithmedia.com/26-of-media-consumption-will-be-mobile-in-2019/ 7. Based upon over 7,000 US middle school through college-aged students’ responses in 12 states, there were major shortcomings in meaning makers’ ability to engage in reasonable discernments of the merits of information or their validity. They encountered numerous failures to check on veracity of the ideas presented on the internet for example, against the identified “authorship” or article “sponsorship” or other identified factors that should trigger uncertainty about the newsworthiness of information presented in news releases, on Facebook, Twitter or other outlets. As one of the researchers suggested: many of students appeared to “focus more on the content of social media posts than on their sources.” The researcher suggested: “Despite their fluency with social media, many students are unaware of basic conventions for indicating verified digital information.” Likewise, when students were asked to evaluate information downloaded from internet searches, they had difficulty sorting facts from falsehoods especially when the issue was politically charged. And, as they found the strategies employed by the user tended to be non-critical. For example, the users did not analyze the website in terms of the communication ploys enlisted or the arguments made nor did they engage in a public sphere where ideas would be challenged. Instead, they reported that they found: “high production values, links to reputable news organizations and polished ‘About’ pages had the ability to sway students into believing without very much scepticism the contents of the site” (Donald, 2016). 8. See also Nozaki, 2009. 9. See also Ocholla, 2007 10. The film won the United Nations Media Peace Prize. 11. The recommendations for global reading align with the kind of emancipatory practices espoused by Augusto Boal in “Theater of the Oppressed” (Boal, 1993). 12. It may be that exposure to these ideas is not enough. To achieve traction, there may be a need to follow up. For example, a global reader should consider entering what would be tantamount to spaces equivalent with a form of the public sphere proposed by Habermas (1989) and extended by critical theorists to encompass multiple voices. They could do so in the context of meaning making involving potentially volatile global affairs such as the current discussions around climate change to racial division and immigration and free trade (Suárez-Orozco, 2005). At the same time, they could access commentaries on global issues. As global readers contend with these ideas and debate ideas as they examine the discourse especially in terms of relevance and credibility, a degree of connoisseurship might be attained. At times such requires wading through a quagmire that may include false denials and allegations of partisanships and views that appear to be embedded within or flowing from efforts by positioning what were purported as facts as
60 Robert J. Tierney “alternative facts” or to pivot as a means of shifting foci. But is it enough to be cognizant of these matters or simply be questioning? 13. As Said espoused readings that “take(s) account of both processes, that of imperialism and that of resistance to it, which can be done by extending our reading of the texts to include what was once forcibly excluded” (Said, 1993, pp. 66–67).
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4 Politics of Emotions in Tanzania Analyzing Global Citizenship Education Through Secular and Religious Lenses Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo Emotions enter all teaching by design and by default. —Andy Hargreaves (2001)
Introduction The situation we seek to address in this chapter is passé-muraille. Passémuraille is a French word referring to the capability of walking through walls. It is a concept borrowed from Jourdan andTuite (2006)in their book Language, Culture and Society, wherein they discourse over the contiguous nature of academic fields. Herein, the intersection between the politics of emotions and global citizenship education (GCE) are analyzed through narratives (language patterns) from secular and religious education perspectives. The intention is to highlight the ‘emotional spaces’ which emerge and create surface bodies at an individual, community and nation level and analyze how such ‘forged surface bodies’ create ‘hard spaces’ in implementing GCE in Tanzania. The passé-muraille—walk through walls—shall be revealing itself as arguments grow throughout the chapter. Basically, our arguments are built upon Sarah Ahmed’s work, The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2004). In her book, she elaborates how emotions can form fear, hope, pain, hate, disgust etc. She further illustrates how emotions can move from one person to another and to even larger social entities and form surface bodies over time. We regard surface bodies as hard spaces forged by emotions that revolve around GCE. Through emotions in a form of forged bodies, people can be united towards a particular course of action or against others. Emotions are persuasive in the material ways in which they produce modes of life and the feeling about others (Ahmed, 2004). Emotions come out and become the public instrument and vice versa (Nassbaum, 2001); ( Jarymowicz & Bar-Tal, 2006); (Muldoon, 2008); (Hoggett & Thompson, 2012). Politics of emotions and GCE’s themes, competencies and objectives relates to local culture, social practice, national politics and ideology. The question of
70 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo concern is how GCE competencies are translated into local context. Irrefutably, fundamental competencies of GCE are social and emotional (Clouder et al., 2008), especially themes such as empathy, ability to communicate and collaborate with others, conflict resolution, sense and security of identity, shared universal values (human rights, peace, justice, etc.), respect for diversity/intercultural understanding and recognition of global issues—interconnectedness (environmental, social, economic, etc.) (UNESCO, 2014). Observing it from the chain-reaction fashion, to transfer these competencies, one needs to communicate them by word and/or practice in social, cultural and ideological context. Such communication and practices mark the trails of GCE discourses and at the same time construct possibilities and limitations to the future of global citizenship. We do not, however, claim to cover exhaustively all possible images, ‘surface bodies’, emerging at the intersection between the politics of emotions, GCE themes and the entire Tanzanian culture. Politics of emotions from the vantage point of global citizenship education, especially at the local level, seem to permeate a number of lenses and social aspects within, between and among the individual and community. In order to be able to circumnavigate individual, community and nation levels and circles that GCE pervades, language with its power of forming ‘image’ and ‘reflection’ has been employed to show how politics of emotions that surrounds GCE connects, constitutes and reflects the relationship among and between the three circles—family, community(schools) and national—in Tanzania. Congruently, to understand the ‘surface bodies’ that emerge at the nodes of politics of emotions and GCE themes with reference to the three circles, we invite the reader to think of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory (Shelton, 2019). The theory attempts to explicate how human development can be understood from systems of relationships that constitute one’s environment. The theory suggests four systems; the microsystem—immediate interpersonal relationships such as family, etc.; the mesosystem—individual with a bit larger social connection such as schools; the exosystem—the larger social system such as policy-making bodies and chronosystem—one’s relationships and interaction over/across time (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The two first systems are bidirectional in the sense that an individual may influence or be influenced by the system(s), based on the nature of the interaction (Shelton, 2019). In these two systems, our discussion on the politics of emotions in GCE has a lot to be examined. For instance, viewing how GCE is perceived and/or influenced at the personal and family level (parenting) and how and/or what the said perception has to do with one’s involvement in GCE ‘things’. On the other hand, in the exosystem which is characterized by a top-down interaction, an individual has no influence but rather is influenced by decisions that descend from above. This is very much connected to GCE content which as per our findings, all participants were somewhat uncomfortable with the reality
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 71 that we’re not the one—as a nation—to decide what is important to our citizens but rather the western is doing the thinking and the decision for us. With regards to GCE or precisely Civic Education (CE) as it is in Tanzania, the exosystem seems to have the responsibility of picturing and carving national identity through dictation and facilitation of national goals, ideology and culture in CE curricular and pedagogy. Equally important, the chronosystem plays a diachronic role, whereas it cut across the first three systems in developing one’s identity. An identity development is believed to assume new shape over time depending on the processes and results of the first three systems. One could say the chronosystem is the one displaying the status quo of a person with reference to what the other three systems offered, both in time— synchronically and over time—diachronically. This is what we analyze by tracing what rendered the present in order to suggest the future cause. In other words, we analyze the past and the status quo of civic education focusing on GCE themes, the recipient’s emotional perception (adult citizen) and the practitioners, so that we may highlight the possibilities and limitations that face GCE today and tomorrow, at individual, community and national echelons.
The Bounds and Procedures Regardless of how many walls this chapter permeates through, the scope is nevertheless restricted. Thematically, this chapter analyzes the scenarios of civic education (GCE in a global sense) in Tanzania with specific focus to how politics of emotions that surrounds CE constructs and reflects the relationship among and between citizens in bringing about an ideal citizen in terms of promising possibilities and limitedness ‘hardships’ from respondents’ perspective. The key respondents were curriculum reviewers, district-level educational officers, secondary school civic education teachers and university instructors, parents as senior adults and religious leaders. It is worth noting that the chapter does not analyze the political situations in Tanzania but at some points, it mirrors its reflection from a distance. Another way to explain this is by sighting contributors’ emotion and perception as they are shaped by the consequences of national politics and socio-cultural practices from where one’s specialty stands. Accordingly, a qualitative research approach was employed under phenomenological orientation, whereby a narrative inquiry through survey, interviews, focus group discussion and document analysis informed the study. Critical discourse analysis assisted data analysis. The data collected via the aforementioned instruments were both quantitative and qualitative in nature. The quantitative data were coded, categorized and analyzed using Atlas. ti software. We went through open coding to develop concepts, categories and properties, then we applied axial coding to
72 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo make connections and relations between categories to determine causal conditions, and finally, we build a story from emerged discursive categories with the aid of selecting coding. The intention was to develop a conceptual framework which according to our research specific objective and research questions was to offer a model from the grounded theory which may fit well in provisions of GCE in accordance with Tanzania socio-cultural emotions. Similarly, our research line of work inclined to an ethnographic angle to allow the keen observation of socio-cultural contexts, processes and meanings within cultural systems (Reeves, Kuper, & Hodges, 2008). This was possible since we, the writers, are by virtue of our origin and positionality, subjects as well as researchers. The adoption of ethnography orientation allowed us to fully immerse ourselves in settings and it privileged us with the ability to generate a rich understanding of the social action that reflects GCE themes. Through participant observation, we had opportunities to gather empirical insights from social practices that habituate civic education which is usually ‘buried’ from the public regard. Additionally, the choice of ethnographic approach aimed at generating holistic social images since ethnographic research can detect, reconnoiter and link social phenomena which, on the surface, have little connection with each other (Reeves et al., 2008). Furthermore, it enables understanding of life forms and systems of thought and behavior in different cultures, organizations and social systems, both cultural and political as reflected in daily conversations and local events (Shagrir, 2017, p. 9). On this occasion, the volatility of central topics in our discussion was carefully handled in the formulation of a conceptual model that explains the prospects of GCE in Tanzania and elsewhere with similar and close conditions.
Tanzania: Historical Trend and Global Forces African governments have made a series of commitments towards promoting peace and global citizenship. African countries such as Benin, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritania, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda have shifted their focus from a content-based to competencybased curriculum, where peace education and GCE are critical themes to these countries, taking into account that education is about citizenry over and above literacy and numeracy (Kang’ethe, 2017). Tanzania is made up of more than 120 ethnic groups with differences spanning from socio-cultural and linguistic aspects (Waldschmitt, 2010). With all the existing differences, Swahili is a national language and the vital national unification factor. The indigenous Tanzanians, mainly found in rural areas, form the majority of the population (LeSage, 2014). There are also Tanzanians of Middle Eastern and Asian origin predominantly staying in urban areas (Waldschmitt, 2010; Nyerere, 1960; Omari, 1995).
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 73 Tanzania has a population of approximately 55 million, divided roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims at 35 to 45 percent each, with a large segment of traditional animists making up the difference (LeSage, 2014; Omari, 1995). Considering this amalgam and multiplicity, the provision of civic education was, in colonial times, different from that of postcolonial years and even far greater different at the present time. The rhetoric of civic education are the ones that figure and shape national as well as personal identity given the fact that CE consists of themes spreading from social, economic, cultural and individual normativity, both inside and outside of the classroom. During German and British colonial rule, the purpose of teaching civics in schools and civic education to the general public was to emphasize colonial values which would make the colonized people ‘softer’ and eager for European values and things over those available in their own localities and environment (Mushi, 2009). Vilely, it perpetuated passivity, dependency and docility. In other words, it discouraged local initiatives, proactivity, inquisitiveness and independent thinking (United Republic of Tanzania, 2011). CE in that era meant to facilitate the exercise of power and dominance, which among its effects is what (Santos, 2016) calls “epistemicide—the murder of knowledge”. As he put it in his article: epistemicide depicts “the destruction of the knowledge and cultures of these populations, of their memories and ancestral links and their manner of relating to others and to nature. Their legal and political forms—everything—is destroyed and subordinated to the colonial occupation” (p.18). Santos further added that colonial authority, coercion and the relations between the colonists and the occupied assumes various forms of domination because forms of domination never act as pure forms but rather in a constellation of oppression. The oppression can range from cultural, educational, social, cognitive and even physical torture and subjugation (Hunter, 2015). These experiences include pain, hate and fear. We will see later in our discussion how these emotional entities/devices are prevalent in society even today and how they can impede and/or reinforce civic education as an instrument for global citizenship education in the form of surface bodies of fear. They are the devices that were emotionally transferred from among individual, community and they led to the rise of nationalism and the independence struggle. Precisely, the colonial era inscribed the loss of epistemological confidence that currently afflicts the society (Santos, 2016). During the early years of independence (1961–1967) and in the subsequent years, the Tanzania national leaders devoted their efforts to unite the people into one community of Tanzanians (Nyerere, 1960; Mushi, 2009). Julius Nyerere as the head of the newly independent state focused on developing a Tanzanian national identity. The national identity was characterized by ujamaa—a socialist ideology. Ujamaa ideology primarily featured values related to unity, equality, cooperation, production
74 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo and distribution of resources by and for all, tolerance and acceptance of social differences such as racial, ethnic, tribal, religious diversities (Nyerere, 1960). Ujamaa values were incorporated in civics in schools and in civic education to the general public. By then civics was taught as Siasa-politics (Waldschmitt, 2010;Mushi, 2009). It was mandatory to sing the ujamaa values at schools every morning. At the time all media, cooperative societies and means by which people got together (with exception of religious gatherings) were owned by the state with only one political party—TANU.1 Beyond formal school systems, civic education was strategically aired in the radio programs and physically communicated through party activities, cooperative society’s gatherings, adult education programs, government and party-owned media and in regular presidential speeches on the radio. Public servants ought to be ambassadors of ujamaa and they were provided with a copy of ujamaa values as a code of conduct. They were to recite the values in the meeting. The government made sure every individual citizen sings the nation values and no one is left behind (Mushi, 2009; Waldschmitt, 2010; Omari, 1995). Finally, the goal of national unity which was a prerequisite for development was achieved. Crucial fabrics in the process of national unification were civic education and Swahili as a national language. During these days various scholars observed that Tanzanians considered themselves brothers and sisters despite their religious, regional, tribal and racial differences (Nyerere, 1960; Waldschmitt, 2010).
The Hard Spaces: Chris and Masoud Rendezvous The most protuberant findings on the current status and future of GCE within Tanzanian social and cultural contexts are the crippled family system and impaired government system on the making of its ideal citizen. To typify the latter, it is tempting to assert that the bodies and organs responsible for crafting and developing civic education contents and strategies are practically malfunctioning. Henceforth, we are going to turn our gaze on different facades of the two raised arguments, paint out the hard spaces caused by the politics of emotions that surrounds GCE from the individual to the national level beginning with a secular lens followed with a religious lens and afterward propose a remedy. After compiling the findings about political and social emotion spaces of GCE and how those emotions pose hard spaces in implementation of GCE in Tanzania, the question raised by both of us was how this fragile and complicated reality can be presented to and understood by those other than us and be well understood without distorting the emotional image we captured from the conversations we had with various contributors. It was not until Sabrina (corresponding author) observed a fascinating toddler conversation when she was traveling from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma. The bus was to travel more than 500km at the speed of
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 75 80km/h. Herein, she tells the story and we will be mirroring/mapping it against the stages we deem civic education to evolve through in Tanzania. The Exosystem Structural Fault Before getting into the Chris and Masoud’s rendezvous it is better to parenthetically paint the nature of the discussions we had with our interviewees during data collection. Notwithstanding the fact that the concept of GCE is old enough to be at least known to university lecturers, it was eccentrically found that very few respondents seem to have come across the lexis. No single respondent could fully explain GCE from an inside-out manner. Most of those we spoke to ended up making a ‘referral’ to another person whom they think knew GCE deeper than they did. We only came to find the ‘referees’ knew equally or less. This led us to the understanding that the concept and what it entails have been translated into too small chunks for the citizens to swallow. Something that we believe, anyhow, it undoubtedly prevents the recipient from actively knowing what is ‘going on’ in civic education. This ‘reference’ was mainly made on two grounds: an implicit belief that the referred person has better knowledge on GCE and the fact that some interviewees were uncomfortable talking about anything that will implicate politics, assuming that GCE is involving civic education which includes political affairs of a nation. The former is the realization of the ‘coming from above’ nature of GCE themes and competencies. This made it difficult for some of the key stakeholders like university instructors and secondary school teachers to be engaged in GCE mainstreaming as they lack knowledge and confidence regarding GCE. The ‘uncomfortability’ which was associated with ‘newness’ of the subject in discussion was actually suggesting an emotional detachment from GCE themes and competence themes and competencies which are, in essence, social as well as emotional (Clouder et al., 2008). On the view of coming from above, most interviewees failed to point out from how far above the themes were descending. They speculated from the united nation, but from what organization? We consider the detachment as hard space—hard in such a way that the very people who are expected to facilitate GCE are not connected to it, thus threatening GCE prosperity. If the walls that curtain the chain through which the GCE themes were/are descending from and why, then, perhaps it could clear the doubts which come along the unclear civic education under GCE. As for the latter, the interviewees seem to have knowledge of GCE themes and competencies but had to assume a protective hat and gloves not to say things that might endanger their safe zones (Santos, 2016). In so doing, they had to suggest some other people who they believe had both, knowledge of GCE and the guts to talk freely. What was feared the most was to mention anything that might implicate the current regime.
76 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo Talking of the previous government was fine and due to that, we had to rely on former government policies on GCE to get to the present. The point here is that there is uncommunicated fear that was associated with GCE themes: the fear of the current national politics which is assumed to be somewhat against some of the GCE themes. The fear grasped from interviewees’ emotions was not quite clear as to what it is they feared and why, something that makes the situation even more fearsome. Corroboratively, (Ahmed, 2004, p. 69) pointed out that the more we do not know what and who it is we fear, the more the world becomes fearsome. The fact that people could not talk freely about GCE explains three scenarios: either GCE has been mistakenly associated with politics, or a lack of clear understanding of the scope and limits of the subject, or both. Switching back to Sabrina’s story about her son, Masoud, and his newly met friend Chris, we pieced together four stages translated from literature and the history of development: the dark ages 2, colonialism, modernism and postmodernism, to specifically explicate deeper on the chronosystem of ecological theory. We chose this approach based on the fact that each stage involves the sense of growth in reasoning and identity formulation, the growth which, in some way, was triggered by how the world is viewed from one’s eyes. These historical and intellectual stages of human development were a result of emotions and reason. (Hargreaves, 2001; Clouder et al., 2008) noted that emotion appears to be the support system without which, the rational building process cannot work. We will consider emotion as the supporting system in explanation of the adopted stages as intellectual growth and human reasoning stages over time. Chronologically, dark ages are mirrored as the ages of the local values flourishment. At this age, people/citizens were enjoying their indigenous customs and norms, education, medicine, most of which were forged out of their experience in their geographical proximity. Colonialism is mapped against the time of colonial occupation until the rise of the nationalism struggle whereby people’s/citizen’s freedom was limited3. Modernism entails the time soon after independence where new nationstates were born. A new political sphere was experienced. The new leaders fought to oppose the colonial type of leadership by going back to traditional African ones—chiefdom, but the alert of time was not in their favor. New African leaders had to concoct their own political ideology as well as leadership styles to fit in the global puzzle. Not to generalize this fact, we will paint the Nyerere administration4 in Tanzania to contextualize the modernism we seek to explain. At this time, Tanzania practiced a type of socialism different from that of Russia, communism far from that of China and capitalism, which was most undesirable. What we seek to establish here is the ‘confusing’ mixture and reason for the nation and citizen development which was clouded and supported by emotions of accepting some and rejecting some of what the dark ages and
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 77 colonialism had to offer as inexorable consequences. The newly born nation-states had to sift what seemed to be appropriate or inappropriate to the development of a nation based on context. Lastly, postmodernism— the now-mixture and a multitude of constantly changing thoughts. This is even a far more confusing age. By its roots, the emotion in the form of fear, hopes, becomes its integral fabric. Microsystem: The Boys in Solitude I observed my son Masoud of 2.9 years of age meeting with another boy (Chris, a little older by few months)—a new acquaintance, in a bus and how they got to the engaged stage wisely and the development of their conversation throughout the journey. At first, each of them was busy playing alone—dark ages (individual local ideology, independent social and cultural affiliation—enjoying the freedom). The boys pretended not to sense the presence of one another. Like in the dark ages, community engagements were within borders and peaceful coexistence prevailed. We are not suggesting that there was no civil war, which was, in fact, the order of the day, conquering lands. We do not also suggest that the societies’ intermingling and cooperation was declaring unpeaceful coexistence. This was then perceived as eccentric and barbaric in western values (Santos, 2014). The emotional spaces were not or less tense ‘politically’ beginning at the family to ‘nation’—chiefdoms—in Tanzania. Imaginatively, thinking of the ecological system of those days, it was clear that the civic life was bare and therefore dictated by the microsystem and somehow by the mesosystem—the social-cultural context. The exosystem ideally existed within the mesosystem. Political and emotional influences, externally imposed, were not then the case. Much of the political and emotional influences were to a large extent moves inside and outside the same contained community (Hunter, 2015); that is within an individual person, a clan or tribe parameters. The family institution was powerful at this point in time and therefore if the children were meant to be hunters, swordsmen, housewives or any others, mothers in the institutions made sure of it through demands of maternal practice, preservation, training and social acceptability (Ruddick, 1995). As for the case of Masoud and Chris, mothers were not in a position to bother about the other mother’s child, not because we didn’t care but because we were implicitly having trust that any of us would take care of the boys if need be since we shared the same social values (Lapayese, 2012). Otherwise, everyone was mostly focusing on one’s own child’s well-being and safety on the bus. The Encounter Then the boys came into contact out of an exploration of each other’s playing toys. Metaphorically, colonialism began to surface. Chris has had
78 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo a motorbike toy and Masoud a car toy. They got attracted to each other’s toy-lifestyle, they smiled at each other, showing the urge to talk, play and attempting to befriending-signing of bogus treaties. Thereafter, colonialism triumphs and changed the civic winds. In the beginning, everyone felt the terms of exchange were equal and fair. But it was the beginning of cultural emotional epistemic death (Santos, 2016). The boys were happy to share their toys. But Chris who was a bit older wanted to possess both toys; his and that of Masoud. Masoud would let it go but wanted his toy back. Thanks to the mothers, they were ‘at the market’ regulating the exchange. As for Tanzania5as a nation, there were uncontacted chiefdoms which found themselves under one colonial ruler. Only a few chiefs were engaged in the exchange without knowing what the exchange will produce (Nyerere, 1960). At the time, Arab traders were having influence under the sultan of Zanzibar. The madrasa was a formal school with the Arabic language being the medium of instruction (Mushi, 2009). The Arabs practiced the slave trade albeit did not impose a total colonial occupation which was a favor to indigenous Tanganyikans’. Afterward, the country was fully colonized by Germany and later by Britain. Consequently, the new whole problem was posed. What was to be regarded as legitimate formal education? What was to be considered the formal language on top of indigenous languages—the Arabic language (which was used widely on official matters), German or English? What were to be socio-cultural acceptable values? At these historical shifts, a number of social and cultural ‘accidents’ had occurred. Indigenous social and cultural values were getting weakened, ‘destroyed’, ‘contaminated’, close to obliteration. The family system was faulted and starting to crack. Mothering was becoming tense, mediating between the old and the new imported values. The bond was finally made. Modernism at work. This was the most fascinating stage where I could place it in the emergence of the hard spaces of newly shaped GCE in the Tanzania context. At this stage, each of the boys was struggling to impress one another by talking their ‘worlds’. I remember my son telling Chris about his new friend, Thabit, whom he met when he visited his grandparents, and Chris talking about the new bicycle at his home. Despite the fact that they did not know each other, they were happily telling their stories and bursting with laughter, which paradoxically, expressed how they understood each other extremely deep. This was an exact description of what emerged from our conversation with the interviewee about GCE. Most of them seemed not to understand the GCE concept but at the same time they were fully engaged in conversation and explained it in their own way, after being given clues of what GCE entails. At this stage, we observed the introduction of globalization and its related concepts. There were family institution changes declaring freedom to children though there are a number of scholars who oppose the idea. For instance, the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 79 said that there was no such thing as a baby on its own, but always in relation to its mother. Family networks out of the clan and tribal connections are evident, new family friends instead of an ancestral fraternity (Aitken, 1999; Oni &Segun, 2014; Olutayo & Omobowale, 2006). At the community and nations interaction, things were even tense; there were no social and cultural regulating bodies established, which made and still makes it easy for the external values to have free flow, hence threatening local and national ideology and culture. This led to a whole new problem of current efforts of trying to cast a national culture or ideology, something that all contributors were sadly pointing out, lacking national habitus. The Elders’ Mistrust: The Speed Is Frightening Postmodernism in play. As the friendship grew between the boys, they started feeling their seat-belts was denying them the breadth of their fun moment talking personal world to each other and play. Chris unlocked his belt and my son asked for permission to do the same. Chris’s mother and I started to be worried about the ‘freedom’ the boys wanted. This is what most of the participants expressed. The fear of the younger generation to embrace dust with clean air as the globalization interconnectedness opens the window for ‘free-flying’ through the digital world (Olutayo &Omobowale, 2006; Chirozva, Mubaya &Mukamuri, nd). We mothers felt happy to see our sons playing but worried about the danger they may encounter in the process. Mothers’ priority was to keep their children safe (Ruddick, 1995; Lapayese, 2012). The fear we had was emotional as well as rational. Trying to stop the boys playing was the reaction of our fear, something which is awkward in the ‘modern family’ (Chirozva et al., nd; Oni &Segun, 2014; Olutayo &Omobowale, 2006). Knowing the danger of playing in a bus which is traveling at 80km/h and still letting them play anyway is what we call a ‘free world’. The same game was much safer to be played on the ‘ground’ where safety regulations apply. The implementation of GCE in Tanzania is greatly impeded by a high-speed bus—digital media—and less by safe ground—school. From the conversations we had with the respondents, it was revealed that youths and children learn about civic education more on their own, which is both an advantage and a grave danger. We describe this situation with an analogy of moth and fire as Agamben put it: “Inasmuch as the moth is burned by the flame which attracts it, the flame remains obstinately unknown to the moth until the end. The moth’s blindness to the flame is precisely a manifestation of the non-openness of the flame to the moth, yet the moth remains captivated by it” (Agamben, 2002, p. 60). Paradoxically, we blame the western infiltrations in our family, social and cultural systems but we firmly embrace almost everything that comes with it (Oni &Segun, 2014). Some of our respondents pointed out clearly that uzungu—whiteness—hood has destroyed us and as per the strength of the
80 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo time winds we cannot get rid of it since we actually feel good about it. Contradictorily, we want to get rid of our old local values but we keep singing of how ideal our past was and thus we cannot let it go. We enjoy the ‘liberation’ but still rejoice in the old (Olutayo &Omobowale, 2006; Santos, 2016). Now, to place the same image on GCE trends, one of the respondents opined that: I am not comfortable with issues such as homosexuality, but the rest of the themes are just fine and some of them are what our ancestors lived by. But since our generation has chosen to be wazungu [the whites], how can we choose what to import from GCE and what not. After all, do we have a choice? Do we have the gut and power to say no? Here the respondent tells the recent scenario of the stoppage of aid to Tanzania by western countries as a result of the Dar es Salaam regional commissioner’s statement on the ban and hunts for gays in the region.
Mesosystem Cracks: The Hard Spaces Emanate From the Exosystem At this point, we will have a glance at what a mesosystem entails in relation to the alteration of GCE and shaping of individual identity at social institution levels and schools in particular. We look at the spaces forged by politics of emotions in the system interactions and by the environment (Shelton, 2019). Issues such as the market place of GCE and schoolrelated issues bring to the surface the emotions on the implementation of civic education at the school level. The language of instruction, multiple textbooks, the easiest subject of all, the nature of the students, constant latforms—these changing of the subject matter and influence of digital p are the subthemes as they emerged from the data. Schools: Expected Safe Grounds The focus on global citizenship in education is understandable as schools are one place that we as a society have control in shaping students for desired outcomes, but also because research shows that education is the best predictor of viewing the self as a citizen of the world (Smith et al., 2017). Schools are the primary place to impart GCE competence through civic education as a subject (Waldschmitt, 2010). However, it has been observed that some GCE themes are found in other subjects such as geography. Schools are expected to impart life skills in a more structured and regulated manner. The same principles, ‘structuredness’ and ‘regulatoriness’, seem not to be functioning properly in Tanzania schools and hence trickle its effects in a scattered way and pose
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 81 hard spaces in the implementation of GCE. When engaging in discussion with our respondents in a focus group discussion, two perspectives emerged. First, schools have no authority to determine or contextualize the content as per the locality since it will lead to their students’ failure in national exams. Failure to contextualize the content has limited critical pedagogy especially generative themes (Freire, 1970) that foster solid and powerful understanding (hooks, 1994). Second, the regulatory bodies are overly regulating the dictated content, not to take any political or social (local) stance, to embrace internationalization without filtrations. The two phenomena are well explained if we invite the cause of structuredness and regulatoriness—the politics and effects of colonialism and globalization (Mikander, 2016; Broom, 2017). These instruments led to unequal exchanges between and among cultures whereby impliedly leads to the death of the knowledge of the subordinated culture (Mikander, 2016; Santos, 2016). One of the respondents in the group expressed the inability of schools to generate knowledge which reflects the local working culture in conjunction with that in the curriculum as the biggest challenge in the teaching and long-term outcomes of GCE. This respondent was both rational and emotionally uncomfortable with practice. She was feeling being a subject of a poor exosystem and therefore expressed her thoughts with anger. This is both hard space and conditions for local knowledge genocide (Santos, 2016). Schools: Multiple textbooks. This was also the resentment the focus group shared out of disapproval. One had this to say to succinctly air his ideas: “Too many whistles lead a dog afield”. The group agreed on one thing that civic education books could be better off if published by one appointed publisher to avoid discrepancies which are evident currently (Waldschmitt, 2010). For, instance, I—the first author—asked my daughter, Kauthar (13years of age)—form two secondary school student—to bring home the particulars of the textbooks used in her school—one of the old and giant public schools in Tanzania; astonishingly, the Civics teacher couldn’t tell which one is in use. The teacher claimed to use multiple books since each book has something to complement to what’s missing in the other. In searching for a solution to assist my daughter, practicing my mothering role, I had to consult adult learners who plan to sit for the same exam as my daughter, hoping that their maturity could’ve led them to the best book choice. Unfortunately, things were much better for my daughter—who at least gets compiled notes, within which the mixture of thoughts in terms of definition was posing difficulties to master the content. The institute responsible for developing curriculum materials leaves the door open for entrepreneurs to grab the opportunity. The focus group agreed on a proposition they put forward that education is for sale. Outrageously, they lamented about the practice indicating fear for the future adults. They were of the view that the situation poses a bigger threat as it gives room for the imposition of foreign
82 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo value systems and perpetuation of personal political views in students’ textbooks. At this point, one of the participants gave an example of the topic of the family taught in Civics in Form One on the types of families as the nuclear family, extended family, single-parent family, couple family and family by choice (LGBT family). This was the case printed in one of the Civics books and since it was an issue of social concern, it ended up trending on social media. The whole group was disgusted with the portrayal of LGBT as a type of family in Tanzanian ‘culture’. But again, the writer of the said textbook was privileged with the chance to write what seems right to him by the open-door policy to publishers which is actually a result of liberalism and free market ideology. The situation gives an indication that textbooks do not portray the current globalization as a politically implicated phenomenon but as more of a force of nature than as the result of a political process (Mikander, 2016). The politics surrounding the publication of textbooks, in our case civic education textbooks and guidelines, create “hard spaces” that affect social acceptance (emotions) leading to stakeholders’ feeling that the contents are not reflecting the real socio-cultural contexts. Schools: Civics is taken as the easiest subject of all. “I wanted to teach Civics so as I can have time to be with my infant and run my shop”. This was the statement of a new mother who is a geography teacher in one of the secondary schools in Dodoma. To her and the other two respondents, Civics is a subject that doesn’t consume time and energy to teach. Impliedly they indicated that Civics isn’t a subject to be taken that seriously, it is much of storytelling. When we invited them to think of the national values embedded in Civics, and the role of the subject in inculcating values such as unity, respect for others, fostering human rights, patriotism and the like, they confidently but sorrowfully expressed their worries. They boldly stated that “there is no such thing, students don’t want to listen to that song—patriotism. They just want to pass their exams and we teachers are there to help students achieve their goal”. This led us to the next subtheme which in its own right posits hard spaces when inserted in the GCE equation. Schools: The nature of the students. Sadly, at this juncture all respondents from surveys, focus group discussion, interviews were desperately illuminating the question of moral decay, hungry for western culture and values as a result of globalization (Oni &Segun, 2014) (Mikander, 2016; Reysen &Katzarska-Miller, 2018). It was found that moral decay is inhibiting the teaching process. The point raised here is that teachers and students seem to stand at different sides of the river. Given the felt distance between teachers and students: teachers seem to be of old ways and students far too modern; it becomes even more difficult in teaching values and opinionated subjects such as Civics because teachers do not closely connect with their students. One of the teachers named her students as “a generation with no feelings of patriotism or national identity” which
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 83 in her own words leads to ‘difficulty to teach’. This suggests moral and professional distance whereas emotions are moral phenomena as well. Theorizing this reality, the emotional distance affects the delivery of GCE competencies smoothly in an accustomed manner to acculturate students. As a result, dry and rigid contents are provided for a student to memorize for exams. The teachers are, however, painted to lack a sense of parenthood and appropriate emotional pedagogy that could amend the situation (Wainwright & Marandet, 2011). Critical pedagogy and/or Engaged pedagogy (Freire, 1970; hooks, 1994) is also affected by the teacher’s heavy workload and class sizes they teach. Pondering this problem, teachers blame parents and family system and technology— especially social and television media. We invite you to think again on a metaphor of a ‘moth’ (Waghid & Davids, 2018). Schools: Fear of the exosystem: Fear to be radical in challenging the authority’s faults in the provision of civic education were evident in schools. Sir Alex (pseudonym) expressed himself as a critical teacher in the sense that he doesn’t just deliver the content but also contextualizes it as per history of oppression both by colonial masters and local political leaders. His criticality triggered authoritative bodies, didn’t mention any, to question and place him under scrutiny. He actually tried to explain the kind of protective hats and gloves he has to wear when he feels danger. Sir Alex wasn’t talking with direct reference to GCE themes alone but the whole Civics contents, particularly those related to the functioning of government organs. Speaking of the times, the current political situation is even tenser and more worrisome following the trends of what has befallen those who ignored the role of protective ‘hats’ and ‘gloves’. Boaventura de Sousa Santos described this phenomenon well by saying “those who act radically seem to be silent. Either they have nothing intelligible to say, or if they were to speak, nobody would understand them outside their circle of action, or they might even be thrown in jail or killed” (Santos, 2016, “Manifesto for Intellectual-Activists”, para 3). Schools: Quest for mutual intelligibility. The language of instruction and CE in secondary schools and universities is the English language (Waldschmitt, 2010). It is the language that paradoxically is used in formal settings but not found on social contexts —the streets and homes. This illustrates the failure of expression in local schooling (Mushi, 2009). Unfortunately, mutual intelligibility in a formal civic education delivery is still a question. Imagine thinking of your identity, something very abstract, known to yourself and realized from different perspectives by others, and discovering that, with all your linguistic ability, you possess a limited vocabulary ( Jourdan &Tuite, 2006). Now you are, by obligation and for the purposes of engaging your students emotionally, required to transfer knowledge. Not just any knowledge, but civic education, which by default needs emotional attachments, affecting your students practically.
84 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo GCE domains of knowledge and learning objectives as depicted by the UNESCO framework entail cognitive domains which include among other things, critical thinking; social economic domain (identity and diversity); and behavioral domain (having ethically responsible behavior) (UNESCO, 2017). One of our respondents, with 20 years of experience in teaching Civics, expressed what he actually termed as ‘impossible to achieve’ GCE’s objective, especially on creating an ideal Tanzania citizen before even going global. His worrisome proposition was, at his time in service, Civics content has been changing rapidly, something to expect given the nature of the subject. But the problem has always been the language that comes along with newly added content—obfuscating. Consequently, the obscuring language tends to cause teachers to question their understanding, something which results in insipidity of the content to be delivered to students. The following vignette depicts teachers’ emotions with regard to changing syllabi: Just last year, new concepts were added in the subject content, but no seminar was provided to orient teachers on the same. The issuer [curriculum developer] assuming it’s just a matter of understanding what has been written, unfortunately, you come across somehow unfamiliar words—words which you can’t quite put into context . . . and I am expected to deliver that content with maximum effects. How is that possible? I am not sure of what I teach in terms of quality—how well and quantity—how deep. Worse enough my students have access to information and knowledge on diverse media which is not regulated. I imagine the outcome would be difficult to define a hybrid citizen. I am a person with a very questioning and doubting mind. I don’t just teach what I see in the syllabus, I normally teach what I believe to be true even if it is unpleasant to authorities (Field Interview, 2018). Issues raised here are both unemotional and emotional. Unemotional in the sense that, what the respondent is trying to explain is in a fashion of input equals output, then, there is nothing emotional. The expected output is obvious based on the input. On the other hand, the issues that emerged awaken an emotional stance from the point that the teacher is worried, confused and left to decide on ‘what’ he, at best, can deliver in class. He didn’t trust himself either. He isn’t sure whether his understanding of what he has to teach is correct and if the context he attached to the concepts to be taught will lead to certain particular understanding. Additionally, as (Hargreaves, 2001) put it, emotions enter all teaching by design and by default. We do ask what kind and shape of emotional connection will be established in contexts such as this? We regard this as mistrust and fear. Emotions in the form of fear are transferrable. It is obvious when the teacher develops mistrust and fear on dissemination
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 85 of global citizenship competencies, certainly the GCE prospects are crippled, henceforth, creating hard spaces.
Exosystem National Ideology and Culture: Utanzania6 Just as the civic education program was during the Ujamaa na Kujitegemea (the socialism and self-reliance) era, the respondents in a group discussion expressed the need for the government and other GCE stakeholders to educate Tanzanians on how to live peacefully and cope with the new social life under the liberalization era (Mushi, 2009) (Culver &Kerr, 2014) (Mikander, 2016). The focus group members were critically trying to pinpoint what can be regarded as national ideology and ended up questioning each other if national ideology and culture is known, if at all it exists, to the general population. The argument here is nevertheless historical, for it focused on speculating the rapid erosion of tribal identity, which was strategically planned and executed soon after independence, and we have no doubt, it was for the greater good of achieving national unification—Utanzania. Regrettably, there were no standards set to define the finest level of such unification. At the same time, the winds of globalization and global interconnectedness features started to blow fiercely (Culver &Kerr, 2014). There was no time to rethink as the Tanzanian culture knocked at national leaders’ mind soon after independence. Nonetheless, before even thinking of proper accommodation of what is referred to as Tanzanian culture and what does it entail differently from the local and regional, the global culture in myriad formats was pushed into practice, by the same people. What is evident is overlapping circles of cultural spaces in the social arena from family to national values. Something that we deem posits hard spaces on the existence of GCE. Educators, let alone lay citizens, do not understand how to characterize national culture and values and distinguish them from African as well as the global ones. Almost all respondents noted with concerns these overlapping circles in different ways. This reality presents emotional images of uncertainty about the future of the nation’s citizens, especially educators, creating hard spaces for the inevitable prevalence of global citizenship values that seem to render all cultural circles permeable. No single respondent could define Utanzania. They all ended up pointing to cultural artifacts—‘objects’—symbolizing the nation (Ahmed, 2004; Elderman, 1985). Utanzania is a hybrid term which is hardly homogeneous. From the narratives of respondents, in the process of collecting information about their perception of Utanzania, it was clear that things have changed. In the old days of Nyerere, Utanzania meant a national uniform identity through language—Swahili—and culture (Waldschmitt, 2010). The
86 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo former is still evident and powerful whilst the latter has been spontaneously eroded by the winds of globalization.
The Role of Technology and Media The respondents put it very clearly that youths rely on digital information and the facsimile, individually, what suits one’s perception, and the way one needs to be seen in most cases as ‘modern’. This is done mainly by the exposure through digital connections—social media (Culver &Kerr, 2014). Digital communications have become new tools for cultural expression as they enable citizens to participate more to shape new forms of cultural ties, what Jenkins (2006) calls participatory culture. Digital communication has become a giant tool for epistemicide of the local culture (Mikander, 2016). This has not been, and will not be, an accident, rather it is concerted efforts towards postmodernism. This, as a result of emotional consciousness, proffers a new unique space which, as per the current policy of cultivating GCE themes, pushes forward a threat—death of local mutual values and culture.
Constant Changes in CE Curricula Civic education, Siasa-political education, Uraia-citizenry/ship, Maarifa ya jamii-social studies and more recently Uraia na Maadili-citizenship and morals are names of CE subjects in secondary and primary schools since independence. The latest version of the CE subject, GCE competencies, are clearly captured, however, textbooks are yet to be published (United Republic of Tanzania, 2016). In the post-ujamaa liberal period, political education (siasa) in schools was renamed Civics and CE was left almost entirely in the hands of uncoordinated non-state actors (United Republic of Tanzania, 2011). This situation creates hard spaces particularly on evaluation and monitoring of the subject content. Recently, the curriculum changed as the new political regime assumed the office. More sadly the changes are effected in an emergency manner without a thorough and careful process to harness stakeholders’ views.
Religious Leaders: GCE and the Peace Mission Global citizenship education preaches among other themes, cultural (and religious) tolerance. In Tanzania, there has been a history of a tense relationship between the two major religions, Islam and Christianity. One of the respondents recalled the religious intolerance which happened in the 1990s to early 2000s. He cited the incidents of fighting over who is having the right to animal slaughtering at Buseresere center and that of demolishing pork butcheries in the Kinondoni area in Dar es Salaam in 1993. Another critical incident was that of a Christian boy
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 87 urinating on the Qur’an in the Mbagala area in Dar es Salaam which enraged Muslims to the point of burning churches and destroying other properties. More recently, Muslim workers were transferred from the University of Dodoma to other government bodies; the incident was linked with Muslims at the University of Dodoma trying to build a mosque in the university area, which has been explained as “they didn’t follow the procedure” by the university council chair7. The image portrayed by the incident posed tensions between university workers who are 94% Christian and 6% Muslim8. The Islam–Christianity binary is, in Tanzania’s context, inevitable since other religions are existing with no friction and indigenous religions are almost extinct. The religious leaders who participated in our study insisted on the development of good feelings such as love and empathy in public life (Ahmed, 2004) (Hoggett &Thompson, 2012). The forsaken role of family and abiding by religious teaching which propagates positive feelings (Hoggett &Thompson, 2012) was deemed important. One of the Imams conveyed his advocacy for peace by saying good feelings play an important role in peacebuilding. On the other hand, a priest from the Catholic Church emphasized that children should be taught to love and respect each other, and avoid using offensive language. He opined that Muslims should stop using the word kaffir9 to describe Christians because it is insulting and anger-provoking, and Christians should stop associating Muslims with terrorism because the association is distasteful and embittering to Muslims as well. Living harmoniously despite religious differences needs to feature greatly in the teachings of CE. The religious leaders were of the opinion that CE should instill in peoples’ mind that people from different religions can engage in common activities that promote unity, social cohesion and cooperation among them. CE content should be designed to teach children/youth to focus on their commonalities rather than on their religious differences and that religious differences should be drawn in civic education as an opportunity to exercise love, patience and understanding, therefore, fostering peace.
Conclusion and Recommendations In this chapter, we have walked through secular and religious walls in an attempt to analyze the intersectionalities between politics of emotions and GCE. Our intention was to analyze emotional spaces as hard spaces in the implementation of GCE in Tanzania. Through passé-muraille, we have found that politics of emotions are vital in determining the success in developing global citizenry. Apart from emotional spaces, there are other hard spaces rendering challenges in the implementation of the GCE agenda such as historical, social and cultural accidents that weaken the family institution—microsystem; social and cultural values,
88 Sabrina Eliya Msangi and Joel Jonathan Kayombo the weakness in schools—mesosystem. Lacking a national culture and ideology to lead a nation to best practice in the provision of GCE, Tanzania suffers from the forces of globalization and liberal winds, in other words, the Global North’s gravitation pull in wiping out and defying the southerner’s emotional habitus. To facilitate the development of global citizenry in the country, we are proposing a model for effective implementation of GCE themes. The model for accommodating GCE in Tanzania is divided into three levels: family, school and national levels as summarized in Figure 4.1. Each level in the model complements one another in the whole process of developing global citizens. We explicitly explain these three levels hereunder. Family—the base for love for humanity. Using maternal thinking and power to influence their kids on positive feelings such as love, empathy, for humanity, parents have power in the first place before schools to inculcate good citizenry. If the exosystem will invest and appeal to mothers, the future generation will be easier to predict and control. The GCE values should be developed at home before being taught in schools. The maternal power should be used to foster positive emotions as they shape the structure and texture of society at its various levels, from the family group, through to organizations and beyond to the nation. A normative maternal discourse still prescribes mothers as the main carers of (and teachers to) their children (Wainwright &Marandet, 2011). With mothers’ identities as carers of, and teachers to, their own children, school and community participants, lifelong learners and with possible future careers, and, a citizen or resident, they can shape future citizens in terms
Figure 4.1 A Model for Accommodating GCE in Tanzania
Politics of Emotions in Tanzania 89 of aspirations and belonging. This will, of course, be possible at the reciprocated interaction within the ecological systems. Schools—emotional pedagogy space for global citizenship competencies. Schools are places for personal, intellectual and interpersonal growth whereby teachers are urged to embrace emotionally engaged pedagogy that allows the emergence of generative themes that bear and alter the paint of socio-cultural emotions that will later form a national culture. At the mesosystem—in school and community—is where an individual gets to interact with people of different backgrounds and associations. GCE themes are to be practiced at spaces found here. Citizens and community ought to be living the family and school teachings. Moreover, the wall between family (home) and school should be, by practice, demolished to allow the passage for mutuality of emotions and values that nurture an ideal citizen concomitant to GCE themes. National level—government responding to local needs by acculturating GCE themes. What attitude does the government take to social anxieties? Does it face them proactively or reactively? Does it even recognize the emotional ground upon which it is working? If the government cannot contain social anxieties, then it will project negative feelings. Projection occurs where a government colludes with powerful anxieties by focusing them upon a particular target group which becomes construed as a social problem (Hoggett &Thompson, 2012). To achieve emotional habitus (Gould, 2009), a nation should strive to create the macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1994). The system, according to Bronfenbrenner, consists of an overarching pattern of micro-, meso-, and exosystems characteristics of a given culture or subculture, with particular reference to the belief systems, bodies of knowledge, material resources, customs, life-styles, opportunity structures, hazards, and life course options that are embedded in each of these broader systems. The macrosystem may be thought of as a societal blueprint for a particular culture or subculture. (Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p. 1645) This can be attained by introducing what Shelton (2019) terms develecological advocacy, whereas civic education is a dimension of secular education (schools); decisions and policy making should understand and include the interests or well-being of the citizen in social-cultural perspectives from family, community and at the national level. Simply put, to prepare the local secular curricular for GCE, the government (exosystem) should penetrate the number of walls in the ecological system to incorporate people’s interest and/or emotions from the lowest level of society to its zenith so as to facilitate emotional engagement in classrooms and informally, since emotions enter all teaching by design and by default.
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Notes 1. Tanganyika African National Union—a political party, transformed in 1954 from a non-political party (Tanganyika African Association-TAA), which struggled for and led to independence of Tanganyika—nowadays Tanzania. 2. In here understood as ideal local and indigenous culture and values before colonialism which suffered erosion—epistemicide. 3. It should be noted that countries and continents differed in the realization of these stages. For instance, the time for a renaissance in Europe was a colonial consequence in Africa. Therefore, these stages are meant to explain the developmental trend in Africa, not the rest of the world. 4. Ujamaa—socialism, ujamaa village, education theory—Education for Self- Reliance (ESR), etc. 5. Then Tanganyika. 6. Being Tanzanian or Tanzanian identity. 7. The reference is being made based on the 60th UDOM Council meeting held on 16 January 2019 in Dodoma. The video of University Council Chairperson was retrieved from http://youtu.be/xD1G_tfWfYU at 15:50 the following day. 8. According to former University of Dodoma Vice-Chancellor’s (Idris Kikula) speech when addressing the question of Muslimsbeing favored since VC, DVCPFA, Director HRM and Procurement were Muslims by names, something which seem unnatural following leadership trends in other public universities, where top positions have been held by Christians since their establishment. 9. Kaffir, an Arabic word which refers to a non-believer to Islamic monotheism.
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5 Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship The Challenges of Identity Construction in the Age of Global Media Capitalism Yoomi Chin Introduction One of my roles as co-founder and chief marketing officer of an educational software company is guiding, educating, and mentoring college interns who wish to pursue their future careers in entrepreneurship, marketing, and corporate communications. Interns hired by the company actively participate in building effective marketing and branding strategy plans, which require composing compelling and persuasive narratives. In the process of brainstorming, planning, and creating these narratives, one of the preliminary activities they are asked to do is creating a customer avatar, also known as a buyer persona, and finding the appropriate figures and images for the landing page of the company’s website. Most of the times, the avatars and figures they choose to include on the landing page lack racial diversity. The types of human images they prefer to use are Caucasians, whom they see on most of the websites they frequently visit, from ride-share platforms such as Uber and Lyft to payment platforms such as PayPal and Zelle. Today, much of the perception of race and gender and sense of belonging are continuously generated and received online. Thanks to the advancement of technology, the concept of identity has become more versatile, volatile, and relative in our constantly evolving world where ideologies, concepts, and values incessantly metamorphose. Not only has constructing as well as defining one’s identity become more multifarious and multilayered, thereby more onerous, but also, more labyrinthine as the result of globalization. One of the tools that today’s young generations heavily rely on in the process of their identity construction and establishment is the media, an educational site where “identities are being continually transformed, power is enacted, and learning assumes a political dynamic as it becomes not only the condition for the acquisition of agency but also the sphere for imagining oppositional social change” (Giroux, 2009, p. 89).
94 Yoomi Chin For decades, media have played a critical role in shaping an individual’s identity and sense of belongingness. With the advancement of technology, which facilitates the dissemination of ideas, individuals’ heavy reliance on the cultural contents produced by the media has raised concerns and doubts of educators. What educators started to notice was that media constantly generated various forms of representations, often including gender, race, and class, in standardized ways with uniform approaches. Such unilateral method, aggressively and relentlessly executed by profitdriven media corporates, also known as producers of media culture behind the camera, has ingrained inaccurate, unjustified, and misleading representations, which serve as identity markers. Today, media, led by such single-minded corporates of Hollywood hegemony, manufacture misleading and oppressive ideologies and dictate what is right or wrong, good or bad, accepted or not accepted, and normal or abnormal. This chapter looks at the challenges of defining and measuring one’s citizenship as a result of an unstable and peripheral identity establishment and construction, which is heavily shaped as well as misshaped by American mass media’s misrepresentations of the “others.” Such phenomenon calls for the revisit and reinterpretation of the theory of Orientalism and its recent emergence into Neo-Orientalism. A meticulous as well as conscientious scrutiny of the global phenomenon of global identity challenge is of the utmost importance to build a more democratic foundation for global citizenship education.
Constructing Identity and Defining Citizenship With the ongoing blurring of economic boundaries and the expanding deterritorialization of cultural terrains, the world we are living in today is interminably transforming. Lately, the indispensability of media technology and the omnipresence of globalization, combined, have taken the process of defining and constructing of one’s identity to another level. The definition of identities used to be fixed and anchored, especially before the rise of the Information Age. One’s nationality, which was often interchangeable with and considered synonymous to citizenship, for instance, served as an absolute identity marker. An individual’s nationality and citizenship was once easily dictated by one’s jus soli or jus sanguines. However, the definition of citizenship can no longer be solely determined by a legal system. Just because one holds an American passport, we cannot conclude that he is an American citizen. This individual may identify himself otherwise; perhaps, he grew up in Indonesia, and while he spent his adolescence there, he might have gone to a British school whose curriculum implemented the European International Baccalaureate program and not the American Advanced Placement program. He then becomes the citizen of three distinctive countries and continents. Today, the versatility of one’s identity makes himself or
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 95 herself unique, complex, and sophisticated. Not only has constructing and defining one’s identity become versatile, but also, it has become volatile as a result of today’s fast-paced technology-driven environment. The use of new technologies is a major factor in enabling young people to recreate their own identities (France, 2007). As Miles (2000) concludes, young people’s construction of their lifestyles is as adaptable and flexible as the world around them. They adapt and recreate their own image by relying on cultural and geographical influences. Furthermore, the advancement of technology and fast-paced globalization, combined, have made one’s identity establishment more relative. Some identities may appear to be absolute. An individual’s height recorded on medical documents, for instance, may serve as an absolute identity marker; yet, when it comes to defining and identifying oneself, one may use comparative or superlative forms of the words “short” and “tall” to either assimilate oneself in a specific setting or distinguish oneself from the rest of the population, often referring to this group as “the other.” One’s identity is not only liked to biological and cultural heritage, but also to the social and economic milieu, where one’s social identity is cultivated. In this social environment, where technology and media serve as predominant forces of influence, the number of identity-defining factors and the spectrum of identity traits that one continuously observes and makes references to are soaring. Before the rise of the Information Age, our world was less dimensional and more fragmented, giving its citizens fewer options to explore and juggle. However, the rise of technology and mass media offers one a wider range of options to observe and consume. Stuart Hall, in his study on feminism, proposes that one’s identity does not start with who she is or where she comes from, but how she has been represented and how that bears on how she might represent herself. In response to Hall, Radner (2011) comments that “identity” in the form of a “self” or “selves” is a “necessary heuristic device” for the subject, who must fashion a “self” in order to “perceive, understand, and act” (p. 7). These cultural theorists’ understanding of gender identity and representation is not limited to the discourse on gender; the perception of one’s identity as a relative and comparative process also can be related to any individual’s effort to define and construct his or her identity. One’s identity, after all, is constructed by his or her exposure to the common representations that the society reiterates and reinforces. Today, in our age of globalization and cultural deterriorialization, every conceptualization of identity is making multidirectional and multifaceted shifts politically, socially, culturally, psychologically, anthropologically, and even biologically. Hence, globalizations “[disregards] state borders in the endless pursuit of capital, [obliterates] local cultures and [brings] about more general social and economic upheaval” (Nayak, 2003, p. 28). And such dynamic shifts are making one’s construction of citizenship more intertwined.
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Global Neoliberal Media Culture and Capitalism Over the last several decades, globalization has triggered the homogenization of global culture and reversed its original purpose, inviting cultural imperialism and promoting disproportionate global wealth and power, thereby deepening inequalities across political, economic, and cultural sectors. What has facilitated and expedited the spread of the Western hegemonic culture is the media, one of the most effective tools that disseminates ideologies, norms, messages, and even fantasies across the borders. It is the various genres of media through which individuals and collective groups construct their views of the world. Media culture provides “materials out of which individuals in contemporary media and consumer societies forge their very identities, including sense of self, notion of what it means to be male or female, and how people experience class, ethnicity and race, sexuality, age, nationality, and other markers of identity” (Kellner, 2009, p. 5). While the advancement of technology, along with social media, has generated the diaspora of cultural burgeoning and diversity, the mainstream culture of our global community continues to be defined and framed by the predominance of Westernization. Understanding the insurmountable power of media’s ability to transform the minds of their viewers, global conglomerates use the corporate media as a tool to incorporate and promote their marketable messages to their global customers and drive the consumer culture. The problem here is not just about the consumer-driven and capitalistic messages; rather, the controversy is that these messages are represented solely by financiers who prioritize monetary profits and no one else is on board to be part of the decision-making process. What this means is that the messages these corporations are constantly transmitting to their audience are uniform and unilateral; this gradually elevates the audience’s desire to consume the media capitalists’ ideas and values, which are commodified, packaged, and marketed in the most simplistic form of purchase. Moreover, media capitalism triggers the crisis of identity construction on a global level. The surge of Western neoliberal capitalistic values that are transmitted through the American mass media set the definitions and standards of the global community. As a result, the world is facing a clash of multiple cultures and values as global neoliberal media capitalism continuously perpetuates the homogenous interests of the corporates. More often than not, the term “globalization” is oversimplified and overgeneralized as it is predominantly viewed from an economic perspective. It is an inevitable truth that the spread of globalization was triggered by the economic expansion. However, one of the aspects that is often undermined in the public discourse is the spreading homogeneity
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 97 of the global culture. While it is true that globalization has brought benefits and positive outcomes in multilateral ways, it has also widened the gap between the more privileged and the less privileged, thus creating more inequalities and failing to bring about social justice. Subsequently, media capitalism has triggered the crisis of identity construction on a global level. The surge of Western neoliberal capitalistic values that are transmitted through the American mass media, specifically Hollywood movies, set the definitions and standards of the global community. It is critical to acknowledge the significance of Hollywood movies in our age of globalization as it is not too much to claim that Hollywood has long been an influential agent that defines the global culture and sets cultural standardizations and expectations. As Tom Brook (2013) writes in his article, “How the Global Box Office Is Changing Hollywood,” Hollywood is “like an octopus with tentacles extending across the globe.” As a result, the term “global cinema” would be a misnomer; what we identify as global cinema is the American Hollywood cinema. As a result, the world is facing a clash of multiple cultures and values as global neoliberal media capitalism continuously perpetuates the homogenous interests of the corporates. The media, as they became easily accessible and globally ubiquitous, have effortlessly emerged as the main tool of communication and key message transmitter of neoliberal capitalistic corporations of the twentyfirst century, determining and positioning the fate of our global democracy and citizenship. The concept of democracy is linked to the notion of social justice, which can be initially implemented and achieved when a society creates and maintains institutions that view education as a public asset and not merely as a private good. The requirements of democratic citizenship “necessitate vigilance in public affairs, criticism of public officials and corporate interests, and participation in political decision making in the interest of expanding accountability, equality of opportunity, justice, and the public good” (Giroux & Pollock, 2010, p. 20). Thus, it becomes the public’s critical responsibility to diagnose and analyze how the hegemony of Eurocentric ideologies, predominantly American values, is triggering identity crises in non-Western peripheral societies.
Imagined Global Community Media construct and reimagine cultures by framing the public’s perceptions as well as misperceptions. As Giroux (2009) explains, culture, which has strong ties to media, is a social field where a circuit of power, ideologies, and values are produced and circulated, identities are constructed, agency is manifested, and discourses are created. The power of media culture and its influence on both national and global communities cannot be underestimated. Media culture, in the forms of images, sounds, and spectacles, produces the fabric of everyday
98 Yoomi Chin life, “dominating leisure time, shaping political views and social behavior, and providing the materials out of which people forge their very identities” (Kellner, 2003, p. 1). In the process of reading and analyzing the media, one needs to understand that media don’t simply serve as entertainment, educational, or informational sources. Media also function as economic and political tools. For decades, Hollywood has repeatedly reflected misleading images and ideas on various racial, cultural, sexual, religious, and socio-economic groups. Consequently, marginalized and less privileged groups have become more marginalized, while the elite groups have gained more power, further widening the gap of inequalities. Such traits of hegemony are not only prevailing on a domestic scale, but also, on a global scale, giving more power and privileges to more developed countries and promoting a homogenous culture instead of creating heterogeneous global communities. When people interact with others from different cultures, they develop their own views of the world; however, when they are given only one cultural image, the American way of life for instance, there is no space for the hybridity and diversity of world views, but only a singlehanded, standardized view of the world, which casts a shadow over one’s identity formation. Benedict Anderson (1991) defines the nation as an “imagined political community,” claiming that “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (p. 6). Borrowing Anderson’s term, the American mass media, especially Hollywood movies, create imagined communities on a global level, presenting the audience with the recurring homogenous images of their communities and networks they belong to. “Americanization,” the term scholars refer to in the discourse of media hegemony, has been criticized for being the “new political hegemon in the Western world [restructuring] markets and patterns of trade through the Marshall Plan, which guaranteed access to the European markets for American products” (Kroes, 1999, p. 465). The opening of the European markets gave America an access to export its cultural artifacts, principally Hollywood movies, and this economic imperialism gradually metamorphosed into, or extended to, cultural imperialism. Furthermore, “as carriers of an American version of the ‘good life,’ American products, from cars to movies, from clothing styles to kitchen apparel, all actively doubled as agents of American cultural diplomacy, translating trade into political imperialism” (Kroes, 1999, p. 465). Hollywood movies have glamorized the “American way of life” (Kellner, 2003, p. 333), shaped the global citizens’ feelings and minds through their standardized imagined community that is divided into two kinds of worlds: the Global North and the Global South. The former is often
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 99 portrayed as the mainstream society, comprising predominantly uppermiddle class white elitists, while the latter is considered the “other,” marginalized from the rest half of the society. Globally, immigrants, the population that often is categorized as the “other,” do not receive adequate or fair media coverage (Lee, 2013). Migrants receive the spotlight of global media only during moments of crises, such as protests or riots (Duprez, 2009). Other than these intense, chaotic occasions, migrants are “hidden in the back alley of globalization” (Lee, 2013). The bifurcation of the Global North and Global South illustrated in the media culture is significantly contradictory. In the depiction of the Global North, the glamorous “American way of life” not only shapes the minds of the American people on the American soil, but also, creates a “global imagined community,” making the American culture the standard form for all, regardless of the global citizens’ nationalities, cultures, religions, and so on. On the other hand, “glamour” is not the word that is associated with the Global South, which often comprises members of minorities or anyone who does not fit in the hegemony. The juxtaposition of the Global North and South has become more frequent in Hollywood movies lately, and the dichotomy of the two worlds emerging together, almost symbiotically, in the same movie has drawn more striking contrasts between the two.
Neo-Orientalism Among the various ideologies that have been constructed and disseminated by Hollywood throughout the world, one world view that has marked its significant presence is Neo-Orientalism. Edward Said (1978) criticizes the West’s condescending Eurocentric view of the East and its commodification of the Oriental culture. Said’s theory on Orientalism has recently taken a new form in our global community. Referred to as Neo-Orientalism, this philosophy, mainly focusing on Middle East and Muslims, is “monolithic, totalizing, reliant on a binary logic, and based on an assumption of moral and cultural superiority over the Oriental other” (Behdad & Williams, 2010, p. 284). Neo-Orientalism has been a popular source of ideology in Hollywood, particularly in the post-9/11 era. The themes around xenophobia have been repeatedly ingrained in various genres of Hollywood movies for years; from Rambo (1982) to Borat (2006) and The Dictator (2012), American movies often vilify the Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East as the malicious enemy of the state. The recurring negative images of the Middle East have not only pushed Americans to turn their backs against Arabs and Muslims, but also made this ethnic population a global enemy of the state and a scapegoat for global terrorism in the eyes of the rest of the world, outside of the United States.
100 Yoomi Chin Such sense of Islamophobia is especially instilled in East Asian countries, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Unlike many countries in Europe and America, where history and culture of immigration is deep-seated, the presence of foreign immigrants is still a new and unfamiliar concept as well as experience to East Asian demographics, specifically South Koreans whose country is known for being an ethnically homogenous society.1 Despite the lack of active and direct interactions and engagements with foreigners, when it comes to defining and identifying “otherness” and “aliens,” South Koreans rely on the theory of Orientalism as well as Neo-Orientalism that Hollywood has constructed for decades. For instance, when they hear the words “immigrant worker,” they immediately pick the Southeast Asian population. However, the Southeast Asian countries to which they connect the concept of blue- collar immigration workers are selective. South Koreans picture Malaysians, Indonesians, Indians, and Thai as immigrant workers, primarily because they associate Southeast Asian populations to the people of dark skin color; seldom do they refer to Singaporeans when defining the geography and culture of Southeast Asia. Because of their dark skin color, short appearance, and blue-collar professions, these selective Southeast Asians have historically been discriminated by South Koreans (Seol & Han, 2004). This dissemination of racism comes partially from the American mass media. As Said stated, “so far as the Orient is concerned, standardization and cultural stereotyping have intensified the hold of the 19th century academic and imaginative demonology of ‘the mysterious Orient’ ” (Said, 1978, p. 34). Having employed and adopted the Westernphiliac view of the East and Neo-Orientalism, East Asians equate people of lighter skin to superiority and darker race to inferiority (Kim, 2011). The world, therefore, is unconsciously defining “the other” in a standardized way, eventually creating identity crisis and deepening racial, ethnic, and religious inequalities on a global scale. Thus, global Hollywood must be scrutinized with a critical approach. As we draw a more expanded borderless cultural map, we are anticipating more identity crises. What we see today is an increasing identity, or sameness, rather than difference: “the rapid assimilation of hitherto autonomous national markets and productive zones into a single sphere, the disappearance of national subsistence, the forced integration of countries all over the globe” ( Jameson, 1998, p. 57). Consequently, what we have in our framework of globalization is a “picture of standardization on an unparalleled new scale” ( Jameson, 1998, p. 57).
Defining “The Other” Race in the Media Considering the emergence of Neo-Orientalism, the discourse on race, therefore, is indispensable in reading and analyzing the contemporary
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 101 media texts in the age of globalization. In the discourse of racism, the concept of the “objectified other” (Mulvey, 2003) is often invited. In her theory on scopophilia in the context of feminism, Mulvey, borrowing the Freudian term, argues that the unconscious dominant group structures ways of seeing and pleasure in looking, and eventually this pleasure of the look is transferred to others. In the process of structuring “the other,” the dominant group unconsciously objectifies the elements and qualities of “the other.” Hence, “the knowledge about racism as exclusion situates inclusions and exclusions that function as a false dichotomy whereby ‘us’ is juxtaposed with ‘them’ . . . in a way that ‘them’ is always understood as a negative value” (Macedo & Gounari, 2006, p. 5). The us-versus-them dichotomy, therefore, is always present in Hollywood movies, in which more than one race is mirrored. The movie Elysium (2013) is a great example of Hollywood’s reiteration of the us-versus-them dichotomy, demonstrating the divergence of the two worlds—the mainstream white patriarchal Hollywood culture and the “other.” It is the year 2154 in the movie, and the citizens of the Earth struggle with pollution and poverty every day. These citizens have no access to healthcare and technology. The wealthy, elite population, on the other hand, lives on Elysium, a space station in Earth’s orbit. The citizens of Elysium have access to the most advanced technology, including devices such as med-Bays, which can cure diseases of any kind, reverse the aging process, and even regenerate body parts. What is shockingly contrasting in this movie is that the ethnicity of the population living on the Earth comprises minorities, African Americans and mostly Latinos. The two languages that are mostly spoken on the Earth are English and Spanish. The ethnic profiles that inhabit on the Elysium, unsurprisingly, are upper-class white Americans, who speak French and English as lingua franca. The Global South is literally and figuratively depicted in this cultural artifact; placed below the Elysium, the Earth is an ostracized habitat where its people do not have access to the Global North. The Global North, clearly then is the Elysium, located above the Earth, where only the wealthy elitists are invited to reside. Elysium is a satire. The director Neill Blomkamp commented in his interview with Child in The Guardian: “I still think the satirical idea of a ring, filled with rich people, hovering above the impoverished Earth, is an awesome idea” (February 27, 2015). While most of the audience appreciated this movie as an entertaining spectacle, some audience saw this movie as a social commentary, making observations on the gap between the worlds of haves and have-nots, just as Blomkamp intended. One of the viewers comments that “the concept of ‘Elysium’ is very timely and a bold attempt at creating a view of where our world will go if the ‘haves’ keep distancing themselves from the ‘have nots’ ” (Rotten Tomatoes, June 19, 2018). Another viewer reviews that the
102 Yoomi Chin movie by no means is perfect, but “it certainly is thrilling long with its social message on healthcare, immigration, and the upper class” (Rotten Tomatoes, September 14, 2016). It is evident that audience read this movie as a didactic social commentary; however, their observation and analysis do not incorporate the issues of racial misrepresentations and racism. Elysium won success in the overseas markets. The movie grossed $93.1 million in North America and $193.1 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $286.1 million. The reception of this movie by the global audience outside the United States is not so much different. Peripherally and superficially, the international audience commented on Blomkamp’s attempt to make a social commentary on democracy and social justice focusing on issues of access to healthcare and technology. However, the global audience did not seem to make sensitive observations or feel offended by the compositions of the ethnic groups occupying the Earth and Elysium. Thanks to Hollywood, which has long assigned the world of glamour to the rich white population and the world of struggle to the minority population fighting with poverty and injustice, the global audience seem to take these racial stereotypes effortlessly and instantly. Neither the fact that the Elysium is inhabited by the white elites, or the Global North in a broader context, nor the fact that the Earth belongs to the Global South, comprising minority groups, seems to distract or offend the global audience. Hollywood’s stereotypical misrepresentation of race and the regurgitation of racism continuously are fed to not only the American audience, but also to the rest of the world. Subsequently, individual identity crisis is now led to collective identity crisis on a global level (Huntington, 2004). If the American culture were composed of diverse groups, serving and served by different interest groups, the problem of homogenization and standardization would not be so excruciating.
Talking Race in Hard Spaces In its declaration, “Statement on Race” in 1950, the UNESCO advocated replacing the term “race” by “ethnic group”: The myth of ‘race’ has created an enormous amount of human and social damage. In recent years it has taken a heavy toll in human lives and caused untold suffering. It still prevents the normal development of millions of human beings and deprives civilization of the effective co-operation of productive minds. The biological differences between ethnic groups should be disregarded from the standpoint of social acceptance and social action. The unity of mankind from both the biological and social viewpoints is the main thing. (UNESCO: Statement on Race, 1996, p. 1217)
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 103 Race often utilizes physical traits, such as skin color and hair texture, as “symbolic markers” that differentiate one group socially from another (Hall, 1992, p. 298). In other words, race is a socially constructed identity. Because it is an ideology, the definition of race is never uniform. It is not a static, trans-historical phenomenon, but rather, a “complex, contradictory, multifaceted and dynamic phenomenon that adapts itself to the conditions in which it functions” (van der Valk, 2003, p. 49). According to Banks (1995), race is a “socially constructed category” that differentiates and distinguishes racial groups and demonstrates the superiority of one race over another (p. 18). In response to Banks’s anthropological and sociological approach of defining race, Solarzano (1997) raises the following foundational questions: “Does the dominance of a racial group require a rationalizing ideology? . . . If racism is the ideology that justifies the dominance of one race over another, then how do we define racism?” (p. 8). It is critical that these fundamental questions are constantly raised, tackled, scrutinized, and answered in classrooms. And the key to answering these questions and performing praxis of pedagogy regarding race and diversity is cemented in critical race theory. What makes critical race theory an appropriate and meaningful approach lies within its method of application. Relying on the form of storytelling and shared narratives, in which writers analyze and criticize the myths about race, critical race theory encourages individuals of all colors to understand that our social world is not fixed and that we construct our world with words, stories, and silence (Delgado, 2000). The topics on race and global citizenship have made a strong presence in school curriculum in recent years, especially in the Global North. One of the most significant challenges that the educators of the Global North are confronted with is the insufficient scholarship on the praxis and pedagogy as the concept of global citizenship is still novel. The notion of inclusivity, for example, is constantly challenged because the traditional models of understanding the relationships between democracy, citizenship, and schooling are often postulated from the idea of the Cartesian citizenship (Smith, Nowacek, & Bernstein, 2010). This model of citizenship education is “organized around idealized forms of common culture, stable membership, finished identities, clear values, authentic models of participation, and truthful knowledge that can be transformed into ‘best pedagogical practices,’ taught and measured as the educational authorities require” (Fischman & Haas, 2012, p. 173). As a result, education does not override the lived experience of the students (Kozol, 2006); instead, schooling often challenges the notion of self and identities of students of minorities, including refugees and migrants (Carnoy & Levin, 1985). For example, having a class discussion on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an American immigration policy that allows individuals who were brought to the United
104 Yoomi Chin States as undocumented children to receive a deferred action from deportation, is a challenge for many educators as well as students, because many students do not feel safe and protected revealing their legal status and relative identities. With the lack of guaranteed safe space for these students, the classroom no longer becomes a democratic terrain where the youth can freely share and learn their living experiences to execute social justice. And as these voices of the marginal groups are silenced, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the citizenship education continues evolving around the hegemonic model of the white elitism. Teaching global citizenship in relation to the issue of racism is also a challenge in the classrooms outside of the Global North, especially in hard spaces where critical race education lacks and freedom of application of critical pedagogy in classrooms is limited. South Korea has long been known for and prided itself for being a culturally and ethnically homogenous country.2 Today, in the age of globalization, however, multiculturalism is no longer a new concept in Korea. Nevertheless, the multicultural education has not found its presence in most classrooms because the definition of multicultural education is vague as literature and research on multicultural education is heavily borrowed from the Global North. Korean perspectives and approaches on multicultural education are, and should be, different from that of other countries (Chang, 2017). While the concept of multicultural education is not non-existent, the core of multicultural education is focused on teaching students how to understand other cultures in a general context. As the result of insufficient attention provided to the study of multicultural education, Korea’s education policies target specifically multicultural families, but not for schools and the society at large. Moreover, policies focus on teaching multicultural families to adapt to Korean society, “rather than promoting a general educational and societal understanding of and respect for other cultures” (Chang, 2017, p. 12). The lack of resources in multicultural education and critical race education leads to various challenges of creating a democratic learning space for the youth and adults, both local and foreign, to construct their identities, understand their sense of belongingness, and view the world in a critical way. What also lacks severely in the educational spaces is critical media education. Korea is one of the most digitally connected and technologically advanced countries in the world.3 Korean citizens and residents expose themselves to all forms of international and national media; yet, critical media literacy is not a language skill that has been strongly incorporated in school curricula and pedagogy. As a result, the discourse on racism and ethnicity takes place on superficial levels, heavily relying on the Neo-Orientalistic misrepresentations of races and colors portrayed by the hegemony of American mass media and Hollywood. In the summer of 2018, more than 500 Yemenis arrived on the island of Jeju, a small island of South Korea. When these refugees arrived, the
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 105 South Koreans protested, demanding the government not to issue visas to these foreigners. Partly, it was xenophobia, for South Korea still remains heavily monolithic and homogenous. One of the demonstrators commented in the interview with National Public Radio: “It is all about their different idea and belief system. I mean the Muslims.” In an interview with Choe in the The New York Times article, “Migrants expected warm welcome on Korean Resort Island. They were wrong,” Eun-ok Yang, a 70-year-old leader of the protest, said: “From an early age, [Muslims] learn to treat women like sex slaves and to beat them as they like. . . . They can take many wives and produce many children. Now, there are 500 of them. In 10 and 20 years, how many of them will there be?” (Hu, New York Times, September 12, 2018). The presence of Muslim as a culture is almost non-existent in East Asian countries, including South Korea. Nevertheless, the fear of Muslim— Islamophobia—is engrained deeply in the minds of East Asians, mostly because of the Neo-Orientalistic representations and misrepresentations in Hollywood media on a global level. When asked about Muslim population and culture, South Koreans uniformly express fear. Safiya Kang, for instance, is a Korean who recently converted to Islam after having worked as an administrator at the Seoul Central Mosque. In an interview for a recent article by Diaconu and Tace in Al Jazeera (2017, November 15), “The Muslims of South Korea,” Kang shared: “Initially, like many of my friends, I knew nothing about Islam and associated it with 9/11 and terrorism.” Once she learned about the philosophy of Islam and appreciated the religion, she decided to convert. However, she does not explicitly express or share her religious identity in public, because she fears the misperceptions and misjudgments of her fellow South Koreans; she chooses to wear the hijab in the streets of Seoul only on rare occasions, because she doesn’t like to be stared at.
Teaching Cultural Citizenship Through Media Today, we need a more comprehensive, efficient, and democratic pedagogical tool to overcome the current models of citizenship education, which goes beyond simplistic dualistic binary battles of “good” versus “evil” (Fischman & Haas, 2012). One form of pedagogy that can be taught, practiced, and shared efficiently in classrooms is critical media literacy, a critical pedagogical tool that provides the audience with opportunities to decode and encode cultural artifacts within their cultural context and with their own critical lens. Films provide us with a vocabulary that we can use to analyze moving image texts. This involves breaking down the texts into their individual components, naming each component, and seeing how each works as a unit of meaning (Bainbridge, 2011). When reading a moving image text, such as film or television, the form, the content, and the cinematography,
106 Yoomi Chin which comprises the camera movement, the sound, and the editing, are deconstructed for the textual analysis. The two distinctive forms of the textual analysis are content analysis and discourse analysis (Bainbridge, 2011). Content analysis focuses on the frequency of presence or absence of certain words or categories within texts, often involving the estimation of how often a word or a phrase recurs in the media. For instance, if one were to study the change in people’s perception of climate after watching An Inconvenient Truth, by Al Gore, through content analysis, one would count how often the phrase “climate change” appeared in the media before the release of the movie and measure the frequency of the appearance of this phrase after the movie release. Discourse analysis, strongly influenced by the work of Foucault (1972), focuses on the ways in which media texts support or subvert certain aspects of the world, observing the ways that the world is represented. For instance, the legitimization or subversion of one presentation of the world (such as the emphasis on the white patriarchal society), the marginalization of others (the exclusion of minorities and women), and the subsequent unequal distribution of power in society are all subject to discussion. Discourse analysis also looks at the intertextual relationship between the individual texts and the larger ideas of representing the world. One of the weaknesses of textual analysis, just like most of the qualitative research methods are, centers on objectivity. Textual analysis is inevitably selective. The question of objectivity is always raised in this method because in any form of analysis, there are certain questions about texts that we choose or choose not to ask. Nonetheless, discourse analysis plays a critical role, because the nature as well as the purpose of critical media education is to scrutinize and analyze the ways that mass media represent different aspects of the world. Different discourses are different perspectives on the world, and they are associated with the different relations people have to the world, which in turn depends on their positions in the world, their social and personal identities, and the social relationships in which they stand to other people. Discourses not only represent the world as it is (or rather is seen to be), they are also projective, imaginaries, representing possible worlds which are different from the actual world, and tied in to projects to change the world in particular directions (Fairclough, 2003, p. 124). Moreover, textual analysis serves to enhance social research when it is used in conjunction with other methods of analysis. It is a “valuable supplement” to social research, not a replacement for other forms of research; rather, it is an “open process which can be enhanced through dialogue across disciplines and theories, rather than a coding in the terms of an autonomous analytical framework” (Fairclough, 2003, p. 16). This is why we need critical media literacy, a critical pedagogical tool that provides the audience with opportunities to decode and encode
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 107 cultural artifacts within their cultural context and with their own critical lens. Moreover, cultural studies should encourage analyses and critiques from multiple perspectives, inviting audiences from diverse cultural, religious, political, and socio-economic backgrounds in order to allow cultural studies to be as critical and comprehensive as possible. The juxtaposition and collaboration of crucial media literacy and critical race theory will serve as a critical pedagogical tool that opens a democratic floor where citizens of both Global South and North will be able to identify themselves more authentically and freely and redefine the “otherness” with a more optimistic and positive perception.
Unresolved Challenges of the Literature on Globalization Not only has the phenomenon of globalization been led by the Western nations, but also, the study of globalization and global citizenship education has been performed unilaterally by the Global North. The nature of globalization, which has long been framed within the context of the current U.S. and European foreign policy, has been criticized by the scholars of these Western regions (Torres & Van Heertum, 2009). As we draw a more expanded borderless cultural map, young global citizens are anticipating more identity crises. What we see today is an increasing identity, or sameness, rather than difference: “the rapid assimilation of hitherto autonomous national markets and productive zones into a single sphere, the disappearance of national subsistence, the forced integration of countries all over the globe” ( Jameson, 1998, p. 57). This concept of identity as a process of “becoming” has been understood as offering emancipatory possibilities to the individual who is invited, not to take up a stable, untested, and fixed position, but rather, to see her “self,” or even “selves,” as subject to a multiple and on-going process of revision, reform, and choices (Radner, 2011, p. 6). What is worth noting about the term and the concept of globalization is that there is actually no “genuine globalization” in the Western capitalist world system. De Sousa Santos (2002) argues that what we call globalization is always the “successful globalization of a given localism” and “there is no global condition for which we cannot find a local root, a specific cultural embeddedness.” Globalization, as de Sousa Santos delineates, entails “localization.” The author once again points out that the reason we prefer the term globalization even when there is no “genuine globalization” is that “hegemonic scientific discourse tends to prefer the story of the world as told by the winners” (de Sousa Santos, 2002, p. 41). Without a single definite theory on globalization, we are still in search of a more comprehensive, universal definition of this global phenomenon. Further study is needed especially since most theories of globalization are “reductive, undialective, and one-sided, either failing to see
108 Yoomi Chin the interaction between technological features of globalization and the global restructuring of capitalism or failing to articulate the complex relations between capitalism and democracy” (Kellner, 2002, p. 289). Thus, we must continue to question, observe, and critique how globalization is affecting the organized solidarity, how market forces are affecting both local and global citizenship, and how education, in the crisis of neoliberalism, can save the global citizenship (Torres, 2002).
Conclusion As much as study of globalization requires constant assessments from various directions and levels, research on media literacy and its application on democratic and critical pedagogy calls for persistent exploration and evaluation to enhance the essence of global citizenship education. The future of media is unfathomable as well as unpredictable. Media studies is no longer confined to TV shows, movies, or pop music. The rise of social media and digital technology of the early twenty-first century has elevated the complexity of the study of media studies to another level for its “spreadability,” which allows contents to disperse and circulate widely and quickly through various networks ( Jenkins, Ford, & Green, 2013). And the discourse and literature on media studies and its pedagogy will need to be further perused, criticized, reevaluated, and expanded as media technology continues to expand vertically and horizontally. Today, nearly 90 percent of young adults use social media, compared with 12 percent in 2005, a 78 percent increase, according to a study conducted by Pew Research Center in October 2015. The number of social media users, especially among the younger generations, is projected to grow every year. Not only will we see the growth of social media applications and users, but also, what we are about to see is the advent of another new rising technology—virtual reality. As Steven Spielberg demonstrates in his late movie Ready Player One, a 2018 science fiction film whose plot takes place in the future world where virtual reality is the new means of communication and culture for young generations, virtual reality is slowly yet significantly expanding its territory. As more youths are connected to each other through the world of virtual reality, their identity constructions and their distinguishing and defining of the “other” will eventually become more multidimensional. Accordingly, more rigorous and pertinent work on deepening and expanding the ground of critical pedagogy and media literacy is vital.
Acknowledgments I’m eternally grateful to my parents and my brother Max for their love and endless support in whatever I pursue. Many thanks to Lauren Ila Misiaszek and her team for their patience and encouragement
Media, Youth, and Global Citizenship 109 throughout this publication process. I would also like to include a special note of thanks to Carlos Torres, Douglas Kellner, and Rhonda Hammer, my advisors and academic parents. Finally, I would like to thank Shawn Farrell, my other half and best friend, for believing in me.
Notes 1. Migrant workers began arriving in South Korea since 1960, and their population has increased continuously. However, the government did not respond to this phenomenon until 1990. As a matter of fact, migrant workers were not even provided with identification cards. The insufficient legal documents made these immigrants undocumented workers and led to unfair labor treatments, such as wage delays, non-payment, physical assaults, and sexual violence (Seol, 2005). 2. One of the reasons behind the long-held history of national homogeneity and seclusion from the rest of the world is tied to the Japanese colonization. After Korea won her independence in 1945, educators and activists popularized the idea of ethnic nationalism shared by a unified bloodline and rooted its importance in the country’s new textbooks (Shin, 2006). Ethnonationalist rhetoric became the new language and widespread ideology among politicians and educators (Palmer & Park, 2018). The closed doors of Korea began to open in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries with the rise of international marriages and migrant workers who took jobs in manufacturing, agricultural, and fishery sectors, which were becoming less popular among Koreans as a growing number of Koreans strived for white-collar jobs. 3. The Digital Evolution Index (2017), published by Tufts University, placed South Korea as the seventh most advantaged digital economy out of the 60 served countries.
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6 Expectations, Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In Exploring the Experiences of Highly Educated Eritrean Migrants in the United Kingdom Samson Maekele Tsegay1 Introduction Migration is the event of moving from one place to another. It is defined as the movement of people that involves a change of usual residence across an administrative boundary such as a village, a town, a district or a country (Kok, 1999). In this study, I focus on long-term international migration, a situation where migrants live in a country other than that of their birth for at least one year (Poulain & Perrin, 2001). Drawing on the experiences of migrants and my reflections, I specifically explore the journey of highly educated migrants to fit in a new environment, by focusing on the case of highly educated Eritrean migrants in the UK. The names of the participants used in this study are pseudonyms, to protect the identity of the participants. People migrate voluntarily or involuntarily for various reasons (Kempf, 2006; Wiese, 2010). Many of the migrants who come to Europe are forced migrants who have experienced war, persecution and extreme hardships in their home countries (UNHCR, 2015). Yet the world is not hospitable to forced migrants—the “vagabonds” (Bauman, 1996). They can be victims of xenophobic violence and strict immigration control. The 2015 xenophobic violence in South Africa (Misago, 2016), and the mass arrest and prolonged detention of asylum seekers in Israel (Kritzman-Amir, 2012) are typical examples which affected the lives of many African migrants. Related to this, Bauman (1996) stated that vagabonds are forced to move due to unbearably inhospitable circumstances. They carry out dangerous border crossings, and experience extreme displacement and hardship in transit countries (Clark, 2018). Considering the case of Eritrea, in the past 15 years, many Eritrean youth migrated to escape forced military conscription, human rights abuse and/or hard economic situations (Tessema & N’goma, 2009). Hence, most Eritrean emigrants left their country illegally by crossing the border to Sudan or Ethiopia, and many became victims of human trafficking and other violations of human rights.
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 113 According to De Haas (2010), migration affects the socio-economic and cultural dynamics of societies. Despite the view that globalisation narrows our differences and brings the world together, the world is still diverse and multicultural (Wang, 2011). The cultural diversity of many countries is increasing due to the movement of people across the globe (Meer & Modood, 2015; Wang, 2011). In these circumstances, education in general, and global citizenship education in particular, plays a key role in adapting to the diverse social and cultural environment within and across borders (Marginson, 2010; Morais & Ogden, 2011). It enables individuals to develop a delicate balance of cultural (local), national and global identification, and understanding of their roles in the world community (Torres, 1998). In addition, education plays a significant role in shaping the experience and life course of immigrants (Bradat¸an & Kulcsár, 2014; Fokkema & Haas, 2011). For instance, Levitt and Jaworsky (2007) noted that the US labour market is less hospitable to poorly educated migrants while warmly welcoming those with good education and good English language capacity. Supporting this argument, Fokkema and Haas (2011) stated that highly educated migrants have better possibilities of socio-cultural integration when compared with less educated counterparts. This shows that education greatly affects the situation of migrants in relation to their capacity to interact and ‘fit in’ their host countries (Dustmann & Glitz, 2011; Torres, 1998). Therefore, education helps migrants to develop cultural identities to appreciate or/and tolerate diversity, and foster their integration and mutual cooperation with the established society. However, research shows that not all highly educated migrants easily integrate to the established population. Verkuyten (2016) opined that some highly educated immigrants create an “integration paradox” by isolating themselves from the host society. Verkuyten (2016, p. 584) further stated, “Education could also be an obstacle for developing positive attitudes toward natives and the host society. A key reason for this might be that highly educated immigrants feel relatively deprived.” This argument challenges the notion that education plays a significant role in developing a sense of belonging and a more positive attitude toward the host society (Fokkema & Haas, 2011). It is also contrary to the argument of Levitt and Jaworsky (2007) that highly educated migrants are warmly welcomed in the US labour market. It is not difficult to guess that there are other factors which affect the role of educational attainment for migrants. The present study is therefore expected to provide further understanding on the nexus between migration and education. My study was guided by the central research question: how do highly educated Eritrean migrants explain their socio-cultural integration experiences in the UK? In particular, I aimed to understand how highly educated Eritrean migrants use their educational attainment in integrating to their host country. To address these questions, I conducted narrative interviews with 24 Eritreans who gained a university degree in Eritrea, before
114 Samson Maekele Tsegay migrating to the UK. I asked my participants a series of open-ended questions to encourage the participants to describe their personal and social experiences (Sarantakos, 2013). Informed by theories of globalisation, education and migration, I also weave my experiences and reflections as I am an Eritrean who has been in the UK for more than two years. After completing my master’s and doctoral studies in China, I migrated to the UK. This gives me an opportunity as someone who can relate to the experiences of highly educated Eritrean migrants in the country and beyond. In the following sections, weaving my experiences and reflections, I discuss the experiences of highly educated Eritrean migrants who participated in my research project. First, I explore the expectations of the migrants and the reality they faced. Then, I analyse the journey and struggle of the migrants to integrate to the new context, the UK. As I indicate in these sections, many highly educated Eritrean migrants come with various expectations. Hoping to easily integrate to the established population in the UK, they face a complex system which requires them to return back to college and volunteer in different institutions, seeking for UK qualification and work experience respectively. Although various studies have been conducted on education and migration, this study provides a critical analysis of migrant experiences coming from a hard context, which have been given relatively little attention by researchers. Therefore, the study contributes to a better understanding of global citizenship/education and migration, from the stories of the migrants.
Expectations and Reality In this section, I show that the highly educated Eritrean migrants who participated in this study came to the UK with many expectations. They often believed that their educational attainment would enable them to easily integrate to the new context and society. However, the reality was different for most of the participants. Having a degree alone was not enough to integrate to the UK. Other factors such as the type of educational credentials and job experiences, level of English language capacity and cultural differences greatly affected the socio-cultural and economic integration of the migrants to their host country. Aware of the contested notion of integration, this study defines integration as embracing cultural diversity without having to lose your own identity (Fokkema & Haas, 2011; Ward & Kennedy, 1999). I now analyse the expectations and challenges of the highly educated Eritrean migrants who participated in my research one by one.
Educational Qualification: “I have a degree from a recognised university” Research shows that acquisition of higher education helps immigrants to integrate to the established population and the labour market
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 115 (Fokkema & Haas, 2011; Levitt & Jaworsky, 2007). Similarly, my participants thought that their educational qualification would enable them to integrate to the host culture and economy. Nevertheless, I found that academic qualification does not guarantee a decent job for migrants especially those from developing countries. Neither does it ensure a quick socio-cultural integration of the migrants to the host population. Educational qualifications held by migrants from developing countries are often constructed as deficient in developed countries (Wilson-Forsberg, 2015; Garrido & Codó, 2017). This was repeatedly confirmed from the testimony of my participants. An Eritrean educational credential is not recognised as equal to a similar qualification obtained from the host country or other developed countries. This hinders the migrants to swiftly integrate to the host country. Many participants told me that they applied to the National Academic Recognition Information Centre (NARIC)2 to get a statement of comparability, an officially recognised document that confirms the recognition of an overseas qualification and its comparable level in the UK. Hoping to get an equal level with the UK qualification, they found that an Eritrean bachelor’s degree is recognised as advanced diploma by NARIC. It is also important to note that the advanced diploma recognised by NARIC is not strong when compared to a UK diploma. The education system and curricula differences between the two countries affect the level and relevance of the Eritrean qualification in the UK (Daniel, Devine, Gillespie, Pendry, & Zurawan, 2010). For instance, the Eritrean degree usually lacks courses relevant to the UK context. Hence, the highly educated Eritrean migrants sometimes need additional training to compete in the UK labour market. The following excerpts evidence this point. I came with a big self-inflated image in terms of what I can do with my educational qualification from Eritrea. However, when I came to this country, I understood that that it is not easy for someone from overseas educational qualification, especially from non-European countries, to compete for a professional job. (Habtay) I thought that someone with higher education attainment could easily integrate to the socio-economic life of the UK. Nonetheless, I found it difficult due to many reasons including downgrading of my academic qualification and curriculum differences. The expectation [of easily integrating to the UK] had affected my life, especially when my degree is downgraded to advanced diploma by NARIC. Besides, many of the courses from the Eritrean higher education institution are country-specific or related to the country [Eritrea]. It needs at least one year [additional study] to make the Eritrean degree equivalent to the UK one. (Meron)
116 Samson Maekele Tsegay I usually do not get surprised when I hear my participants complaining about the demotion of the Eritrean degree, below the UK one. They have a valid reason to be dissatisfied or annoyed. Completing an Eritrean bachelor’s degree requires a longer time and more credit hours than a UK one. A bachelor’s degree in Eritrean higher education institutions (HEIs) takes four to five years after passing the Eritrean Secondary Education Certificate Examinations (ESECE), the national higher education entrance examination (NOKUT, 2017). In most specialisations, a bachelor’s degree requires four years (8 semesters) of study; but bachelor’s degrees in pharmacy, engineering and law (LLB) take five years (10 semesters). The demotion of the educational qualification then negatively affects the morale of the highly educated Eritrean migrants. They believe that it is a sign of hostility and systemic racism from the host country. Furthermore, my participants told me that they often struggled to get a professional job related to their Eritrean qualification. As they could not be competitive to find suitable employment in their fields of training, many of them worked in semi-skilled and low-skilled occupations. In line with this, Neguse and Hans said: When I first got my asylum paper, I started to work manual job in a store because I could not compete for jobs related to my educational qualification. I knew I had a bachelor degree and I was an experienced teacher in Eritrea; but here [in the UK] I could not simply join the teaching profession because I lack enough knowledge of the system. Besides, I didn’t have local [UK] professional trainings and adequate cultural awareness. To teach in the UK, you need to have teaching qualification and full understanding of the local culture. This affected my life not only professionally, but also psychologically. I thought that I lost 16 years of my life studying for a degree that does not work globally. Hence, I had to find any job to earn a living and help my family. (Neguse) My expectations and the reality that I encountered here [in the UK] were opposite. When I came to the UK with my degree, the first thing I thought was that I would use it to find a good [professional] job, and live a better life. However, things were different from my expectation here. My educational qualification was not as strong as I thought. In addition, I had to know and understand many things including the local culture, laws and regulations. However, understanding these issues especially people’s privacy and wellbeing were not easy. It needs time and good support system. I came from a culture, which values social life. Here, the sensitivity of grooming, abuse and other wellbeing issues make life and interaction difficult. (Hans)
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 117 Along with Neguse and Hans, many other participants emphasised that they had to take any job to become more accustomed to the UK context and support their family back in Eritrea. However, the decision to start semi-skilled or unskilled manual jobs had their own challenges. It negatively affected the professional, social and psychological conditions of the migrants. They were also worried about losing their privilege and social class, which they enjoyed in Eritrea. For example, Neguse spoke about the privilege of having a bachelor’s degree in Eritrea. “I was well respected at home [in Eritrea], but here [in the UK] it is different.” Indeed, despite the hostile socio-economic and political conditions in Eritrea, university graduates relatively have societal respect for their educational attainment and public services. This is not surprising in a country which has tertiary education gross enrolment ratio of 2.29% (UNESCO, 2018). However, it is important to note that having a bachelor’s degree might not be special in the UK, where tertiary education enrolment reaches 60% (UNESCO, 2018). It also has even lower capital when it is obtained from developing countries. In this context, the highly educated Eritrean migrants feel vulnerable and deprived, and this affected their socio-cultural integration to the host population. This lack of social and professional growth led them to create what Verkuyten (2016) called an ‘integration paradox’. They isolated themselves from the host society, and created their own network; a network of immigrants who felt unwanted and neglected. At the same time, members of this network strive to bring themselves and other colleagues from the periphery to the center, in socio-economic and political dimensions. For instance, I found many of my participants through Eritrean Professional Networks, which are formed to support Eritrean graduates and other members of the Eritrean community to integrate in the UK. Yet, the enthusiasm has not been motivating, mainly divided by social and political views about their origin country. Hence, the networks have been providing inadequate support, and have done less to end the vulnerability of the Eritrean migrants. Senait is one of my participants who worked as a waitress, since she could not compete for a job related to her qualification. She believes that systemic racism could be the main reason for not passing in one of her job interviews. Senait explained that she volunteered for the company for six months. However, when a full-time employee was required for the same position, the company selected another person claiming that Senait scored half a point below the selected candidate. Sanait told me, “I was really upset because I had both the academic qualification and work experience required for the position. Actually, I was not convinced and I think it could be because I was not born here [in the UK].” Considering the outcome of other studies (see Bosanquet & Doeringer, 1973; Riach & Rich, 1991; Wood, Hales, Purdon, Sejersen, & Hayllar, 2009), the perception of Senait could be true. There is evidence of racial
118 Samson Maekele Tsegay discrimination against Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) applicants in recruitment practices in Britain (Bosanquet & Doeringer, 1973; Wood et al., 2009). In fact, the rise of hostile populist rhetoric from politicians and in the tabloid media over immigration show that trend (Kokkonen, 2017). Brexit in the UK and the discourses of “America First” in the USA are evident examples of opposition to taking in refugees.
Work Experience: “I have many years’ work experience” Of course, employers prefer graduates with relevant work experience, and this has been shown in different studies (for example, see Archer, 2010; Jensen, 2009). Jensen (2009) suggested that work experience provides individuals an opportunity to interact with and get to know the work place, the culture and the people. However, my interviewees highlighted that they lacked local work experience to compete in the UK job market. This does not mean that their Eritrean work experience was not significant at all. However, it was not often recognised; and not sufficiently recognised, even when it was. In particular, socio-cultural and technological differences between Eritrea and the UK hindered the Eritrean migrants from using the work experiences they gained in Eritrea. Moreover, many were not able to prove their Eritrean work experiences due to lack of recommendations consequent on their having fled the country. Eritrean graduates have inadequate experience about the job recruitment process. Almost all my participants explained that they were appointed the institutions where they had worked at home by the government of Eritrea. They were first assigned to the institutions as part of their national service and later transferred to permanent staff. They didn’t apply and go through normal recruitment processes to get their positions. Hence, they came to the UK with less (or no) job searching and application experience. Many had never done a job interview. However, once they arrive in the UK, they had to find, apply and compete for a job. Habtay is one of my participants who left Eritrea after working four years in a higher education institution. He explained how he struggled to get a job, mainly due to his complete lack of job hunting experience and of work experience in the UK: The lack of local work experience had its own impact in my life in the UK. I came from a country where the government places graduates to different institutions. We are not used to fill detailed applications and conduct job interviews. I had not job application experience in Eritrea. I was assigned to my institution [in Eritrea] without doing any job interviews. That was part of my weakness, which I came to realise in the UK. In addition, I didn’t know how the labour market in the UK works. I also had little experience about the local [UK]
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 119 culture. For example, I didn’t know the job hunting strategies and the job market criteria. Hence, I would say that it was tough for me to find a professional job in the UK, despite my Eritrean qualification and four years’ work experience. The entire cohort of participants agreed with Habtay on this. It is important to note that, as global citizens, the participants had skills, such as critical thinking, effective argument, and respect for people and things (Oxfam, 2014; Tsegay, 2016). Nevertheless, they lacked adequate knowledge about how the labour market works, which is a great disadvantage for migrants (Green, 2006). Migrants need to understand the job market, including local job hunting strategies and tools, for a successful job search. Furthermore, the participants struggled to evidence their skills and experiences. They were not able to easily find referees to endorse their previous work experiences. For instance, Yohana emphasised that highly educated Eritrean migrants have many transferable skills such as communication and leadership skills. However, it was difficult to prove it. Yohana told me: I worked as a teacher in international school in Eritrea. I had diverse knowledge and experiences which could enable me to get a graduate job in the UK. However, I found it hard to get a job in the UK based on these experiences [from Eritrea]. Nobody was interested to know my previous skills because of the way I came here [as a refugee], and it was hard for me to prove it. So, I didn’t have anything to support my application. My previous qualification and work experience became almost worthless; and I had no UK qualification and experience. That was a very big challenge. This captures the risk of illegal migration. As indicated above, most of the migrants left their country illegally, and this made the connection with their previous institutions challenging. In fact, many Eritrean institutions are afraid to give recommendation letters for illegal emigrants, who are usually labeled as ‘deserters’, by the government (Bozzini, 2015; Laub, 2015). This is of course without considering the weak internet connection of the country, which could not allow the highly educated Eritrean migrants to easily communicate with their previous institutions and get relevant recommendations. Participants like Michael also argued that Eritrean work experience is not recognised in the UK, even if relevant endorsement could be obtained from previous superiors. Michael’s view was directed to recognise the role of other factors. In this context, my findings indicate that type of profession, demographic and technological change affect the skills and experiences of the migrants, and the perception of employers.
120 Samson Maekele Tsegay They also have a big role in the employment and wage of individuals (see Dustmann, Glitz, & Frattini, 2008; Somerville & Sumption, 2008). One of the points that Michael and other participants wanted to make was that there are cultural and technological differences between Eritrea and the UK. Indeed, the UK has advanced technological equipment in different sectors such as health and education. Therefore, the Eritrean work experience could not be enough to cope with these differences. For instance, Michael said: To be honest, I didn’t try to get an endorsement for my Eritrean work experience in order to use it in the UK. It wouldn’t work here [in the UK]. So I didn’t find it important to bother about a work experience that has insignificant value. It is not only the Eritrean degree which is degraded, but the work experience too. In fact, the work experience was the main challenge as many employers care about relevant work experience, as much as they do about the type of academic qualification. Therefore, the only option is to get additional [local] work experience. The excerpt above shows that some highly educated Eritrean migrants did not see the value of evidencing their previous work experiences. This, in fact, is not due to carelessness. Based on their experiences, they were able to understand the cultural and structural racism of the UK. Here, the main argument is that it is difficult for highly educated Eritrean migrants such as teachers and nurses to find a professional job in the UK without knowing the local culture, equipment and institutional policies. This does not seem a choice, but a requirement. Hence, most of the highly educated Eritrean migrants join different institutions to get local work experience.
English Language: “I can speak English” Language has socio-cultural and economic values. For instance, Dustmann and Fabbri (2003) stated that lack of English fluency leads to earning losses. My study shows that, despite English being the medium of instruction in Eritrea, there is a lack of recognition of the linguistic capital held by the highly educated Eritrean migrants. It is also important to acknowledge that Eritrean migrants might not be fluent in English. It is their second language which is mainly used for educational and professional purposes. These factors therefore hinder socio-cultural and economic integration of the migrants in the UK English is the medium of instruction in post-primary schools in Eritrea (Asfaha, 2009; Asfaha, Beckman, Kurvers, & Kroon, 2009). Language is one of the most powerful tools to integrate with the established population. It plays an important role in the transmission of human
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 121 culture (Gelman & Roberts, 2017). In fact, English language is one of the reasons cited by my participants to explain why they chose to migrate to the UK. They thought that their language capacity would be beneficial in the UK, an English-speaking country. However, the migrants’ perception of their English capacity was not compatible with what they encountered in the UK. Many noted that they faced language barriers in clearly expressing their ideas. They also had difficulty in fully understanding the British accents, in some areas such as northern England. For example, explaining the language difficulty, Haben and Semhar told me: I studied in English, but [when it comes to conversation] I had difficulty in completely understanding some British accents in the UK. I found it [the English accent] difficult especially in places such as Yorkshire. I believe that they have strong British accent, a bit different from what I used before. It made my life quite unpleasant, even to go to a coffee shop to buy capuchin. It requires courage to ask for what exactly you need and explain how you want it [the coffee] to be. Because they could ask you to say it again or you will do the same many times. (Haben) I can communicate in English, but the British accent in the northern part of England [where I was first resettled] was very difficult to comprehend. It was frustrating to the level that I felt I can’t speak English well. However, I started to realise that it was not only me. It was common to most migrants and even to some native English speakers who are not from that place. But, it was one of the barriers to communicate and integrate with the host people. (Semhar) Here we see the language barrier and its effect on the life and mentality of the migrants. Yet, this does not mean that the English capacity of the migrants was not significant. Indeed, it was very important to interact with the host people and learn the new culture. Of course, through time, they were also able to improve their language capacity and understand different accents. In addition, the demand for English fluency is very high in some areas, such as journalism and teaching. However, as Garrido and Codó (2017) argued, the migrants’ mastery of the language was considered insignificant in the job market. Helen and Ermias are two of my participants who believe that they could not get a professional job based on their Eritrean qualification partly because of their English capacity. Helen was a teacher in Eritrea. She first thought that the Eritrean degree could enable her to get a similar career in the UK. Nevertheless, Helen realised
122 Samson Maekele Tsegay that even her English was deficient to compete with native speakers in the job market. She said: When I came from Eritrea with a degree, I thought that I will get a job straight away. However, I found that even my language was a barrier to compete for a job. When I was in Eritrea, I was thinking that I speak fluent English. Here [in the UK], I knew that I am not a fluent [native] English speaker. So, even if I have the technical knowledge, my accent shows that I am not a native speaker of the language. English is my second language. This hinders me from competing in the job market, as many vacancies require for excellent or native English speaker. Similarly, lack of English proficiency pushed Ermias out of his profession. He studied journalism in Eritrea. However, he worked in social care in the UK. Ermias explained: You need to be very fluent in English in order to be a journalist in the UK. I didn’t attempt to get a job in my field [journalism] because I know that I am not competitive here. I am not a fluent or native English speaker. So, I diverted my attention to other field and started a new career in health science. This shows that many highly educated Eritrean migrants do not find employment in their fields of training, partly due to the language problems. The point is that even if they finish another degree in the UK, English still remains their second language. Of course, regardless of their capacity, their accent can easily tell that they are not native speakers. Hence, they are either forced to work in semi-skilled and low-skilled occupations, or shift to other professions. This deskilling makes the migrants to rely on nostalgic notions of identity and culture by remembering their previous dominant position in Eritrea. In such conditions they primarily associate with other co-nationals of similar conditions (Wilson-Forsberg, 2015). This is also pertinent in the Eritrean case. As indicated above, highly educated Eritrean migrants group themselves in different networks.
Cultural Differences: “I respect other cultures” Cultural identities are influenced by various factors such as religion, ethnicity and schooling, which shape individual’s identity or self-image associated with different social categories (Akerlof & Kranton, 2000). Of course, they are fluid or not fixed. Yet, they indicate a person’s sense of belonging to a particular culture or group (Hall & Du Gay, 1996). As I show here, cultural differences between Eritrea and the
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 123 UK have a significant impact on the life of highly educated Eritrean migrants in the UK. My participants are global citizens who can live with the established population in peace and harmony regardless of their difference (see Tsegay, 2016). At the same time, in congruence with the argument of Sarangi (1994), they point out that communication across different cultures and social groups is not easy. The latter argument shows the communication difficulty created due to cultural differences between Eritrean and the UK. For example, miscommunication happens both in speaking and listening, because language and culture are closely linked to each other (Wang, 2011). In this context, many interviewees noted that their English capacity and the manner of communicating their ideas were significant challenges. They took a long time to identify and use the commonly used terms such as “please” and “thank you”. I believe that these terms have significant cultural importance in the UK. In fact, some of my participants were seen as rude or disrespectful for asking a service without saying “please”. Explaining this issue, Marry and Kibrom opined: It took me time to figure out the important phrases like “please” and “thank you”. I especially used to forget saying “please”, until one day a waiter confronted me. I asked for Latte without saying “please”. Can I have Latte? Then, he said, “please” staring at my face. Then I got it, and said “Oh, please”. I was glad that I made it before he got angry. It was not because one of us [I or the waiter] was rude; it was cultural difference. That was a big lesson for me. (Marry) Even though my English capacity was enough for basic communication, my main challenge here [in the UK] was the culture. The UK has completely different culture from Eritrea. The way they behave, and the way they do things are totally different. A simple example is saying “please” and “thank you”. They are not commonly used in every service you ask or get in Eritrea. Here [in the UK] you have to say please and thank you, unless you could be considered as rude and may be treated not well. (Kibrom) The above statements highlight the fact that socio-cultural integration means learning of the host culture, and this cannot happen overnight. It takes time to identify cultural differences, and act accordingly. This may depend on various factors, such as migrants’ socio-demographic characteristics, including their length of residence in the host country (Algan, Bisin, Manning, & Verdier, 2013), which help migrants to produce specific cultural integration patterns.
124 Samson Maekele Tsegay I believe that the socio-cultural and educational conditions of Eritrea have led the people to be introverted or reserved. The Eritrean culture generally motivates introverted behavior. The teaching-learning process is also teacher-centred. For instance, Sterckx, Fessehazion and Teklemariam (2018, p. 17) claimed that “the Dutch find Eritreans to be introvert and shy by nature, making it difficult to establish contact.” The same could be true for the highly educated Eritrean migrants in the UK, which consequently affects their social and professional networking. Many of my participants told me that they had problems of speaking about themselves and expressing their qualities, observing that it is socially unacceptable to speak about yourself in Eritrea. It is considered as sheer and unacceptable expression of individuality, in the Eritrean context, where being embedded in social relationships takes precedence over the individual. Nevertheless, cultural identities are always in process (Grossberg, 1996) and constantly reshaping along integration process (Algan, Bisin, Manning, & Verdier, 2013). They allow migrants to change through time. Of course, highly educated Eritrean migrants are not different. As indicated above, they were able to learn new things and produce new cultural identities through everyday interaction. Their interaction with the new environment and the settled population helped them to develop important socio-cultural and psychological adjustments (Wiese, 2010). Hence, through time, they were able to learn culturally appropriate skills and gain access to required services, without totally abolishing their culture of origin. They particularly use their native language with Eritreans, eat Eritrean food, go to Eritrean community church and associate with Eritreans. Yet, they learned new knowledge, skills and attitudes that could enable them to ‘fit in’ the new environment. To conclude, I indicate that highly educated Eritrean migrants came with lots of expectations to the UK. The migrants expected that they had knowledge, skills and attitudes required to easily integrate to the UK socio-cultural and economic context. However, they found out that many of their expectations were not realistic. Many of the capitals they held were not fully recognised and/or deficient in their host country. Hence, highly educated Eritrean migrants were required to start afresh to break the academic and qualification barriers. They went back to college to obtain a second bachelor’s degree or pursue graduate study in order to gain a UK qualification. They also opted to volunteer in some institutions to gain local work experience. In the next section, I analyse the struggle of the highly educated Eritrean migrants to fit in the new context. I also discuss the role of the educational attainment of the migrants in the process.
The Struggle to Fit In Research indicates that education plays a big role in integrating both the migrants and host people (Bradat¸an & Kulcsár, 2014; Freire, 2010;
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 125 Fokkema & Haas, 2011; Levitt & Jaworsky, 2007; Torres, 2002). I agree with this notion. Yet, my findings add new insight and information to the nexus between migration and education. I show that highly educated migrants use their educational attainment to understand and fill the gap created due to socio-cultural, academic and other differences between the origin and host countries. The Eritrean migrants who participated in my research project used their educational attainment to further develop their capacity to interact and socialise with the host people, and gain access to essential services. Thus, the educational attainment was significant to interact with the established population and learn the new culture, gain a new work experience and obtain a UK qualification.
Learning the New Culture As I have shown above, the educational qualification, work experience and language fluency of highly educated Eritrean migrants were considered deficient, when compared with those held by the host population. Yet, it is important to note that the educational attainment of migrants plays a vital role in the struggle to fit in a new context. My participants used their educational attainment to search for information and learn the socio-cultural conditions of the host country, the UK. Cultural difference causes different problems. In response, many higher education graduates, including my participants, are equipped with multidimensional skills required to engage in local and global issues (Morais & Ogden, 2011). For instance, Eritrean higher education institutions teach their students the skills, attitudes and values to be responsible global citizens (see Tsegay, 2016). Yet, these skills are not enough for them to be able to integrate to a specific culture; they need to make extra efforts to learn it. In this context, educational attainments are an asset. As many participants explained, it is vital in learning the host country’s values, beliefs and even expressions, which are important to interact with the established population. In doing so, the migrants become aware of their own values, principles and biases. They learn to ‘fit in’ the new environment and co-exist with the established population. For instance, Wolday told me: Being able to speak the language and read various materials about the UK enabled me to know the rules and regulations of the country. I was also able to understand the [UK] people’s values and perceptions on various issues. These helped me to avoid any bad situations in the country. Many other participants expressed similar views. Ermias stated that “the UK people have their own values and cultures. They do have their own merits. Hence, I have to know these values in order to respect them, and
126 Samson Maekele Tsegay in return get respected.” Understanding the host culture helps migrants to be culturally sensitive, and respect the host values and cultures, which could also be responded to with respect. This in fact is the essence of global citizenship: to respect and value diversity (Oxfam, 2014). It also sheds light to the argument that highly skilled immigrants are likely to face less discrimination (Fokkema & Haas, 2011). Migrants face less discrimination not mainly for the educational qualification that they hold, but for the values and principles that they exhibit. Of course, I do understand the role of education in developing a good and responsible global citizen. Hence, it is important to recognise the contribution of previous educational attainment as a means of lifelong learning, and acquiring new insight for the future. My participants told me that life was difficult when they first arrived in the UK. The loneliness, exclusion and delays in the decision over their asylum applications were devastating. In such conditions, it takes confidence and courage to go out and integrate to the new environment. However, it was also a decisive moment to either accept the cold life or fight to make it better. The interviews I conducted show that many participants decided to fight to make their life better. They started to learn the new culture by reading different materials and volunteering in various institutions. Solomon was one of the participants who took the initiative to explore life in the UK. He said: Until I get a decision for my asylum application, I didn’t get any [integration related] support from the state. There was no formal information which says this is the way to integrate, but I took my personal initiatives. Instead of sitting idle, I started to search information and volunteer in an organisation to understand the UK culture and labour system. Marry, Semhar and Yohana were able to make friends from churches and other social groups. Yohana told me that “attending a church allowed me to meet many people and learn how to cope with the [UK] system and culture.” Furthermore, Helen and Haben explained that they were spending a lot of time reading about academic and work conditions of the UK. They stated that their educational attainment was helpful even to understand what they missed or lacked to successfully integrate in the UK. For example, they found out that they needed to get a UK qualification because the Eritrean qualifications they held were less helpful in the UK job market. This indicates that, despite its deficiency, their educational attainment and English capacity were very important to socialise with different members of the established population. The migrants were able to make friends and meet with people from different cultural backgrounds. I agree that cultural identities are learned (Spencer-Oatey, 2012). Similarly, my study shows that migrants learn different cultural elements.
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 127 However, they do not embrace every value, norm and principle they encounter. Meron told me that some of the values and principles of the UK are opposite to what he holds. He said, “It is difficult to embrace and celebrate values and norms which I don’t believe in, but I tolerate them.” Being aware that the UK is one of the most diverse countries in the world, I also concur with the Home Office (2013) that there is a set of values and responsibilities shared by the majority of the people living in the country. Moreover, many British values are upheld by different laws and regulations to make the people aware of their rights and responsibilities (O’Cinneide, 2012). Hence, as many participants explained, knowing British laws and regulations is significant in adhering to local values and norms. To support this argument, Ermias emphasised that a simple Eritrean greeting could be misunderstood for sexual harassment in the UK. Eritrean greetings include shaking hands, hugging and/or kissing on the cheek which could be considered as types of behaviour that amount to sexual harassment in the UK. So knowing and understanding British values and norms is not only about cultural sensitivity, it is also about protecting yourself from unintended offences. The perspectives of Meron and Ermias are very clear. It is good that migrants should be aware of the values, norms and attitudes of the established population. However, this does not mean that they must apply whatever they learn. Neither does it mean that they have to condemn whatever they do not agree with. They can select and apply the things they feel are important and in line with the rules and regulations of the country. At the same time, they should also tolerate or respect the other people’s values, norms and attitudes, unless they are harmful or illegal. In addition, considering the delicate nature of ‘consent’, Ermias’s statement, above, indicates that the consequence of cultural confusion could be tragic. This in fact confirms that cultural identities are fluid and open to external influences, and it deepens the statement of Vieira and Trindade (2008) that culture is not static. To conclude, my participants used their educational attainment to equip themselves with information required to embrace the cultural differences they find between their lives in the origin and host countries, and to cope with any cultural change that might occur in the host country.
Local Work Experience and Culture My informants are highly skilled individuals who left their country due to socio-economic and political hardships. They served in different institutions in Eritrea, including in high level positions. However, most of them lack international experience. They had never travelled and
128 Samson Maekele Tsegay worked outside of their country, before their time of emigration. Eritrea is one of the few countries requiring their citizens to obtain an exit visa. Individuals are restricted from travelling outside the country without finishing their national service (Arapiles, 2015). Moreover, those who are doing their national service are only allowed to leave the country with special permission from their organisation, required as a condition of their visas. Such permission is obtained mainly to attend a meeting or for human resources development purposes. This indicates that many Eritrean graduates had no or little experience about other countries’ work culture, which is usually connected to the overall culture of the countries. Work culture encompasses shared values, beliefs, thoughts and attitudes of employees; it also deals with ideologies, principles, as well as decision and communication process of organisations (Alvesson, 2012). Research indicates that there is a connection between culture and organisation practices (see Hofstede, 1991, 2011; Treven, Mulej, & Lynn, 2008). My findings reveal that highly educated Eritrean migrants were able to secure volunteering work based on their Eritrean educational qualification. This enabled them to get local work experience and understand the UK work culture. The interviewees explained that they used their educational attainment to gain additional skills and experiences, which helped them to integrate to the host country. For example, Habtay started to volunteer in some organisations soon after he arrived in the UK. He spoke that the experience was important both culturally and professionally. “I was able to learn that people are very careful in their work culture, including the respect they have for time and appointments [which are not common in Eritrea].” The experience of volunteering provided many participants with the opportunity to blend their theoretical and practical knowledge about the UK working environment, society and culture. In particular, it was important to understand the relationship between British culture and the workplace. As many noted, the outcome is that understanding cultural differences avoids many organisational difficulties that arise due to cultural ignorance (Treven, Mulej, & Lynn, 2008). Furthermore, the volunteering experience gave the Eritrean migrants an insight to the UK labour market. Michael and Meron, for example, told me that the volunteering work helped them to assess themselves and plan ahead. I did a volunteering work; and it gave me an opportunity to assess and find out what the current [UK] job situation looks like. It also helped me to rethink my strategies in finding a job in the UK. I was able to reflect on whether I should plan for one permanent job or work in different organisations. It [the volunteering work experience] was both challenging and interesting. (Michael)
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 129 It was first hard to accept to do a volunteering work to gain new experience. It was a big challenge to start anew. But once I overcame this challenge and started volunteering, I used it as a means to show my skills and get accepted for that. The volunteering work was a good platform to show my abilities that I can do and perform various tasks. It was also an opportunity to assess myself and identify my transferable skills. (Meron) As can be seen, voluntary work exposed these migrants to the UK working environment. In doing so, they were able to assess themselves and explore whether they were well equipped to participate in the UK job market. In fact, during their voluntary work, most of my participants found themselves competent to carry out their duties and responsibilities. They also quickly adapted to the new system and equipment that they never used before. In general, volunteering was significant in their ability to integrate into UK work culture, learn new skills and fill any gaps created by cultural differences between Eritrea and the UK. Through volunteering, the Eritrean migrants were also able to make social and professional networks, and friends from different sociocultural backgrounds. These interactions and networks widened their knowledge, skills and experiences about the UK. Of course, their educational attainment was the center for all these achievements. The following testimonies evidence the connection between educational attainment and volunteering work in helping migrants to gain social and professional networks in their host country. My educational qualification from Eritrea was significant in getting a volunteering work. This, along my English language capacity, helped me to understand the system, values and norms of the country [UK]. I was also able to communicate with people from diverse socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, and make friends. These gave me information to plan and decide about my future activities, including my education and job, in the UK. (Wolday) I started a volunteering work as administrative assistant and interpreter with the aim to use my educational background to help other refugees. However, my volunteering work was mutually beneficial, including to me. In my volunteering experience, I indulged myself in the UK work environment, made professional connections, and explored different [work] options and opportunities. I also got an opportunity to communicate with many UK citizens and people from other countries, and that opened my eyes. My educational
130 Samson Maekele Tsegay attainment and the advantage of speaking English language were vital in the process. (Solomon) In this context, volunteering was significant in making professional and social networks. Many participants told me that they used volunteering experience to find a job in similar institutions, after getting a UK qualification. This adds a new insight to the argument that education is vital in shaping the experience and life course of migrants. I believe that it plays an important role in brightening the life and future of migrants.
Back to College In this part, I show that most of the highly educated Eritrean migrants returned to college to upgrade their educational qualification, in order to be competitive in the UK job market. My participants argued that returning to college had an additional purpose. They were able to meet and interact with students from diverse socio-cultural communities. Nevertheless, Eritrean migrants, who became students, had also to manage the social and pedagogical conditions of the higher education institutions in the UK. Almost all of my participants went to college in the UK with the aim of upgrading their educational qualifications and competing in the UK job market. Besides, they thought that universities could be good places to learn the host culture and develop a sense of belonging with the established population. Neguse earned anther bachelor’s degree in the UK, in a different specialisation from the one he earned in Eritrea. He said that he returned to college to upgrade his qualification to a UK one. He also used the opportunity to study a program of his interest, instead of following the same courses that he had reluctantly studied in the University of Asmara. Due to high competition, students like Neguse had not been able to join a department of their choice at the University of Asmara. I decided to go to college and get another degree in the UK. It was important to study a program of my choice and upgrade my qualification to the UK degree level. That gives me better opportunity to compete for a job. Moreover, it is an advantage to interact with students from different cultural backgrounds and experiences. It gives you an opportunity to know the UK culture, and beyond. (Neguse) Many other participants supported Neguse’s thoughts. Going to college was significant for filling the gaps they found during their volunteering work. In addition to cultural difference, there are many other examples
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 131 relating to differences between the two countries. There is huge technological difference between Eritrea and the UK in the health sector. The pedagogical practices and technological advancements are not similar in the education sector. A law graduate from Eritrea needs to understand the UK legal system in order to integrate to the UK job market. In fact, the majority of my participants said that these gaps were more important in convincing them of the need to return to college rather than to upgrade the demoted Eritrean qualification. They argued that a four years’ degree from Eritrea should not be considered less than a three years’ degree from the UK. However, despite these sentiments, they agree that they need a local degree to compete in the job market. This of course does not mean that the Eritrean degree is wasted. It is rather used to help people realise their dreams: get the proper capitals to integrate to the new context. Eritrean educational qualifications helped them gain access to UK universities. It was a base for their further development. Wolday clearly pointed out, “My life would have been very difficult without my educational attainment, and it would be hard to see the person that you see now.” Fanus concurred that her life would have been difficult and different. She joined a UK university and took volunteering work in order to get a UK qualification and understand the culture. Accordingly, she was able to get a glimpse of life in the UK, and be aware of the ‘Dos’ and ‘Don’ts’. Like many other participants, Fanus told me that her Eritrean qualification enabled her to enter a university without attending any English courses or taking the English exams required by UK institutions. As much as she gave credit to her educational attainment, Fanus also did the same to the organisations, friends and members of her family who helped her devise ways to integrate to the socio-cultural and economic life of the UK. As Ermias said, “The beginning is an uphill.” Furthermore, the process is not smooth. It needs enormous support from various stakeholders. Socio-cultural integration is not an easy task. It is very demanding and full of challenges. Indeed, entering a university enables migrants to socialise with other people and get a local qualification. However, I found that different factors such as culture, age and pedagogical practices greatly affect my participants’ social and academic life. Culture affects how individuals write, speak and behave (Gay, 2010). Along with Sterckx, Fessehazion, and Teklemariam (2018), I argue that Eritrean culture leads people to be introverted and shy. We do not often speak or write about our qualities and emotions. My participants’ testimonies also show that it takes them a long time to make friends with people from the host population or other nationalities. They feel at ease being close to each other. I believe that this affects their communication and socialising patterns. As Yohana indicated, their shyness is often perceived as lack of knowledge and self-confidence by others. The good thing is
132 Samson Maekele Tsegay that the Eritreans migrants (students) gradually came to understand the situation and act upon it. They show that they have knowledge; they are well experienced; they can do more; and they are in a better position than many think they are. In addition, Neguse and Semhar stated that most undergraduate UK students are young. They hold an average of six or more years’ difference when compared with the highly educated Eritrean migrants. Hence, it was not easy to find a common interest outside academia and easily socialise with the young students. The following excerpts evidence some of the challenges faced in college. The [UK] students were too young compared to my age. They just came from high school. They were young, mostly 17 or 18; and I was around 25 when I joined the university. To be honest, it was a struggle. But slowly you start to understand them and they do the same. You explain to them where you came from, what your background is. You start to chat and to also tell them about yourself. Slowly, they start to know your ability and that you can do more. Then, they get surprise about your capacity and start to appreciate you as a person, and the differences you have with them. At the same time, you understand them and the (cultural) differences in between. (Semhar) The education system here [in the UK] and back home are different. The teaching style in this country is student centred and puts great emphasis on independent learning. However, our Eritrean experience was more of teacher centred. Another issue is related to technology and other teaching-learning facilities, which were very scarce in Eritrea. For example, I had low computer skills and couldn’t type well, which are important skills in the UK. Hence, when you come here, everything becomes new to you. In addition to the cultural barriers, the age difference with the UK students also makes integration challenging and time consuming. (Neguse) Here, Neguse captures another significant challenge related to teaching methodology. In fact, it is an idea shared by most of my participants: the UK universities use ‘student-centred’ teaching methodology, which is different from the commonly used ‘teacher-centred’ pedagogy in Eritrea. It is important to note that some teachers in Eritrea try to use mixed or semi-interactive pedagogical practices to nurture their students to be responsible global citizens (Tsegay, 2016). However, there is a lack of adequate human and material resources to facilitate interactive pedagogy. Besides, the political situation of Eritrea is not hospitable for global citizenship education work. The government has frozen the constitution, which is meant to guarantee personal and academic
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 133 freedom. It also heavily surveys and regulates the higher education institutions (HEIs) through various means. For instance, the HEIs and their staff experience political intervention in administrative affairs, receiving visas to study abroad or participate in conferences, and in conducting research in areas which affect government policies (Müller, 2008). The government’s intolerance of freedom of speech negatively affected academic activities and development of global citizenship education in the country. Such actions further restricted the exposure of students to student-centred pedagogy. My participants found the pedagogical practices of the UK universities challenging for two reasons. First, the student-centred approach is demanding, and requires students to be proactive and take big responsibility for their own learning (Freire, 2010; Hooks, 2010). However, the Eritrean migrants had less or no such experience. The Eritrean experience made them afraid of teachers, rather than respect and at the same time challenge them. This then negatively affected their academic life in the UK. As Yohana explained, they became hesitant even to approach their teachers and ask for help. They struggled alone to work their assignments and meet the deadline, until they learned how the system works and managed to cope with it. Second, many of the examples discussed in class were not familiar to them. As many participants stated, it was not a language problem. They were able to listen to the entire class discussion, but they had a problem in understanding the content. The examples used and topics selected for discussion were not familiar to them. Senait told me that it was basically a cultural issue. Our culture is different and sometimes I was not able understand the [UK] jokes and examples shared in class. I could not understand what they [the teacher and student] were saying. Of course, they were speaking in English, and I could listen it. Yet, it was hard to comprehend the meaning. It was then really hard to express myself. I couldn’t participate in the discussion. For the first year, it was hard [for me] to fit to the class. (Senait) Many other participants shared similar thoughts. They pointed out that many of the examples discussed in class were based on ongoing UK or European events. Others were connected to television programs, to which the migrants had no access. The examples or jokes could be familiar to the local students, but they were new for the Eritrean migrants. The migrants were getting confused in such cases. Of course, through time, they got back on track. They showed that they have a potential and an experience lying underneath their reservation and shyness. In fact, my experience shows that many Eritrean students become among the top 10 per cent of their graduating class.
134 Samson Maekele Tsegay
Conclusion This study explores the socio-cultural integration experiences of highly educated Eritrean migrants in the UK. It indicates that migrants come with lots of expectations to the UK. They believe that their prior educational qualification and work experience would enable them to easily integrate to the social and economic context of the country. However, they found out that many of their expectations were not correct. Hence, they were required to start afresh to break the academic and qualification barriers. They went back to college to obtain a second bachelor’s degree or pursue their graduate study in order to gain a UK qualification. They also opted to volunteer in different institutions to gain local work experience, understand the labour market and learn the new culture. My findings further indicate that there are various challenges for global citizenship education work in Eritrea. In particular, the impact of the political system was significant in limiting the rights of citizens and realising their full potential. This does not mean that highly educated Eritrean migrants do not have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to embrace cultural differences with the established population. However, they are not enough. Hence, they use their educational attainment to gain additional knowledge, skills and experiences in order to integrate to the host country. One simple example is that they used their English capacity to communicate with the established population and understand the values and norms of the UK societies. This adds new knowledge and insight to the argument that language acquisition has a key influence on socio-cultural integration of migrants (BeBe, 2012; de Araujo, 2011). It helps migrants to nurture additional experiences and multiple (multicultural) identities to deal with cultural differences they find between the lives in their origin and host countries. My study shows that socio-cultural integration is not an easy process. Cultural differences and deskilling were the major challenges that the highly educated Eritrean migrants faced. Cultural differences between the UK and Eritrea hindered swift socio-cultural, economic and academic integration of the migrants in their host country. This implies that migrants need to understand the host culture to successfully carry out their social, academic and work activities. In addition, the Eritrean bachelor’s degree is not only less than an advanced diploma, but it also has limited significance in finding a professional job. Such deskilling frustrated many of my participants, and they became nostalgic for the central position they enjoyed in Eritrea (Wilson-Forsberg, 2015). In fact, they argued that it is part of the country’s systemic racism, targeted to hinder immigrants from taking a professional job. Many studies indicate that Black and minority ethnic applicants have been victims of racial
Challenges and the Struggle to Fit In 135 discrimination in recruitment practices in Britain (see Bosanquet & Doeringer, 1973; Wood et al., 2009). I believe that this could even be worse for migrants who lack important documents to evidence their academic qualification and work experience. Finally, in this study, I have shown that cultural identities are fluid, dynamic and affected by socio-economic and political factors. A change in law and regulation can affect cultural change, and vice versa. Hence, migrants should know the laws and regulations of their host country to cope with any cultural change that may occur. At the same, they should also be aware of any cultural change to comply with any legal amendments or change.
Acknowledgement I thank the Roehampton University-Sacred Heart (RUSH), and Roehampton University-Santander Scholarships which supported me in conducting this study. In addition, I am grateful to Prof. Debbie Epstein and Prof. Marie-Pierre Moreau for their comments, which improved the manuscript significantly.
Notes 1. Samson Maekele Tsegay was a Program Coordinator at the University of Asmara and the National Board for Higher Education (NBHE), Eritrea, for about ten years. 2. The UK NARIC is the designated United Kingdom national agency for the recognition and comparison of international qualifications and skills.
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7 Global Citizenship Education A Method for Finding in Translation Susan Wiksten
Global Citizenship Education (GCE) is a development agenda promoted by the United Nations (Tawil, 2013; UNESCO, 2014). This chapter analyzes GCE in hard spaces. Hard spaces are contexts in which circumstances for the development of education have been found to be particularly difficult. A correlating macro-economic term is ‘low income countries’ (World Bank, 2018). Abstractions that draw on evidence, such as income brackets, are powerful tools for communication. However, such categorizations are weak in addressing social and cultural context. In order to gain relevancy for real-life development efforts and for a better understanding of what motivates individual actors (Sen, 1999) in different socio-cultural set-ups, complementary descriptions are needed. I use the term ‘culturally sensitive translation’ to describe efforts in which concepts such as resources and challenges are described in locally meaningful ways. In this chapter, my goal is to construct a culturally sensitive translation of what is meant by resources and challenges to education development in hard spaces. I identify generalized and out-of-range uses of categories that draw on macro-economic theory as a problem for the development of education in hard spaces. I wish to direct attention to meaningful interpretations of existing data-sets as an area where much remains to do, not as a technical or intellectual exercise but for the development of evidence-based analyses and research questions. I propose that instead of relying on deductive categorizations alone, such as income brackets, we need more efforts to bridge understandings with insights from inductive analyses. Efforts to negotiate what makes sense in education development efforts locally are critical for GCE if we wish to move from hard spaces to viable futures. This is why I prefer in my analysis to use a term such as ‘hard spaces’ rather than an economic category. The term ‘hard spaces’ remains comparatively more flexible and open to different perspectives and explanations. My objective is to contribute to the development of analytical practices that draw on diverse perspectives and local participation in defining and understanding local challenges and resources for education. What is meant by ‘cultural sensitivity in translation’ in this chapter is
Global Citizenship Education 141 the construction of an evidence base that pro-actively seeks to question monolingual analyses based on single perspectives and dominant assumptions. I aim to show that reading different explanations of hard spaces in parallel is in fact not a very complicated method to carry out and the benefits in form of more balanced analyses are important.
Researcher Positionality Carrying out my analysis from the position of a comparative education expert trained in Europe and the U.S., I find the grounding of meaningful data analyses in the lived realities of communities targeted by development efforts a real challenge. As highlighted in the scholarship of Matias and in the work of other scholars who build on critical race theory (CRT), being a white scholar from the Global North is associated with a complex tangle of both norm-driven behaviors and emotions (Matias, 2016). The possibilities and limitations for being an ally and contributor to discourses that analyze relationships tangled with institutionalized and internalized forms of racism in meaningful and ethical ways is a challenge and an ongoing learning process. It is my conviction that such challenges are best approached by (1) recognizing the existence of such challenges and (2) analyzing difficult circumstances using structured and transparent methods. Cultural differences in the development of education have spurred my efforts to translate meaning in education development and to propose the method that I outline in this chapter. Over the course of some thirty years, I have built an advanced proficiency in five languages. Developing a sensitivity for what reasonably makes sense for speakers of different languages has for me required more than extensive stays immersed in the cultures that reproduce and communicate in each of the languages. In my experience, it takes a combination of curiosity, musical ear and most of all courage to subject oneself to a social game that one is not familiar with. A game in which the unaccustomed will occasionally come across as a fool as not all attempts to express meaning with an unfamiliar set of rules can succeed. I accredit the fact that I have excelled in my analytical skills in five languages, e.g. I have successfully produced official documents in each, to purposive interaction in professional work-environments over long time-periods (for each more than two years). That is, environments in which I have worked with others in their languages. My experiences have led me to a view in which I see literature in different languages as a gateway to different societies. Celebrated authors provide compelling examples not only of the esthetics of language use. They provide insight into world-views supported within the societies that utilize a given language. Each language constitutes shared references for enabling and limiting reasoning (Derrida, 2008). Certain languages
142 Susan Wiksten have over the course of geopolitical history and trade gained positions as international languages of power. Translations between languages of power such as English and small languages such as Finnish (with in total approx. 5 million speakers in the world) have directed my attention to reasonings that are easily expressed in one, while meaningless or of little meaning in another language. Such differences in language use are prolific in education because practices in education draw on traditions, legal frameworks and values associated to world-views that vary from one location to another (Wiksten, 2018). On this background, I do not see encounters with multiple languages as a problem in comparative research but as an important methodological resource and an opportunity to break the confines of singular sets of thoughts in order to consider alternative approaches. To succeed in this vein, it is necessary to construct meaningful rather than mechanistic interpretations of resources and challenges. This is why I see the authors of societal drama, the authors who are familiar with the socio-cultural reality of a specific context, as important contributors to our understanding of types of reasoning that make sense within the world-view and the shared references that arise from everyday life- experiences and practices in a given society or region. One of the reasons that African literature historically has played a marginal role in development work is that African societies were studied by Europeans using an anthropological approach tinted by colonial practices. Anthropologists in early modernity were envisioned as civilized men studying a culture that was not civilized (cf. M’Bokolo, 2000). I propose development planning and practices to this day struggle with a legacy in which the literature (or oral traditions) of regions targeted with development efforts are assumed to be a misplaced point of attention. Requirements of technical specialization or time and resource constraints are sometimes used as an explanation for such habits. In line with Said and Matias, I propose that such assumptions and habits build in part on internalized forms of racism (Said, 1978; Matias, 2016). Calling for a consideration of societal context, I deliberately challenge such habits by proposing that local forms of narrative traditions contribute a worthwhile and relevant evidence base and analytical inclusion. My understanding of what Hale refers to as the need for self-subversion as a privileged scholar (Hale, 2014) and what Skinner refers to as the need to read different stances in parallel in order to better understand individual stances (Skinner, 2002) can be summarized in two points. (1) Recognizing and bringing together multiple perspectives contributes to stronger analyses (cf. (Hammer & Kellner, 2009; Harding, 2004; Rousseau, 1957; De Sousa Santos, 2014). (2) There is no single truth in the social sciences. It is for this reason that it is important for scholars and experts to diversify the sources of information on which analyses, interpretations and translations build, so that different stances are included
Global Citizenship Education 143 to the experience base on which accuracy and relevancy is determined. Pro-active diversification of the knowledge base on which analyses draw benefits from including variation along all socially defined categories that include but are not limited to: (1) first language, (2) ethnicity, (3) race, (4) gender, (5) age, (6) socio-economic status, (7) educational background, (8) sexual orientation, (9) nationality.
Research Question Focusing on a Comparison of Three Countries in Africa Kenya, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are in this chapter identified and described as targets for Global Citizenship Education (GCE). I have selected this set of countries in order to show variation within a region that is both a target for GCE efforts and modern development discourses (Mundy, 2016; Coulibaly, 2018). The thesis I build is that GCE can be used as a fruitful approach for learning about local challenges and resources in developing contexts. My approach is unique in its interdisciplinary approach that deploys a bifurcated lens by bringing together socio-cultural and economic analyses that seldom are read in parallel. The research question is: How do definitions of hard spaces contribute to the construction of hard spaces and what are some of the ways by which GCE can transmit knowledge arising from such places? In brief, how can GCE serve as an approach for learning about hard spaces? An objective of this chapter is to outline some of the ways in which definitions of hard spaces contribute to the construction of difficulties in the development of education. Also, to model an analysis of circumstances associated to education in different societies using quantitative and qualitative data. UNESCO Institute of Statistics data on literacy rates from Rwanda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo are used as empirical examples (UNESCO, 2018). I draw in part on De Sousa Santo’s recommendation for intercultural translation (2014). For me, this means in line with the scholarship of Hall that data should be interpreted in a manner in which particular attention is paid so that meaning from one language to another, or from one society to another, is not enforced (Hall, 2006). Cutting over dialogue and alternative perspectives in order to enforce a specific perspective is how Hall explains the function of ideologies and ideologically based decisions. This explanation of how evidence can be strategically set aside or ignored is best understood in line with Gramsci’s explanation of how decisions made by groups and individuals can be supported by hegemonic references (Gramsci, 1971; Hall, 1996). Scholars such as Hall and Gramsci have shed light on the socio-cultural reproduction of power-relations in societies and reasons that contribute to policy decisions that are not in the best interest of large parts of the population in a given society.
144 Susan Wiksten
Comparing Different Definitions of Hard Spaces My method consists of juxtaposing different definitions of hard spaces, in economic terms and in socio-cultural terms, as proposed by scholars that represent the Global North and the Global South (Collier, 2007; M’Bokolo, 2000; Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982). The method bridges micro- and macro-level perspectives in societal analysis and highlights problems associated with lopsided definitions of constraints and resources. A better balance in the description of resources and constraints is important if we wish to set aside the colonizer’s agenda and move forward with efforts that can be understood as meaningful and relevant from the perspective of populations subjected to GCE efforts. That is, if local ownership of education development efforts is seen as an important goal, as I propose it should be. The reason may seem obvious and is primarily associated with motivation and political legitimacy. The sustenance of a given development effort, be it economic or political, is dependent on local buy-in. The approach to interpreting data using multiple perspectives and purposively reaching beyond descriptions and assumptions of a singular language, reaching beyond the context of established Anglophone discourses, recognizing multilateral data collection efforts and proactively constructing analysis from sources that may not easily speak to each other, distinguishes my definition of culturally sensitive translation. Another term that could be used for the same approach is ‘localized translation’. Localized in the sense that local perspectives are included as an important component of sense-making. The reasons for why e.g. M’Bokolo and Collier are rarely read together are several and include the following. (1) Technical specialization in modernity has led to a silo model of expertise where cultural analysts are weary of evoking economic context and economic analysts are comfortable with bracketing out complex socio-cultural issues from their analyses. (2) M’Bokolo is a French-speaking scholar in the social sciences, Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ have contributed with an early effort to develop popular culture in one of the local languages (Kikuyu) in Kenya, whereas Collier represents an English-language field of research in the social sciences. Describing the work of a scholar born in Congo (M’Bokolo) who has constructed analyses on postcolonialism in French and describing the work of a Kenyan author whose work has been translated into English has consequences that include the following. (1) The perspectives presented by M’Bokolo and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ are interpretations by individuals provided at a specific location at a specific time. Therefore, neither of these descriptions of African history and society represent perspectives to which all representatives of a given political unit or population, let alone each individual, would necessarily agree with. Yet, both provide meaningful explanations that are different from the analyses that follow the logic of the European colonizer. (2) The analyses presented in
Global Citizenship Education 145 this chapter are mediated through languages used by European colonizers (French and English). As such, the analyses are hemmed in by conventions of written languages and practices associated to geopolitically dominant languages.
Chapter Structure This chapter is organized as follows. The first part of the chapter presents the theoretical and methodological approach and discusses key definitions. I describe how Collier using a macro-economic perspective constructs Kenya, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as development traps (Collier, 2007). Collier’s analysis is limited as it brackets out the socio-cultural context of the causal relations that he proposes (Bensted, 2011). Socio-cultural definitions of hard spaces by African scholars Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ and M’Bokolo are provided as contrast (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982; M’Bokolo, 2000). The first part of this chapter thereby outlines a few of the problems that underpin the ways in which education development in hard spaces is constructed using modern concepts. The second part of the chapter presents data on literacy rates in Rwanda, Kenya and the DRC. The data is discussed in light of the definitions articulated in the first part of the chapter. I conclude the chapter by proposing that GCE can be used as a fruitful approach for generating actionable development goals and for learning about hard spaces.
Theory, Method and Key Definitions Theoretical Framework I use a sociological framework and draw on the work of development scholars and postcolonial scholars from the Global North and the Global South (Giddens, 1984; Collier, 2007; Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982; M’Bokolo, 2000; Freire, 1982; De Sousa Santos, 2014). Following Giddens, societal phenomena are determined by the interaction of societal structures and agents (Giddens, 1984). All participants in an education development context are in this perspective understood to contribute to the meaning and sense that is made of what goes on in education development efforts. Critiques of Giddens’s work include those made by scholars in social systems theories, prominently Archer (Archer, 1996). Archer notes that Giddens’s analysis lacks sensitivity to the ways in which complex systems of social interaction form as an outcome of social practices (Archer, 2010). Some of Giddens’s propositions would in my view benefit also from greater sensitivity to problems associated to Eurocentric descriptions of modernization (Giddens, 1984). Both Archer and Giddens have
146 Susan Wiksten in their work studied the ways in which human agency and social structures contribute to social reproduction in societies, which is why I find some of the basic articulations of Giddens’s framework helpful despite these limitations. The theoretical framework I deploy seeks to address a concrete problem in development efforts. The problem is sometimes referred to as inefficiency in aid and development provision. Why is it that large sums of development aid in some cases have led to little in terms of long-term results in hard spaces? Klees proposes it is because poorly supported and misleading analyses have led to failed policies in the development of education (Klees, 2008). This disconnection between the macro-level goals of development efforts and micro-level results in local communities is well known. For example, failures in famine relief provision in Ethiopia and the Sahel in the 1980s provide an empirical example (De Largy, 2018). Sometimes, corruption or poor governance are proposed causes for the disconnection or inefficiency (Collier, 2007). Such explanations remain somewhat abstract and are problematic when they bring us no closer to addressing real issues that affect life opportunities in hard space communities. Easterly has proposed that the disconnection between life in hard spaces and the goals of development efforts is a problem of ‘planners and searchers’ (Easterly, 2006). Easterly uses failures and successes in handing out mosquito nets in Malawi as an example for explaining that planners are those who set up unrealistic goals, whereas searchers are those who go into the field and try to figure out pragmatic solutions (Easterly, 2006, pp. 13–15). Easterly effectively proposes that there exists a general class of ‘planners’ who for some reason are not to be held accountable for basing their decisions on lopsided explanations and evidence. That an essential feature of this class of professionals is their inability to bridge planning and implementation. I understand Easterly’s stance as one among many recognitions made by development experts, that there are problems associated with the out-of-range use of macro-economic explanations (Ostrom, 1990, pp. 23–24). In contrast to Easterly however, I propose that it is not only reasonable but also possible to provide explanations (cf. Easterly ‘planning’) for some of the problems experienced in development effort implementation (cf. Easterly ‘searching’). In contrast to what Easterly proposes, the editor of this book and I consider it an obligation for anyone using resources intended for the planning of development to improve the explanatory background on which the use of resources is reasoned about. I propose that one way to do so is to complement economic explanations with societal and cultural explanations. Global Citizenship Education and the development of education are fields of inquiry and practice for which it is particularly important to consider the societal and cultural contexts of development (cf. Mundy et al., 2010).
Global Citizenship Education 147 Freire has proposed that resources for the development of education and society in a wider sense can be explored through a three-part analysis (Freire, 1982). Specifically, an analysis that builds on denouncement, announcement and synthesis (ibid.). Freire’s analytical approach aims the development of structured negotiations of shared goals for a society that is less damaging for a large number of people. Notably, in order to counter concentrations of power and corrupt practices. Critical analyses achieved by syntheses that combine efforts to announce and denounce aim in this vein at identifying possibilities for concrete improvements in practices of education in hard spaces. As termed by Freire, possible dreams for the future (Sueño possible, cf. Souza de Freitas, 2008). Research Method The unorthodox approach that I have adopted in this chapter to read large-scale surveys in light of descriptions of socio-cultural context follows the model of analysis proposed by Freire (1982). I start by announcing difficulties as identified in the macro-economic perspective by Collier. I proceed to describing some of the ways in which the work of M’Bokolo (2000) and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ (1982) denounces the colonial premises on which Collier builds his analysis. Finally, I carry out a reading of data on literacy rates for 1987–2017 (UNESCO, 2018) in three countries and synthesize on the ways in which the combination of different perspectives (colonial, macro-economic, socio-cultural and historical) contributes to a culturally sensitive interpretation of the collected data on literacy. This method and approach to inquiry allow me to triangulate quantitative data-sets with sociological and locally meaningful qualitative analyses. For the qualitative analyses, I have conducted a close reading of a play and a lecture (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982; M’Bokolo, 2000). The play “I Will Marry When I Want” was written in 1977 in the early period of independence in Kenya by Ngu˜gı˜ and Ngu˜gı˜ (English translation 1982). The lecture on the history of postcolonialism in Africa was given in 2000 by Elikia M’Bokolo from the DRC (the lecture is available as an online video publication). Whereas the analysis by Collier (2007) represents an expert voice from the Global North, the play by Ngu˜gı˜ and Ngu˜gı˜ (1982) and the lecture by M’Bokolo (2000) are used in the present analysis for problematizing and constructing a culturally sensitive or localized definition of hard spaces. Limitations of the data used here include the following. (1) The statistical data is limited to what has been published online by UNESCO (UNESCO, 2018). (2) My access to the sources is limited to Englishand French-language materials. (3) Due to the voluntary and resourcedependent nature of reporting literacy rates, the existing data-sets are limited. For each of the countries identified in this comparison, literacy
148 Susan Wiksten rates have been reported in three to four instances over the past three decades (see figures 7.1 and 7.2). Development Traps Hard spaces as defined by Collier are ‘development traps’ (2007). A ‘development trap’ is a term that Collier has used for describing some of the difficult circumstances by which he explains why some countries such as the DRC are poor in comparison to industrialized high-income countries such as Germany. The perspective Collier uses is a macro- economic perspective. The circumstances that Collier notes as particularly difficult pertain to: (1) political violence, (2) natural resources, (3) geographical isolation from shipping routes and (4) country size and policy regime (Collier, 2007, pp. 17–75). The categories Collier constructs in his analysis have been critiqued, notably because the causal propositions he makes are broad while poorly informed by socio- cultural factors (cf. Bensted, 2011). One of the reasons that Collier’s analysis remains interesting is that he has made an effort to meaningfully articulate the assumptions on which he builds his analyses in relation to concrete events in a country, such as political conflicts. This section describes an example of the kinds of analyses that are produced using
Figure 7.1 Three-Country Comparison of Literacy Rates (DRC, Rwanda and Kenya) Source: Figure constructed by author using data extracted on 14 July 2018 from UIS.Stat.
Global Citizenship Education 149
Figure 7.2 Three-Country Comparison of Literacy Rates for Women (DRC, Rwanda and Kenya) Source: Figure constructed by author using data extracted on 14 July 2018 from UIS.Stat.
mainstream macro-economic lenses, such as proposed by Collier. The following sections will in contrast present analyses of socio-cultural factors such as the impact of European colonization on African societies. Using Colliers’s definition of development traps as lens I observe that the DRC can be described a low-income country that is rich in natural resources. In the DRC development is challenged due to extensive political violence directed at civilian populations over the past three decades. The Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) reports a complex of regional, local, national and international conflicts that have contributed to more than a hundred thousand deaths in the period 1989 to 2017 (UCDP, 2018). Both Collier and the UCDP point at the wealth of natural resources in the DRC as a contributing factor to the continuation of various political conflicts. The DRC is a difficult development context in part also as killing has formed into a livelihood (cf. Collier, 2007, p. 33). Kenya is geographically located similarly as the DRC and Rwanda in a region with violent political conflicts (UCDP, 2018) and is a recipient of refugees.1 Kenya has experienced primarily tribal conflicts leading to the death of approximately five thousand fatalities between 1989 and 2017.2 Among the three countries compared, Kenya is by the profiling standards
150 Susan Wiksten proposed by Collier what could be termed a “strong performer”. None of the various circumstances that Collier identifies as development traps apply for Kenya. The CIA World Factbook concurs by defining Kenya as “the economic, financial, and transport hub of East Africa” (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 2018). Rwanda is the only one of the three countries in this comparison that fits the category of land-locked countries as proposed by Collier (2007). These are countries that are cut out from international shipping routes. Following Collier, this means in practice that development efforts in Rwanda are comparatively more sensitive to policy decisions and political stability in neighboring countries. Rwanda has a population of approximately 12 million people of predominantly one ethnic group. Following Collier, this constitutes a context that is more difficult to govern. Collier proposes that in particular small countries with weak governance constitute a development trap. Collier also proposes that there is a higher likelihood of civil war in countries of predominantly one ethnicity. The Rwandan genocide in 1994 that caused an approximate of half a million in fatalities (UCDP, 2018) can be seen to fall in line with this proposition by Collier. I will in the following review a historical analysis of African societies that fills in some of the gaps in the analysis proposed by Collier. Postcolonialism in Africa The European colonization of Africa is a complex influence that manifests itself in politics, economics as well as in psychological effects (M’Bokolo, 2000, 08:46). M’Bokolo uses a historical perspective for questioning some of the problems inherent to portraying local and international stances to development in Africa (M’Bokolo, 2000, 3:30). He notes two forms of colonialization: (1) a colonialization in an economic sense and (2) an internalized colonialization that is present in modernization processes such as in the formation of laws and in behaviors of individuals such as in attitudes (M’Bokolo, 2000, 07:49). M’Bokolo identifies institutionalized racism and discourses on métis cultures as empirical examples of the effects of colonialization (M’Bokolo, 2000, 08:01, 08:18). The history of Liberia that was founded by former slaves serves an influential model for the development of a movement for the decolonialization in Africa. In discussing the chronological boundaries of colonialization, M’Bokolo notes that the European colonialization of Africa as a discourse, as an attitude, as a relationship and as an ideology in countries such as England, Spain, France and Belgium, goes beyond the period of European presence in Africa (M’Bokolo, 2000, 10:11). The time period of colonization is often misconstrued as a period of well-being whereas African countries are represented as having fallen into barbary after the
Global Citizenship Education 151 end of colonialization (M’Bokolo, 2000, 17:13). Intellectual efforts in this vein, in which colonial rule is portrayed as a golden age, represent efforts to support neo-colonial approaches and to cover up tensions and problems emanating from colonial history (M’Bokolo, 2000, 19:02). M’Bokolo proposes that there is a tendency to view the history of colonialization in Africa as a long history in which important moments such as the freeing of Nelson Mandela in 1990 are viewed through a juridical lens. The focus on legal frameworks has led to formal analyses rather than relevant and meaningful analyses of the relationship between Africa and its colonizers (M’Bokolo, 2000, 14:23). M’Bokolo proposes that we should in fact view colonialization as a short historical period (M’Bokolo, 2000, 19:46; 20:23). For example, French colonial rule in Africa can be outlined as a period of formal rule from 1900 to 1945. A period that started with the French deposition of local rule in Chad and was marked by domination by military forces (M’Bokolo, 2000, 21:58). Forms of African resistance during and after this period included strikes, revolts and a new religion: the religion of liberation that drew on African ethnic heritage (M’Bokolo, 2000, 26:24). An example of a historical event that contributes to a locally relevant notion of the end of colonialization was the mobilization of African troops in 1935–1941 for the liberation of Ethiopia from the rule of the Italian fascist government (M’Bokolo, 2000, 27:35, 27:56). In the European perspective, colonialization was presented as: (1) civilization, (2) an opening up of Africa to the world and as (3) modernization (M’Bokolo, 2000, 38:44). An extensive expropriation of resources was a key feature of colonialization. Ideologically, the expropriation was justified by presenting Africa as a raw material, a blank spot on the map that had not been organized and taken possession of (M’Bokolo, 2000, 40:20). The trade and exchange of ideas, people and goods within Africa and the world had been supported by a diversity of networks in a long history of Africa. In the short period of colonialization this diversity was in reality not opened up. Instead, the horizon of exchanges and contacts was captured into a singular relationship in which all exchanges were limited to Europe (M’Bokolo, 2000, 44:19). Civilization was during the colonial period brought to Africa by lies in the sense that the existence of prior civilizations in Africa was denied. Colonialization was intended as a positive rupture that would bring about modernization (M’Bokolo, 2000, 33:02). One effect of modernization was the creation of nation-state borders that brought about a new division of Africa into Northern Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa (M’Bokolo, 2000, 33:52). The import of particular forms of production and capitalism was another (M’Bokolo, 2000, 34:19). Having outlined a few of the insights from a postcolonial analysis of African societies, I will in the following review a specific account of development from the perspective of a scholar from Kenya.
152 Susan Wiksten The Perspective of the Local Community A contemporary classic among plays in the Kikuyu language from Kenya, translated as “I Will Marry When I Want” from 1977 by Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, describes various relationships in a rural community in Kenya. I have chosen this text in part due to its availability as a recognized classic and in part as it represents an early effort to foster the development of Kenyan popular culture using local languages and representations of local perspectives. I have chosen it also as it weaves into its text oral histories and cultural expressions such as dance. The play sheds light on some of the socio-cultural expressions that are not readily available in Englishlanguage or French-language analyses that build on forms of logic that are limited in their ability to address oral histories and other than literary forms of cultural expressions established in Anglophone and Francophone research communities and literary traditions. Culture as such is continuously contested and the imagined nation that is produced, reproduced and contested by cultural articulations such as a play are not static (Anderson, 2006). More recent literature or media productions present different representations of socio-cultural relations in Kenya. Generational differences underscore such differences. I nevertheless propose that the play “I Will Marry When I Want” represents a concrete example of an African effort to face, think about, describe and process the effects of colonialization. Relationships within families, between employers and employees, between various political and religious groups nationally, as well as international relationships, are described in the play from the perspective of a couple with two children. The couple face a precarious context of downward social mobility. Their comparatively stable situation as working poor deteriorates when the head of the household loses his job (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982, p. 107). The relationships and events described in the play highlight class differences and tensions associated to wealth and the exertion of power in a local community in Kenya. The plot of the play evolves around a proposal for an agreement between the family of a wealthy farmer, Ahab Kı˜oi wa Kanoru, and the family of a farm laborer, Kı˜gu˜u˜nda. Whereas Ahab is interested in gaining control of a piece of land that the farm laborer owns, Kı˜gu˜u˜nda and his wife hope for a marriage between the children of the two families. Some of the ways in which social categories such as gender and generational differences interact with traditions and life opportunities are rendered in the play. An example of this is the response that the daughter of Kı˜gu˜u˜nda gives to her mother “I shall marry when I want. Nobody will force me into it!” (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982, p. 16). An affirmation that highlights on one hand the parents’ hopes to secure the future of the family by negotiating a socially and economically advantageous marriage. On the other hand, the exclamation of the daughter highlights tensions
Global Citizenship Education 153 between tribal expectations and the will for individual life decisions. The affirmation “I shall marry when I want” represents in this sense an intergenerational challenge. Traditional practices such as singing and dancing are celebrated in the play as representations of local identity. The play effectively portrays some of the individual motivations for strategic moves in which local actors have used a context of societal change for personal advancement at the cost of their neighbors. The independence of Kenya in 1962 was preceded by a decade of political unrest. Mau Mau guerilla songs are used in the play for framing an explanation of this troubled decade (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982, p. 12–13). The difference in wealth between the two families is explained as ill-gains gotten by a traitor, i.e. Ahab is described as someone who in spirit and practices collaborates with the British colonial system. The wealthy antagonist, Ahab Kı˜oi wa Kanoru, and his wife are depicted as using religious symbols in a hypocritical manner (Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜, 1982, pp. 74–83). The wealthy family is described as using Christianity first and foremost as a political tool. Ahab’s household displays Christian artifacts as part of their material wealth. Ahab and his wife use rhetoric that draws on Christian doctrine to justify personal profit interests and to demonstrate themselves as part of a modern construct of power (ibid.). The play underscores the role of the tribal community both as a raison d’être and as an important motivation for political and economic decisions. Whereas a modern European perspective would tend to downplay the role of tribal allegiances in a contemporary context, the play serves a reminder of the long-term influence of indigenous beliefs and practices. Tribal reasoning is not presented as a negative, or as something to be denied or explained as obsolete. Rather, tribal reasoning is presented as an ethical framework that guides actors. As explained by Braudel, societal concepts that guide human behavior and expectations have been observed to persist over longer time periods (Braudel, 1958). While European modernism tends to view tribes as an obsolete reference point, in reality several contemporary political phenomena associated to the concept of nation-states and local self-rule e.g. in Catalonia, in Basque country, in Northern Ireland or Quebec, can be seen to draw on logics of tribal allegiance. The communal dimensions are further emphasized by the author’s decision to present the narrative in the form of a play. The play as a medium allows a celebration of groups of dancers and singers and the display of community with an audience that would, in the 1970s and 1980s in Kenya, have been familiar with the traditional songs and dances. The play thereby contributes to the construction of nationalist identity in a narrative that displays complex relationships, everyday practices and concerns of local communities in Kenya.
154 Susan Wiksten The foremost challenges to development portrayed in the play are described by the following themes: (1) abuse of power, (2) negotiation of real wages and (3) societal structures that enable systematic and ad hoc forms of exploitation. The tribal community in turn is identified as a resource and as a sociological ecosystem that provides opportunities for communal wealth creation as well as hopes and possibilities for negotiation and social mobility. The ways in which resources and challenges to development were articulated in this play provides an important perspective that complements the macro-economic and postcolonial analyses. Notably, by humanizing the effects, reasons and motivations of individual actors in a context subjected to modernization and development efforts. Also, by describing real life concerns and preoccupations of populations targeted by education development efforts. Having reviewed a macro-economic perspective, a postcolonial perspective and a description of local life, I will now proceed with an analysis of publicly available statistics.
Secondary Analysis of Literacy Rates Literacy Rates for the DRC, Kenya and Rwanda Comparing the societal context of education in the DRC, Kenya and Rwanda entails the comparison of education systems working with very different sizes of student populations. The DRC with a total population of approximately 81 million is in this comparison the largest (UN, 2017). Kenya with almost 50 million is closer to half the population of the DRC whereas Rwanda with approximately 12 million has a total population smaller than a third of Kenya (UN, 2017). Kenya displays in the thirty-year period reviewed (1987–2017) consistently higher literacy rates when compared with the DRC and Rwanda (figures 7.1 and 7.2). The DRC displays a comparatively stark gender difference in literacy levels. A possible reason for a decline in literacy rates in Kenya between 1987 and 2017 may be conflicts in surrounding countries that have led to an influx of refugees into Kenya (cf. UCDP, 2018). UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) data from 2010 quotes the population aged twenty-five or more in Kenya as approximately 14 million; 25 percent of women aged twenty-five years or older in Kenya were in 2010 reported as having no schooling; 27 percent among men aged twenty-five years or older in Kenya had no schooling. The literacy rate in Kenya for the population over fifteen years was reported as 82 percent in 2000. Fourteen years later, the rate had decreased to 79 percent. Literacy rates for women over fifteen were reported as 78 percent in 2000. Fourteen years later, the rate had decreased to 74 percent. UIS data from 2012 quotes the population aged twenty-five or more in Rwanda as approximately 4 million; 37 percent of women aged
Global Citizenship Education 155 twenty-five and older were in 2012 reported as having no schooling; 25 percent among men aged twenty-five years or older in Rwanda had no schooling. The literacy rate in Rwanda for the population over fifteen years was reported in 1991 as 58 percent. Twenty-one years later, the rate had increased to 68 percent. Literacy rates for women over fifteen were reported as approximately 60 percent for Rwanda in 2000. Twelve years later, the rate was 65 percent. UIS data from 2016 quotes the population aged twenty-five or more in the DRC as approximately 27.5 million; 26 percent of women aged twenty-five years or older in the DRC were in 2016 reported as having no schooling. Approximately 8 percent of men aged twenty-five years or older in the DRC had no schooling. The literacy rate in the DRC for the population over fifteen years was reported as 67 percent in 2001. Fifteen years later, the rate had increased to 77 percent. Literacy rates for women over fifteen were reported as 54 percent for the DRC in 2001. Fifteen years later, the rate had increased to 67 percent. As illustrated by the above data, the three countries can be described as hard spaces in the context of education development in part as access to schooling continues to be out of reach for many. This circumstance highlights a need for adult education alternatives and suggests that there is a need for education development efforts that offer literacy programs for all age groups. The data show that 72 percent of women aged twentyfive or more in Rwanda had in 2012 either no schooling or incomplete primary education. This poses a particular challenge for efforts to increase female participation in education as there are few women with basic qualifications to take on the role of teachers (UNESCO, 2018). The development trap concept put forth by Collier (2007) describes sets of development-related issues that contribute to the fact that resources for basic education do not reach parts of the population in the three countries compared. I will in the following contrast the explanations of Collier with the somewhat different perspectives and explanations proposed by M’Bokolo (2000) and Ngu˜gı˜ and Ngu˜gı˜ (1982). Results of the Comparison of Definitions of Hard Spaces Discussing the various local revolts and pacification problems experienced by colonial powers in Africa, M’Bokolo proposes the time period 1900–1945 as the height of colonial power. One of the important ruptures that has taken place in the history of the African continent is the border construction during this period. The legally enforced division of the African continent into Sub-Sahara and North Africa did not reflect the established internal and international routes of trade and exchange of ideas in Africa prior to the colonial period (M’Bokolo, 2000). The perspective articulated by M’Bokolo sets in question the propositions of Collier on a number of points. For example, the proposition of
156 Susan Wiksten Collier that small countries with weak governments are a development trap in Africa. Following the overview provided by M’Bokolo, we can note that borders established during colonial rule and in the aftermath of colonial rule are in themselves a recent, and not surprisingly, politically contested circumstance on the African continent. The colonial period was in some localities experienced within the lifetime of only one generation. These observations problematize the legitimacy of political decisions made during the colonial period. We could ask e.g.: What are the legitimate expectations of a government to its population when the government operates in a context where borders have been constructed as a colonial period legal decision by foreign actors? A decision and a line drawn on a map that did not represent the livelihoods of generations of local actors engaged in farming and trade. Reading the lecture of M’Bokolo side to side with the analysis of development traps brings into relief how Collier’s portrayal of value-neutral geographical descriptors (small countries) are problematic. This illustrates how the parallel reading of two different perspectives is fruitful for identifying imbalances in single-perspective analyses. The analysis of Collier displays a distaste for political negotiation and societal complexity. In contrast, the analyses of M’Bokolo and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ highlight societal complexities and the role of negotiation. Both the work of M’Bokolo and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ highlight the role of the tribal community in such negotiations. Economic and political decisions are governed by communal purposes and reasoning in the play by Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ (1982). To identify the play as e.g. purely an expression of Marxist ideology would be to ignore the important role that communal livelihoods and practices have played in the long history of Africa (cf. M’Bokolo, 2000). Using the tribal perspective of Ngu˜gı˜ and Ngu˜gı˜, we could propose that bracketing the political, historical and social contexts of development in Collier’s analysis draws on a self-interested convenience. The purely macro-economic analysis can in light of the work of these African scholars be seen as an approach dictated by what is convenient for someone who has no vested interest in what in reality takes place on the ground in schools in e.g. Rwanda. The everyday realities of schools in Africa are by definition distant and irrelevant in the development perspective that Collier has presented (2007). The juxtaposition of Collier’s analysis with the scholarship of M’Bokolo and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ highlights assumptions guided by the ideologies promoted by the colonial powers. The insistence of Collier that his stance represents political neutrality in development efforts serves a thin veil for the politically loaded premises that are clearly articulated by M’Bokolo. Namely, the tradition of western colonial ideologists to portray the colonial period as a golden age that: (1) brought civilization to Africa, (2) opened up Africa to the world and was (3) a period during which colonial rule had the right to carry out legal and administrative reorganizations and expropriations (M’Bokolo, 2000).
Global Citizenship Education 157 This right as explained by M’Bokolo, was justified by the imposition of racial hierarchies and the promotion of ideas of cultural supremacy. Racial hierarchies and cultural supremacy were deployed for justifying a situation in which foreign expertise did by right not need to negotiate with local populations. The perspective of local communities was proposed uncivilized and therefore something that could simply be ignored. The notion of a ‘white savior complex’ similarly represents the belief that it is in the best interest of all that local negotiations are disregarded on grounds of cultural or racial supremacy (cf. Said, 1978). A striking outcome of the comparison of definitions of hard spaces by Collier, M’Bokolo and Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ is that challenges as defined by the scholars from Africa can be described as actionable whereas Collier’s analysis renders a more fatalistic and deterministic take. Indeed, the overall term that Collier assigns for his description of difficult circumstances is that of ‘development traps’. One reason for the imbalance of the analysis, following Bensted, is that Collier brackets out complex features of societies in his analyses (Bensted, 2011). Notably, by leaving out socio-cultural considerations. The definition of hard spaces by Ngu˜gı˜ & Ngu˜gı˜ focuses on three themes: (1) abuse of power, (2) negotiation of wages and (3) structures that enable exploitation. A key feature of the definition of hard spaces presented by M’Bokolo is that of a misguided focus of development on primarily formal and legal stances. M’Bokolo explains the colonial period as a brief and foreign influence in a reality that is framed by ethnic and cultural negotiation. A rupture in a long history of exchanges of ideas with various parts of the world. In line with M’Bokolo, I propose that the analysis of education development would benefit from a greater focus on the societal dynamics that frame everyday practices on the micro-level of the economy and livelihoods. Analyses of local practices in e.g. farming, service production and trade. In a sense, this proposal can be compared with the call for ‘searchers’ rather than ‘planners’ made by Easterly (Easterly, 2006). A difference is that I see an important role for researchers in education development efforts. I think Easterly unnecessarily disregards the benefits of research-informed practices, while correctly problematizing an out-of-range application of macro-economic explanations. While I infer no causal relationship, I observe that the degree of political violence in the past three decades in the compared countries coincides with the literacy levels (UCDP, 2018; UNESCO, 2018). In particular, with the literacy levels among women. A more frequent incidence of political violence coincides in this three-country comparison with lower literacy rates among women (ibid., see figures 7.1 and 7.2). The size of the country does not in this comparison of literacy rates correlate with any of the data. The data does not, when using literacy rates as an empirical example, support the development trap that Collier suggests is associated to small countries with weak governments (2007). Similarly, the access to
158 Susan Wiksten shipping routes as an isolated indicator that would predict success in development is not supported by the present comparison of literacy data for three countries. The DRC holds in this comparison, despite shipping access, the lowest literacy rates and the highest incidence of political violence (UCDP, 2018; UNESCO, 2018, see also figures 7.1 and 7.2). The convenience of the set of descriptors that Collier proposed in 2007 is that most low-income countries in the world will fit one or other of the proposed descriptors. Either by having or not having a coastal line. In case there is a coastal line, there may or may not be wealth in the form of natural resources. One of the problems with the various descriptors articulated by Collier is that they apply equally to most high-income countries in the world. The analysis by Collier contributes to burying the influence of the colonial period under technical terms that are relevant from the perspective of the colonizer. The creation of a concept such as the ‘small country development trap’ can in the light of M’Bokolo’s analysis be dismissed as an ideological project that seeks to reaffirm colonial border construction efforts of the twentieth century (M’Bokolo, 2000). An ideologically driven project that is removed from the daily lives and realities of the citizens in for example Rwanda.
Conclusion The method I have modeled in this chapter builds on the idea that analyses motivated by external policy recommendations need to be balanced with explanations that seek to represent local understandings of challenges and resources. The analysis presented in this chapter is significant in that it outlines a theoretical framework and method for culturally sensitive and empirically grounded translations for advancing Global Citizenship Education (GCE) practices. The unique aspect of the approach proposed in this chapter pertains to the purposive incorporation of narrative traditions and the pro-active effort to include different perspectives in order to deepen the relevancy of secondary data analyses that are supported by a combination of deductive and inductive reasoning. ‘Mixed methods’ is a term that is sometimes used for similar efforts. However, as the term ‘mixed methods’ can be used for a broad variety of methodological approaches and ends, my aim has been to specify and to provide an example of how in practice, the combined use of deductive and inductive reasoning can help to inform locally relevant GCE efforts. An important, yet often bypassed, measure of success in education development efforts is not to be found in changes in the target country. I refer to the extent to which development providers demonstrably learn about the target country from negotiations with local stakeholders. When organizational policies do not mandate documentation or public access to such information, important learning and negotiation opportunities will in many cases be lost.
Global Citizenship Education 159 Culturally insensitive translation has been recognized as an important factor that contributes to the waste of resources in development efforts (cf. De Sousa Santos, 2014). An empirical example provided by De Largy is the case of extensive inefficiencies in the provision of international aid during famines in Africa in the 1980s, such as the famine in Ethiopia and across the Sahel region (De Largy, 2018; cf. Klees, 2008). I propose the re-conceptualization of education development efforts as negotiation and learning opportunities and as de facto political actions. The perspective I propose is a perspective in which development efforts are understood as negotiation and learning opportunities. My proposition is not entirely novel. A related vision of political action as ‘speech acts’ has in political theory been proposed by Austin (1962). Speech act theory explains the intended meaning of political statements or actions as best understood in relation to a context of other and differing statements and actions. Skinner has built on the approach of Austin in outlining some of the challenges for incorporating the views and lives of historically underrepresented populations into the contemporary narratives on which policies build (Skinner, 2002). Skinner highlights problems associated to the treatment of policy texts as self-referential or as if created in a vacuum. Compilations of essays that explore the application of postcolonial approaches to GCE have been published in the past decade (de Oliveira Andreotti, 2012; Abdi et al., 2015). However, speech act theory and the particular focus proposed by Skinner for analyzing education development statements as moves in argument has not been applied to Global Citizenship Education or to international education development efforts. My analysis provides one application of these ideas into the context of education development. Viewing development interventions as political acts does not invalidate education development efforts. However, this perspective does call for considering development efforts as two-way learning processes between so-called development receivers and providers. In this vein, I propose a conceptual adjustment of organizations involved in education development and Global Citizenship Education. I propose that such organizations need to be constructed in a manner that they hold capacity, indeed a policy mandated obligation, to carry out global learning. Not as an abstract concept but as a serious effort to contextualize macro-level analyses with local and micro-level understandings of real challenges and resources. As I have proposed in the above, the advantage of such more balanced efforts to analyze challenges and resources for Global Citizenship Education and the development of education more broadly lies in the identification of actionable rather than fatalistic propositions. In summary, I have constructed a comparative and sociologically informed reading of how scholars focusing on local meaning-making
160 Susan Wiksten regarding challenges and resources benefit from being read in parallel with scholars who represent international development organizations that deploy global economic perspectives. Contextualizing an analysis of available empirical data by such a vertical combination of global and local perspectives allows us to form a more balanced understanding of challenges and resources for education. I propose that recognizing the importance of negotiating the meaningmaking processes by which Global Citizenship Education policy ideas are made sense of is important when the goal of education development is to support sustained development in education. That is, efforts to develop education in a manner that is meaningful from a local perspective and thereby more likely to support long-term development of local communities rather than being limited to immediate or short-term goals of individual development projects or interventions.
Notes 1. For violent conflicts, I use the definition established by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) 2018, i.e. incidents with more than twenty-five deaths resulting from armed battle. 2. As a comparison point can be noted that one thousand murders by firearms were documented in the state of Texas in the U.S. in one year (2016) (FBI, 2018). However, Texas and Kenya are different and difficult to compare, e.g. the size of the population in Texas is comparatively smaller.
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8 The Past, Present and Future State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu
Introduction In the last century, Citizenship Education (CE) has moved from being in the background of education debates globally to the center stage. The debates center on how each country is trying to find its own footing in the world and strengthen this idea of solidarity among its citizens. Citizenship is now viewed as a currency where certain benefits and privileges are bestowed on the individual citizen. Prior to the 18th century citizenship referred to the status given to a resident of a given town or a city and didn’t carry with it any specific requirements or rights. It was only in beginning of the 18th century when the notion of citizenship began to carry with it these elements. It should be noted that it was the French Revolution that brought about the notion of citizenship “as the central feature of the modern socio-political structure”, but it was the British and Americans that paved the way for the shift from “monarch–subject relationship to state–citizen relationship” Heater (1999, p. 4). In the 19th and 20th centuries the voice of CE became even louder as the majority of nations gained their independence from colonial rule. As the new independent nations focused on their nationhood and their identity, the main discussions in CE centered on what competences their citizens should possess (Heater, 2004). Furthermore, these deliberations in these states centered on how these ideas of democracy and citizenship involvement were to be synthesized in the classroom. In the 21st century the role, acts, rights and responsibilities are constantly evolving in every nation state. For example, in the last decade, social, ecological, sexual and cultural issues are becoming more pronounced and are increasingly recognized across the globe. The individual’s participation in the socio-political spheres as citizen has also increased enormously. The propensity for individuals to act on their rights to voice their opinions of the nation state by voting, setting up and carrying out protests to oppose ideas (Isin, 2009), is growing strongly, particularly in postcolonial states. Though CE in these contexts can be argued as being more centered on blind patriotism rather than freedom of expression. This
164 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu has been compounded by the fact that the world has become more interconnected due to globalization, rendering physical borders almost void. This mix of global, national and local identities has made it even harder for some countries to find and even hold on to their own identities. According to Mundy (2005, p. 7), “Globalization challenges policy makers to enter a complex debate about the new kinds of policy action and political choice” that stems from this interconnectedness of the world. Therefore, policy initiatives around the globe are not made in isolation but are heavily impacted by the debates far and near them. It should be noted that not every aspect of globalization is “global” per se as there can be local globalization, what Korff (2003, p. 1) refers to as “the local is encompassed and constituted within the global”. Therefore, the local is not only a product of outside forces but actually a blend of indigenous and international factors, thus it is of paramount importance to ensure that national identity is taken care of and that the nation state is providing its citizens with the right tools. Before I go on to give a brief glimpse into CE in postcolonial contexts, I would like to state my positionality and how that affects how I view CE issues in the Zimbabwean context.
Positionality How I view CE issues is greatly connected to my positionality, which is a function of who I am as a person, and thus who I am as a person as a result of my race, class, gender, and sexuality. The analysis regarding CE is shaped by my own experiences as a student growing up in Zimbabwe. I am a black African male, from a middle-class family who attended boarding schools throughout my basic education. One cannot separate oneself from who one is as a person and as a researcher, but one can use one’s “position” to deepen the analysis of the context that one is researching.
CE in Postcolonial Contexts For any nation that has been colonized the first order of business in education is to create a curriculum that establishes and portrays a new set of values, beliefs, rights and obligations for the formerly oppressed individual. Put differently, education in this context tries to establish an identity to a group of people who for generations have not been recognized, have been silenced and have had a diminished role in society (Kanyonyo, 2005). The education system is the state’s blueprint of what it would like the country to achieve through its citizens. Essentially, the state’s future road map is etched in its educational system and practices. Therefore, pedagogical sites have become crucial hubs of discourse analysis guided by the various curriculums, directly impacting a country’s future social, cultural, political and economic development. According
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 165 to Eidhof et al. (2016), schools serve as one of the major institutions that equip students with knowledge and skills for the job market in the modern state. Each school is given the same curriculum but each school through the medium of its teachers is able to interpret and manipulate the state-mandated program according to their individual understanding. As stated above, CE from its inception has been seen as the discipline to ascertain and preserve the nation state’s identity. This preservation of identity has proven to be a particularly complicated task within the African postcolonial contexts. This is due to the fact that the contemporary setting in the majority of these nations has been severely altered by their historical experiences with colonialism (Magudu, Tasara, & Nicholas, 2014). Though strides have been made to change the status quo, for example, introduction of national songs, amendments to the constitution and the infusion of citizenship ideals in the curriculum. The various governments are still faced with numerous dilemmas regarding identity issues, specific to colonialism by their citizens. I posit these dilemmas are connected to the fragility and sensitiveness/hardness of these political settings. In particular, Zimbabwean CE operates in a hard space; hard spaces, as defined in Chapter 1 of this volume, refer to spaces that are “heavily surveilled and regulated spaces, because of political in/stability or another reason” and due to this “censoring” it alters how the citizens view citizenship issues. Thus, when CE is articulated in these spaces, its individuals see it through those lens. Zimbabwe offers its own unique perspective of CE as a former British colony because it has only been independent since 1980 and so it is still in the process of establishing itself. In its nearly four- decade history it has only had three presidents and one of them ruled for 37 years. This has been the case because there wasn’t any real contender that could challenge the ruling party in elections because opposition parties weren’t given the same opportunities to express their grievances and campaign. As a result, CE is being practiced in a quarantined space, by this I mean it has been isolated to some degree from ideologies such as freedom with accountability. Whereby citizens are given space to express opposing views and also hold the government accountable, though there have been great strides by civil societies, there is still a considerable lack of active participation in society. Therefore, Zimbabwe serves as one of those unique places for CE expression in Africa that needs its voice to be amplified. Below I give a brief background of the Zimbabwean political ecology to give a glimpse of the space CE operates in.
Zimbabwe Political Ecology Zimbabwe has only been independent for 38 years and has had three presidents i.e. Canaan Banana (1980–1987), Robert G. Mugabe (1987– 2017) and the current Emmerson Mnangagwa. It should be noted that
166 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu Canaan Banana’s role as president was seen more as a ceremonial role and the then Prime Minister Robert G. Mugabe held all the power (Mandaza, 1986). Worthy of note is the fact that they are all from the same political party—ZANU PF. According to Alexander and McGregor (2013, p. 751), “Commentators on the early years of Independence worried over the obstacles to transformation posed by Zimbabwe’s powerful inherited state. ZANU (PF) rule was criticised for being too technocratic and too centralised—for not disrupting the old order sufficiently”. Thus, in the early years the change was only in color of the people in charge, but the system remained intact. In the 1990s Zimbabwe was regarded as a oneparty state, as opposition politics wasn’t fully developed, and so ZANU PF won by default with a wide margin. It wasn’t until 1999, when the Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) was formed by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, that the political landscape changed. Alexander and Mcgregor (2013) puts forward the notion that this was a key moment in Zimbabwe politics as this new competition in politics reshaped state institutions and how they viewed these opposing elements. The opposition was seen as a major threat and anyone who supported them publicly was threatened and viewed as an enemy to the state. Bratton (2014, p. 3), states “in independent Zimbabwe, the country’s ruling group emerged from the crucible of an anti-colonial liberation war. Its political strategies and tactics cannot be understood apart from this heritage. Political leaders opted for violence, first as a reaction against the brutalities of settler colonialism, later as a means of retaining their tight grip on the bountiful privileges of state power”. This statement is partly true as the ruling government used liberation tactics to stay in power but in my own view and personal experiences until recently there hadn’t been sufficient reports or documentation of them using violence. This view by government of seeing opposition as a threat rather than healthy competition for them to change policies and better the lives of its people is detrimental as this leads to people being silenced. Furthermore, this silencing renders CE partly ineffective as the citizenry isn’t able to exercise their full rights and fully participate in the affairs of their country.
The Status of CE in Zimbabwe Currently CE is dispersed throughout the education system in bits and pieces and reforms to CE in Zimbabwe (Nziramasanga, 1999). Reforms have been ongoing since 1980 on the backdrop of 90 years of colonialism and the black majority being relegated to second-class citizens. Magudu (2012) is of the view that this was a scheme to ensure that the majority remained “politically illiterate” and thus would not demand their rights. According to Sears and Hughes (2006) as quoted by Magudu (2012), the introduction of CE not only in Zimbabwe but across the globe was a result of “a context of perceived disaffection, alienation and lack of social cohesion in democratic societies”. Meaning it was used to counter
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 167 the social division that existed during colonial times and bring about social homogeneity. CE has been introduced in primary school in the form of Social Studies. At the secondary school level, it has been incorporated into History, Geography and Shona/Ndebele (local languages) and English Literature. In Geography, it has been integrated in topics such as settlements, population studies, transport and trade. In the indigenous languages (Shona and Ndebele), it is done so by teaching the students about their mother tongue and culture. I posit indigenous languages are very important as they carry such great cultural richness. Most indigenous languages have such a long history and hold within them deep proverbs or sayings that promote the idea of Ubuntu. Ubuntu refers to the African concept of oneness, how the community and the individual are one. It also prescribes a set of beliefs and values, which every individual should possess in their particular community. Currently none of the local languages are compulsory in school or a prerequisite to get into higher education institutions or to obtain a job. This then begs the question, what is the point of them if one can graduate from high school without encountering the subject? Also, at primary school level HIV/AIDS information classes was introduced to the curriculum in 2003, which included several aspects of CE such as values and beliefs and community participation (ibid.). In tertiary institutions, a new compulsory course, National and Strategic Studies (NASS), was introduced in the early 2000s to teach CE in higher education institutions. It should be noted that this subject is only compulsory and offered in teaching programs. The subject covers topics such as the history of Zimbabwe, cultural heritage, political heritage, economic heritage and civic responsibilities. Mapetere, Chinembiri and Jeriphanos (2012) posit the introduction of NASS in 2002 was a direct response to the Nziramasanga report on Education and Training in Zimbabwe. According to Nyakudya (2007), as quoted by Mavhunga, Moyo, and Chinyani (2012, p. 55), its main aim was to “help foster a sense of patriotism among the country’s subjects, which is good for national development”. It should be noted that when it was introduced proponents of CE criticized it as being a ploy by the government to indoctrinate the youth with these ideas of patriotism. Another issue that is often overlooked in the teaching of CE when dealing with these identity issues is the complex nature of the individual citizen. This is especially crucial for nations such as Zimbabwe in the 21st century, as the country confronts cultural homogeneity (drawing heavily from the West) at the expense of Zimbabwean cultural uniqueness (La Spada, 2010).
Dilemmas in CE In addition to dealing with identity issues, another crucial aspect of CE that is frequently overlooked is the multifaceted nature of the African citizen. A study carried out in Kenya by Wainaina, Arnot, and Chege (2011) refers to the dualities of citizenship, which is exemplified by the multiple
168 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu binaries in which the individual exists. For example, an individual can be both citizen of a particular country and be rural or urban. They can also be rural and belong to a particular ethnic community, which in itself carries another dimension for how the individual is ranked in society. In African societies individuals are “ranked” on the basis of where they come from, their totem (national animal that represents a family/clan) and where they live. So, depending on which ethnic group one comes from, they would hold a higher or lower position in society. Thus, these pluralities in identity add to the complexities of the individual and these tensions between these diverse facets are felt within the fabric of society. According to Quaynor (2015), in her research, which focused on Liberia and Ghana, it should also be noted that the historical and modern contexts in postcolonial Africa have shaped how people articulate issues surrounding CE such as how they view their citizenry and issues pertaining to democracy. Interestingly, both Ghana and Kenya are former British colonies. Ghana is a unique CE case because it was the first African country to gain independence and has had a fairly successful and peaceful transfer of power. According to Kwasi (2015), Ghana has had five smooth transitions to power from the period of 1992 to 2010. On the other hand Kenya has been plagued by political unrest and ethnic conflicts in recent years, evidenced by the heavily disputed 2007 presidential elections, which led to major political unrest and the citizens protesting the results in the streets. Notably the first conference on African soil by the African Social Studies Programme in 1968 was held in Mombasa, Kenya. The conference was attended by 17 African countries, whose aim was to develop and introduce a Social Studies curriculum that counteracted the negative effects of the colonial education (Merryfield, 1988). On the other side of the coin regarding Liberia, there are major debates on whether Liberia was ever under colonial rule, because it and Ethiopia are regarded as the only two countries never to have been confronted by imperialism. The debates on whether Liberia was colonized or not stem from the fact that Liberia was established as a state to receive former American slaves in West Africa. It should be noted that CE in Liberia has the form of peace education as they try to rebuild the society and manage conflict in the country. These different contexts, colonized versus non-colonized, early independence versus late independence, serve as parameters for how individuals view CE issues. The section below covers a continuation of CE tensions and serves to give a brief analysis of the environment in which CE is being developed and practiced, as this plays a major role on how CE in Zimbabwe is viewed.
Tensions in Zimbabwean CE Matekere (2012, p. 85) posits that the “heavy weight of Western modernity on the African value system cannot fully capture and account for the
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 169 dialectical tensions that characterize African postcolonial politics and how education has been assigned, often unduly, the role to settle these tensions”. This shows how this discipline in some contexts has used the subject only to resolve tensions of the past and is still struggling to make the step forward to making it more meaningful. It is worthy to mention that strides have been made in the last two decades and it is interesting to see how Zimbabwe navigates between both realities (British and Zimbabwean). It is this overlapping and intercepting of values and beliefs after 38 years that makes the Zimbabwean case unique. This hybrid of cultures is the foundation the Zimbabwean education is built on. So, it is of fundamental importance to study the state of Citizenship Education i.e. how it is preparing its future citizens, how the citizens identify with it and how they view their identity. As mentioned earlier, there has been a huge call by African educationists such as N’dri Assise-Lumumba that education in postcolonial Africa should be rooted in African philosophies such Ubuntu. These are the humanistic values each and every individual should possess. She further goes on to state that “The Ubuntu paradigm promotes the philosophy and practice for valuing humaneness toward others and humanism that conceptualizes and treats the world as a complex and interdependent ecosystem of humans, nature and the planet” (2017, p. 11). These are the values still largely missing in CE and that therefore need to be infused and applied more in our education system. Freire coined the term conscientizacao, which refers to this concept of critical consciousness, meaning how individuals have to be awakened to express themselves in the face of any oppressive forces or situations. The Ubuntu paradigm plus this concept of consciousness need to be reemphasized to resolve these tensions in CE and enhance the learning process. Banking System of Education The researcher is of the viewpoint that more still needs to be done to ensure that the students are developing into responsible citizens who can best serve their particular communities and actively participate in all matters that concern them. The government needs to make a more concerted effort in the promotion of an African citizenry that prepares them for the 21st century. The problem stems from the implementation of this fragmented curriculum in the classroom. The teachers have relied on the feeding of information to the students rather than educating them. This is what hooks (1994, p. 14) refers to as the “banking system of education” where students are expected to consume whatever they are given in the classroom. There is no self-actualization or critical awareness in the classroom during the teaching of such important matters. Teaching of citizenship should be done in a manner that shows care and respect for the students. To necessitate what hooks says is the “necessary conditions” for their learning. We should strive for “intellect questing for a union of
170 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu mind body and soul” as hooks puts it. This is what the researcher ascertains is lacking in the citizenship education in Zimbabwe. Solving issues in postcolonial contexts will therefore require stepping in and out of the local and the global to fix some of these lingering issues. (Mararike, 2011, pp. 70–71) maintains that “Solving problems may require crossing boundaries between the global and local. This process may require some negotiation. The negotiation process may involve the displacement or even destruction of some forms of knowledge”. This means that as we negotiate and re-align postcolonial spaces to give room for more African narratives, some colonial forms of knowledge have to be destroyed for Zimbabwean CE to establish itself. This is so that we can fully capture the African experiences and translate them in how we cultivate CE, view our context and the practices that the citizens should possess. Zimbabwean CE should be a social construct whereby the narrative puts Ubuntu values as the social currency the citizen has to use to navigate their way in life. Below I give steps or critical interventions that are needed to ensure that CE in Zimbabwe makes major strides in the right direction.
Journey Ahead in Zimbabwean CE Education as a Practice of Freedom One of the biggest misconceptions so far in postcolonial contexts has been the fact that once independence had been achieved, there is/was no need to fight for freedom, but this is not so. In actual fact once independence has been gained, there is a need for the continual mental freeing of past ideologies and systems that enslaved that group of people. This is where universities or other tertiary institutions come into place as centers of knowledge production; they should advocate for these ideals in their curriculum as they are the gate keepers of what is to be taught. Without this, we would be at risk to stop existing and be mere clones of other cultures. Zimbabwean CE should therefore strive to be the major proponent in stopping social death, a term which refers to the brainwashing of societies by outside forces (Mararike, 2011, p. 20). Prioritizing Indigenous Languages The importance of indigenous languages has to be used to explain CE to the students, as these languages connect the individuals to their families, clans and heritage. CE should be understood from the grassroots level of which one is, as each African individual in Zimbabwe has a village where they came from. These villages were organized according to who your forefathers were, their characteristics and totem (which is an animal or part of an animal that represents each family). So, CE could greatly benefit by adding ideas of totems to the different languages to unify its
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 171 citizenry and to showcase the multi-ethnicity in the country, as the discourse usually centers on the Shona and Ndebele tribal groups. This is why authors Hamadziripi, Mapara, and Mberi (2016) maintain that “the relationship which connects language and identity is an essential constituent of our experiences as human beings. Language’s significance does not only lie in the fact that it reflects who we are but in the manner of speaking it is who we are” (p. 26). Therefore, by having local languages take a back seat, aren’t we also taking a few steps back from our identity? Nations such as China have thrived for thousands of years by making the Chinese language the center of their identity discourse as each character tells an ancient story of how their forefathers developed these characters to communicate and produce knowledge. This is easier said than done as it would take some time to implement these languages into the curriculum, but it is a necessary pre-requisite for Zimbabwe CE to flourish, as languages are a cultural expression of who we are as a people. Local Rituals Another important facet in CE is local rituals that have been shunned or seen as being backward by the modern society. According to Mararike (2011): Rituals as a part of a people’s culture have to do with those sociallyshared ways of thinking, feeling and acting, Rituals as part of religion, embrace the most important of human aspirations as being the bulwark of morality and a source of public order. In collective worship, people reaffirm their values and principles. Rituals as part of religion, have the capacity to make the values of society sacred, upholding the society’s goals even in the face of crises. (p. 100) So, in the continuation of rituals such as rainmaking, marriage and death ceremonies we root ourselves in our true identity. These “afrocentric methods of knowing and functioning” as stated by Matika (2014) become imperative in the transformation of postcolonial African societies as they work on finding solutions to the problems they currently face. Homegrown Solutions As Freire (1973, p. 7) puts it “if men are unable to perceive critically the themes of their time, and thus intervene actively in reality they are carried along in the wake of change”. So, more debates and research are needed to intervene and find local solutions for the issue. The researches have to come from the locals themselves or an outsider who can shed light on the struggle of CE not only in Zimbabwe but also across Africa. As Freire
172 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu (1973, p. 10) further notes “the prerequisite for this task [is] a form of education enabling the people to reflect on themselves, their responsibilities, and their role in the new cultural climate”. A lot of self-reflection is needed in CE to face the realities and shortcomings of the system, so going forward we should start by viewing education as mentioned by Freire (1973): “education is an act of love”(p. 20). By confronting these issues we take full ownership of who we are. African Discourse CE should be rooted in African philosophies, particularly Zimbabwean philosophies. We need to come up with our own discourse analysis of CE and what we need to instill in our citizens. CE should not be far removed from who we are as a people, especially when we are dealing with identity issues. The center of CE should revolve around the authentic expression of ourselves. CE Community Involvement There is need for more community involvement as we strive for a system of beliefs and values that promote Zimbabwe-ness. This can be done through the school board or parent teacher associations by having the parents play an active and tangible hand in CE both at home and school. This would help to reinforce the ideals students have learned at home in the classroom. Therefore, parents in connection with the schools could come up with behavioral codes that help in modeling the good future citizen. This can be done by having citizenship schools, as was the case in Brazil, whereby the surrounding communities influence the day-to-day lives of the student and the education debates. Buras and Apple (2006) state “that we need to carefully redeploy the concepts of identity and culture to illuminate pivotal debates, both past and present, over what counts as knowledge in schools” (p. 21). This re-deployment requires the re-articulation of these education spaces in order to best serve them. Culture Circles In the meantime, Zimbabwe CE would benefit immensely from having “culture circles” included in the curriculum, which Freire (1973) used in teaching illiterate citizens in Brazil to conscientize them. In the Zimbabwean scenario this would translate to having “citizenship circles” a couple of times during the week to have students discuss or debate current issues or talk about their family histories (including totems). This is what I believe would help cement what is being taught in Social Studies, History or Heritage Studies. The schools could benefit from having culture events such a cultural festival whereby students get to showcase their
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 173 family backgrounds and even dress up in their traditional attire. These citizenship circles would also benefit from having students debate parliamentary issues and even have a mock voting day so as to equip them with skills of how to be an active citizen. The main issue in the dynamics of postcolonial contexts such as Zimbabwe is that the citizens do not have a “voice” or do not want to participate in voicing their opinions and hesitate to oppose or debate issues in their communities. For example, a lot of the youth in Zimbabwe (ages 18–30) choose not to take part in elections and yet according to the national demographics, they constitute about 30 percent of the population. By doing so we would be giving students their “voice” by giving them a platform to speak their mind and question society. The government needs to ensure that major concepts are included in the national exams because if they are not, no one will see the importance of them in the school. Granted we risk ending up just preparing students for a test but with proper and careful restructuring of CE into the curriculum, these exams could prove to be meaningful. Enhancement of CE Subjects In 2019, subjects that constitute CE subjects are yet to be given that much importance in the system. By this I mean subjects such as History or indigenous languages or even Geography, which has some importance, are yet to be considered as compulsory in the system. So, the current case is that some students could go through their trajectory without ever having taken these subjects as it is not a requirement for doing your A-levels, enrolling into higher education institutions or getting a job. Usually the minimum pre-condition for getting a job is the candidate should have at least five O-level subjects, including English and/or Math (for science-related jobs) to get a job. Therefore, the Ministry of Education and government should work towards having at least indigenous languages and/or a CE-related subject be required to help with pushing this agenda. The researcher is a firm believer that having at least one major subject to streamline these ideas followed by smaller units in other subjects so as to tie all these issues together is important. Pre-Service Training Programs In order for this to work great importance should be put on ensuring that the teacher is well equipped in the pre-service training programs. They are the main vehicle in the classroom that are going to translate these issues to the students. So, if they are not trained properly by not being equipped with the right tools to have the students explore and question their surroundings, this will be evident in the classroom. In the classroom, the student’s responses are a mirror of how they are
174 Lance S. Munyaradzi Bungu being taught or synthesizing issues. According to Heater (1990, p. 316) as quoted by Beck (1996)“the teacher cannot possibly be expected to prepare young people for adult life as citizens without a complete and agreed understanding of what that status entails”. So, if the teachers do not comprehend fully what a Zimbabwean citizen in the 21st century should look like, then how do we expect the students to know that? In some instances, the teachers are not sure themselves of what it means to be a citizen in that particular nation, so it ends up being an unending unresolved circle. It is no secret that currently teaching is one of the lowest-paying jobs in Zimbabwe so incentives would be a welcome initiative to motivate teachers as teacher satisfaction plays a major part in how they deliver the curriculum in the classroom. As Freire (2010, p. 93) contends “the dialogical character of education as the practice of freedom does not begin when the teacher meets with the students in a pedagogical situation, but rather when the former first asks herself or himself what she or he will dialogue with the latter about”. Therefore, the teacher needs to dialogue with himself or herself when it comes to issues pertaining to citizenship and face their own citizenry practices in order to facilitate and give guidance in the classroom. Gone are the days when the teacher was considered as the sole holder of knowledge but now with the advent of the internet and the availability of resources, teachers can benefit by also learning from their students. CE Scope and Finding “Soft Spaces” in “Hard Spaces” There is need to properly define CE and give a scope of what it is and how the different subjects meet this objective. This failure to define the scope stems from how in contexts such as Zimbabwe issues pertaining to citizenship are considered to be “sensitive”. Sensitive here means that people are afraid or nervous to discuss these issues because they fear there will be repercussions from the ruling government if they voice their opinions or grievances publicly. This would explain the vagueness of core CE concepts in the classroom as the teacher has reservations about teaching a certain topic, coupled with the fact the students do not comprehend fully why they are being taught about these concepts. This lack of comprehension can be attributed to how sometimes the students, teachers or both cannot connect to the particular society they come from. They find it hard to connect to the stated ideals as they are faced with an identity crisis or identity issues. They feel alienated from their own culture and have adopted other cultures or identities they feel connected to. Therefore, the government has to be intentional in promoting positive, clear and concise images of what being Zimbabwean means. The ultimate goal in sensitive/hard spaces such as Zimbabwe is for other researchers to try and find “soft” spaces; by this I mean they need
State of Citizenship Education in Zimbabwe 175 to re-articulate the spaces to simplify the issues at hand. Also trying to navigate the “silence” in these spaces as most of the time citizens in these spaces are afraid to voice their opinions or do not even realize that they have been silenced because they are so hard wired into the system they are in. This shows the possibilities of CE in these spaces due to making their experiences tangible by giving them a voice. This can be achieved by being authentic in these spaces and meeting people at the point where they are in the journey of their citizenry. The next step is to equip them with the tools to negotiate or re-negotiate these spaces so that they may discover for themselves how to interpret their role(s) in the society they live in. Dynamics of CE Finally, the exploration of the dynamics of CE in postcolonial contexts should consist of the major stakeholders coming together, not only major stakeholders in Zimbabwe but within Southern Africa to break down these foreign influences within CE in the region. Dialoguing about these dynamics is the first step in finding a solution to this issue. The issue is so deep rooted within the education system as well as in their cultures. As more dissection occurs this will lead to CE moving slowly from its colonial biases to moving to an authentic Zimbabwean space where their identity aligns itself with a Zimbabwean identity rooted in African-ness.
Conclusion The major problems currently being faced by CE in Zimbabwe are a combination of colonialism, imperialism and politicism forces. This pivotal moment in CE in Zimbabwe calls for all of the major stakeholders to take a journey to the foundations of CE—to fix the structural integrity by infusing and re-enforcing the Zimbabwean narrative in its citizenship dialogue. This reconstruction requires the confrontation of these issues, tensions and dilemmas to create an opportunity for social action to be taken up within the nation and within various communities. This will foster better social cohesion through the promotion of African values and enhance learning by the integration of critical thinking skills into CE.
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9 Negotiating the Global and National in Citizenship Education Historical Legacies and Its Complicated Neighbor in South Korea Hyungryeol Kim Introduction Recent studies have shown a worldwide trend in the teaching of citizenship that moves away from the overt nationalist model aimed at constructing a common identity toward an increasing emphasis on fostering global orientations among students. Behind this worldwide shift is the instrumental need of nation-states to compete in a global society and the role of international organizations (e.g., UNESCO and Oxfam) in the diffusion of a global education agenda, implying a teleological inevitability of nation-states that will adopt this citizenship education model—which are often labeled under the umbrella term of Global Citizenship Education (GCE). Claims of this sort have usually been made based on an analysis both of the processes whereby GCE as a “global syntax” (Pak & Lee, 2018, p. 517) is imported to local contexts and of the resulting citizenship education practices themselves. In doing so, some work has posited that many countries would follow what Pashby (2013) referred to as an “expanding” pattern of citizenship education—first teaching about the local, then the regional, then the national, and finally the global—and that one seamlessly leads to the next. However, as Banks (2008, p. 129) suggested, an inherent tension exists between the traditional nationalbuilding priorities of citizenship education and the emerging global narratives that transcend the claims of nation-states. While such tension becomes salient even in Western, hegemonic countries like the United States (Rapoport, 2009, 2010), it is particularly acute in East Asian societies where authoritarian and Confucian traditions, which run counter to the core elements of GCE in some respects, weigh heavily in much of society. In this context, the case of South Korea has drawn much attention from recent scholarship on GCE (Cho, 2017; Cho & Mosselson, 2018; Choi & Kim, 2018; Moon, 2013; Moon & Koo, 2011; Noh, 2018; Pak &
Negotiating the Global and National 179 Lee, 2018; Patterson & Choi, 2018; Schattle, 2015). Like its neighbors in the East Asian region, South Korea has inherited strong legacies of state authoritarianism and Confucianism. In addition, the ongoing ideological and military confrontations between the two Koreas have complicated the implementation of GCE even further in contemporary South Korea, because of the uncertainty over inclusion of North Koreans within South Korea’s place in a globalizing world. Despite such domestic circumstances, South Korea has recently been one of the leading nations in adopting and implementing GCE. Since the Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) in 2012, GCE has become a major policy concern in South Korea’s educational landscape, and the state government has played a central role in undertaking diverse GCE initiatives (Pak & Lee, 2018). Considering its historical legacies, coupled with the state government’s activism in and enthusiasm for GCE, South Korea makes an interesting context for investigating how GCE as an innovative global education agenda is framed and contested in a local context. Building upon and extending recent studies on GCE in South Korea, this study examines in what ways its domestic context makes South Korea a hard space that faces unique challenges to implement GCE in the Global South. By demonstrating these points, this study argues that the local manifestation of GCE in South Korea, particularly its top-down and neoliberal approach to GCE that has been subject to much academic criticism, is an inevitable corollary of its historical legacies and continuing confrontations with its complicated neighbor in the North. Such particularities of GCE in the South Korean case ultimately call into the question the universal nature of the concept in and of itself.
From National to Global Narratives in Citizenship Education As a result of globalization, citizenship, once exclusively belonging to the realm of national citizens, has been reconstructed around transnational realms of rights and responsibilities, alongside issues beyond national borders such as the global market, transnational migration, and environmental degradation. In such changed environment, various scholars have proposed to meet challenges of globalization through the framework of global citizenship and related concepts such as postnational citizenship, cosmopolitan citizenship and world citizenship (e.g., Held & Archibugi, 1995; Nussbaum, 2009; Soysal, 1994; Tambini, 2001). Although no single, agreed-upon definition for global citizenship exists, systematic efforts have been made to identify different models of global citizenship and what underlies the differences (Andreotti, 2006; Evans, Ingram, MacDonald, & Weber, 2009; Gaudelli, 2009; Oxley & Morris, 2013; Schattle, 2008; Shultz, 2007; Veugelers, 2011). With some variation, these efforts commonly assume that any definition and theory
180 Hyungryeol Kim of global citizenship should be a model of educational intervention that deterritorializes citizenship practices and identities and helps citizens become part of a wider global conversation (Torres, 2017, p. 14). As with the “identity crisis” of citizenship, citizenship education in schools has also faced fundamental challenges in a globalized society. Historically, formal schooling has played a pivotal role in forming a single, preferred national identity with the primary goal of creating a homogeneous citizenry (Meyer, Ramirez, Rubinson, & Boli-Bennett, 1977). As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and its conventional geopolitical borders more porous, however, citizenship education has been expected to move beyond an exclusive focus on the construction of national identity. Since the beginning of the 2000s, a pervasive theme in citizenship education worldwide has thus been global citizenship, which aims to educate young people for a collective and active engagement in the global community (Kennedy, 2012). This new arrangement in citizenship education has been broadly termed as GCE, and understood as a direct response of education systems to navigate and thrive in an ever more interconnected and diverse world.
Global Citizenship Education in Context Against this backdrop, how and to what degree GCE as a “global syntax” (Pak & Lee, 2018, p. 517) is adopted and adapted in local contexts have been of special concern to education scholars and practitioners. A large body of longitudinal comparative research has shown that while national citizenship continues to be a key component of formal education, there has been a global increase in the coverage of GCE-related contents in curricular and textbooks, including cosmopolitanism, diversity, human rights, and environmentalism (Bromley, 2009; Bromley, Meyer, & Ramirez, 2011; Buckner & Russell, 2013; Meyer, Bromley, & Ramirez, 2010). Behind this line of work are the assumptions that citizenship education worldwide is marked by a pattern of moving from the nation to the globe (Pashby, 2013) and that there is no tension between the national and global levels. At the same time, however, detailed case studies of single and a small number of countries have revealed that reconciling at times contradictory goals of teaching for national and global citizenship is a common dilemma to many countries around the world and that no country relinquishes its national-building priorities of citizenship education in favor of GCE. For example, Rapoport (2009) found that GCE in the USA has been assigned a key role in maintaining the nation’s hegemonic status in the globalized world by equipping students with knowledge of other societies and cultures. In a similar vein, in both Canada (Evans et al., 2009) and Spain (Engel, 2014), the adoption of GCE has been justified in terms of the education system’s need to prepare students to function in an increasingly multicultural national landscape, which has
Negotiating the Global and National 181 been shaped by the high influx of immigrants in the past decade. Altogether, as Goren and Yemini (2017, p. 180) succinctly noted, GCE is widespread across countries but operationalized differently in light of its instrumental benefits for each country. This characteristic of GCE is quite contrary to the universal nature of the concept advocated by international organizations, lending support to the argument that the forces of globalization reinforce rather than undermine the nation-state’s role in the construction of citizenship (Chung, 1999; Marginson, 1999). Notably, due to both implicit and explicit Western biases that some consider to be embedded at the core of GCE (for details, see, Andreotti, 2006), such particularities of GCE tend to be more salient in non- Western contexts. In non-Western, post-conflict countries like Rwanda and Liberia, for instance, GCE is only secondary to the national urgencies of managing conflicts and promoting social cohesion through school-based citizenship education (Quaynor, 2015; Russell & Quaynor, 2017). Goren and Yemini (2018) also identified the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a barrier to the implementation of GCE in an Israeli society, as the ethno-national narrative promoted by its education system “otherizes” Arab Israeli citizens and contradicts the universal ideals associated with GCE. Similarly, in transitional societies such as Taiwan and Hong Kong, educational and curricular reforms have primarily responded to domestic democratization and a shifting relation with the Chinese mainland alongside the development of a tripartite framework for citizenship education at local, national and global levels (Law, 2004). It is also worthwhile to note that in many non-Western contexts including the Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions, the primary goal of GCE is often construed to acquire generic and transnational skills, such as information and communications technology, the proficiency of the English language, and American culture (Goren & Yemini, 2017, p. 175). In such cases, the way in which GCE is interpreted and localized has been subject to much academic criticism, as it lacks many features that recent scholarship has posited to be central to GCE (e.g., Oxley & Morris, 2013).
What Makes South Korea a Hard Space to Implement Global Citizenship Education Confucian and Authoritarian Legacies In common with other non-Western countries in the Global South, South Korea has also faced unique challenges to implement GCE, as it has inherited strong Confucian and authoritarian legacies that may, in some respects, run counter to core elements of GCE (e.g., Rozman, 2002). On the one hand, the East Asian region’s time-honored Confucian tradition centers on social collectivism and political paternalism, which view the individual as a group-seeking entity and the family as the
182 Hyungryeol Kim prototype of political institutions (Park & Shin, 2006, p. 345). In such Confucian view, the individual is regarded as inherently being embedded within the group—whether the group is a family or a society—and the state as a “benevolent patron” is assigned a key role in educating its members to prioritize an individual’s obligations to the group over one’s rights. As this Confucian conception of the state continues to dominate Korean society, the national government has wielded an exclusive power to dictate what counts as official knowledge in society, and the dissemination of GCE has been no exception to this rule. Even the popular usage of the Korean terms “global citizen” and “globalization” themselves were coined and initiated by former President Young-sam—the first civilian leader following the military dictatorship—in 1994, and, since then, public discourses on GCE in South Korea have been consolidated in close association with a government-driven, neoliberal rhetoric aimed at securing national competitiveness in the global marketplace (Schattle, 2015). Additionally, as the national government in South Korea has played an active role in managing all matters pertaining to school subjects such as setting instructional guidelines and revising curriculum contents ( Jones, 2011, p. 212), it has also actually determined what should be taught and learned about GCE in classrooms. Seen in this way, the Confucian emphasis on collective orientations and paternalistic state appears to be incompatible with the underlying ethos of GCE (such as individual human rights) and the bottom-up, civil society–driven model of GCE in North American and Western European countries. During the authoritarian era in South Korea, on the other hand, the national leadership played a “national” card as an ideological justification for its continued maintenance of power, and this has influenced the evolvement of citizenship education in South Korea. In the aftermath of the Korean War, enmities towards communism overshadowed the southern half of the Korean peninsula, and citizenship education in schools served a strong ideological function that underscores the legitimacy of the South Korean regime vis-à-vis its communist rival in the North (Song, 2003). Citizenship curricula and textbooks were strongly censored by the authoritarian government and highly politicized, as, for example, they portrayed Western democracies as models for learning and communist countries as having backward political and economic systems (Minsitry of Education, 1980, p. 297; Park, 2001, p. 66). At the same time, national elites also sought to instill its members with a sense of ethnic national identity based on ideas of the common bloodline and shared ancestry among the Korean minjok, i.e., an ethnically bound identity inclusive of both South and North Koreans. In such climate, citizenship textbooks conveyed the message that South Korean people should strive to bring peace and unity to the divided Korean peninsula and that it is only the South Korean regime, not the community North seeking to unite the two sides by force, who can achieve peaceful reunification (Wilson,
Negotiating the Global and National 183 Ford, & Jones, 2005, p. 244). Thus, although the promotion of national identity in citizenship education was a key strategy of the authoritarian regime to bolster legitimacy, the content of the national identity that it intended to advance—the ROK (Republic of Korea) national (those subscribed to the political, economic, and social values of South Korea) or the Korean minjok (an ethnically bound identity inclusive of North Koreans)—remained vague in the context in which authoritarian elites intentionally conflated ethnic nationalism with anticommunism (Kim & Kim, in press). It was in the seventh national curriculum (1997) developed under President Kim Young-sam that South Korea’s citizenship education began to overcome its narrow preoccupation with national identity issues and underscore an appreciation of universal ideas consistent with GCE practices (Park, 2001; Moon & Koo, 2011, p. 580). Ever since the earlier days, however, GCE in South Korea has been imbued with national strategic imperatives that highlight the nation’s ability to thrive in the expanding global economy. For instance, Choi and Kim (2018)’s content analysis of GCE-related themes in South Korean citizenship textbooks indicates that the established emphasis on nationalism has not been diluted even in the recently drafted curriculum, as they only serve to reinforce a student’s understanding of what it means to be a national citizen in a globalized world and how a nation-state should respond to challenges posed by economic globalization worldwide. In summary, where Confucian and authoritarian legacies are prevalent in society, the promotion of neoliberal nationalism is a key tenet of GCE in South Korea, and the state government has played an important function in this process. Admittedly, this deployment of GCE is quite contrary to the dominant conceptualization of GCE as one that privileges one’s moral and political responsibilities to the community of humankind and the planet. Global Citizens and Its Complicated Neighbor in the North In contemporary South Korea, the ongoing ideological and military confrontations between the two Koreas have complicated the implementation of GCE even further. From the postwar period onwards, the continuing territorial division constantly generates contentious politics over national identity within South Korea’s domestic setting. As Kang (2007) succinctly noted, the most salient difference between the conservative and progressive forces in South Korea is that how they define the nature of relationship with North Korea, that is, how they respond to a fundamental question of “What is North Korea to us?” Whereas the politically conservative, rightist camp in South Korea is grounded upon deepest animosity towards its communist enemy on the other side of the country and supportive of the civic conception of national identity, its progressive, leftist counterpart seeks to build solidarity among the
184 Hyungryeol Kim Korean ethnic group inclusive of both South and North Koreans and defends the ethnic conception of national identity (Kim & Kim, in press). As discussed above, since the civic and ethnic conceptions of national identity were deliberately interchanged by authoritarian military leaders as part of an attempt to legitimize the ruling regime vis-à-vis the communist North, its distinction has often been collapsed in the South Korean context. Important to note here, however, is that such conservative and progressive positions on national identity have revealed an interesting paradox wherein the promotion of global citizenship is inextricably bound within South Korea’s calculus of national identity, as the nation negotiates its fraught history in the context of globalization. As the progressive camp in South Korea has its roots in counterhegemonic movements first against Japanese colonialism and then against military dictatorship, it tends to be critical of South Korean mainstream society while taking a soft stance on its communist neighbor in the North. Based on the notion of Koreans as one people inclusive of North Koreans, as Hwang (2015) suggested in his newspaper editorial, the South Korean progressive generally perceives what has happened to the Korean minjok since its modern times as disastrous. Since the Japanese invasion, the Korean minjok has struggled not only to regain Korean sovereignty but to create a more just society without political and economic exploitation. Even after winning independence from the colonial Japan, however, the Korean minjok was split into two separate entities due to foreign geopolitical interests and those who had benefited from pro-Japanese collaboration have maintained their stature and prestige in South Korea. According to such progressive views, South Korea’s achievement in modern history in terms of democratization and economic growth is only the half-victory, as it has only reinforced existing inequalities and perpetuated the division of the Korean minjok. In this way, the progressive camp in South Korea has been closely linked with civil sectors that have sprung up with its transition to democracy and fought for human rights and social justice. At first glance, therefore, the progressive discourses in South Korea that espouse human rights and social justice seem to dovetail nicely with ideas embodying the concept of global citizenship. The irony is, however, that the progressive support for ethnic national identity as inclusive of North Koreans is actually extremely nationalistic in the case of South Korea, and thus stands in contrast with cosmopolitan ideals to which global citizenship is intrinsically committed. As often argued by the conservative critics, it is also interesting to note that the South Korean progressive often deliberately ignores human rights violations in North Korea under the pretext that sympathizing with the North would help achieve national unity as the ultimate goal of the Korean minjok (Kim & Kim, in press). By comparison, as South Korea’s conservative camp has long been associated with authoritarian military governments that relied on
Negotiating the Global and National 185 anticommunism for legitimacy, it perceives the division of Korea as an obstacle to overcome but not at the expense of undermining the historical meaning of the ROK (Republic of Korea). According to Hwang (2015)’s analysis, in this conservative view, the establishment of the ROK marked a historical turning point in Korean modern history, as it paved the way for flourishing liberal democracy at least in the southern half of the Korean peninsula. Emerging from the ashes and ruins of the Korean War, the ROK government has come a long way to restore the war-torn nation under continuous threat from its communist enemy. Because economic development was the first priority for the ROK government to pull its citizens out of poverty and hunger, there were unavoidable sacrifices such as coups and massacres in the national-rebuilding process. However, the conservative view argues, these tragic episodes should not and cannot weaken the historical importance of the ROK in which economic growth and democratization came to full maturation in a short period of time. As such, the conservative camp in South Korea seeks to promote a civic identity as a ROK citizen by stimulating a sense of national pride as a member of a free democratic society, particularly vis-à-vis its communist rival in the North. The irony that arises is, then, that conservative discourses that define ROK nationals as civic rather than ethnically bound subjects may be considered more “progressive,” especially given that South Korea faces rapid demographic changes with increasing numbers of labor migrants, migrant brides, and children of multicultural families as a result of the accelerating pace of globalization. While the actual practice of assimilating a more heterogeneous population into South Korea’s mainstream may be disputed, incorporating more multicultural and inclusive ideas that support all citizens in the ROK irrespective of ethnic markers align fairly well with the underpinning values of global citizenship (Kim & Kim, in press). Hence, such competing and paradoxical visions of who is Korean as supported by South Korean progressive and conservative forces show that the promotion of global citizenship can add another layer of confusion to the divided society because of the uncertainty over inclusion of North Koreans within South Korea’s place in a globalizing world. More recently, such a paradox inherent in the disputatious issues of national identity in South Korea makes its appearance in GCE discourses as well. As Provenzo, Shaver, and Bello (2011, p. 2) suggest, textbooks contain the “values and beliefs of the culture and historical period of which they are a part,” and this is especially the case in countries like South Korea in which textbook knowledge is put under the state government’s tight control. In this sense, Moon (2013)’s study on how ideas of multiculturalism and diversity—of which are key GCE themes—have been translated into South Korean citizenship textbooks is noteworthy, as it offers an overarching understanding of how official GCE knowledge is constructed and disseminated among the general public in South
186 Hyungryeol Kim Korea. While indicating a substantial increase in the textbook discussion of disadvantaged groups and ethnic minorities starting in the 1990s, this study also finds some contradictory statements in sections that deal with the issue of reunification between the two Koreas. Echoing the racialized rhetoric that rings familiar with the progressive discourses that stipulate national unity as the ultimate goal of the Korean minjok, recent South Korean citizenship texts present the logic of recovering the pure blood pride and homogeneity of the Korean minjok as the primary rationale for reunification with its communist neighbor in the North. At the same time, however, the same textbook section that discusses the problem of incorporating a heterogeneous population in South Korea seems to be in agreement with the conservative support for the civic conception of national identity, as it stresses that the definition of what it means to be Korean should be based on subjective elements of “love for the nation” rather than essentialist traits such as blood ties, territory, and language (Moon, 2013, p. 434). This example signifies that with the lasting reality of national division, the incorporation of GCE themes in South Korea’s citizenship textbooks can be a highly controversial issue, as it has also been the case in many conflict-ridden societies. In addition, along with recent studies that have identified South Korea’s approach to GCE as state-led and neoliberal (e.g., Cho & Mosselson, 2018; Choi & Kim, 2018; Pak & Lee, 2018), this example also presents that GCE in South Korea remains heavily loaded with national imperatives and that its overarching focus remains largely on the nation-state.
Conclusion Conciliating at times contradictory national and global themes in citizenship education is a common dilemma to many countries around the world, but this tension is particularly acute among non-Western countries like South Korea. Although its domestic circumstances make South Korea a hard space that faces unique challenges to implement GCE in the Global South, it has been one of the leading nations in championing and delivering GCE in recent years. While GCE began to receive a great deal of attention in the 1990s, it was especially since the 2012 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) that the state-led model of GCE has been hastily promoted in Korea’s educational landscape, with an aim to position the nation to be a leader in the global community’s GCE initiatives. As a result, GCE in the Korean context has been characterized by a top-down and neoliberal approach, which purports to train human capital necessitated for successfully navigating challenges from a global market economy. For this reason, the way in which GCE as an innovative global education agenda has been localized and interpreted in South Korea has come under criticism as it lacks many features that
Negotiating the Global and National 187 recent scholarship has posited to be central to GCE, including one that privileges one’s moral and political responsibilities to the community of humankind and the planet. As discussed in this study, however, such local manifestation of GCE in South Korea is an inevitable corollary of its historical legacies and continuing confrontations with its complicated neighbor in the North. Where authoritarian and Confucian traditions weigh heavily in society, combined with the uncertainty over inclusion of North Koreans within its place in a globalizing world, the promotion of nationalism couched in an apparent neoliberal ideology in GCE continues to be a key function of its civilizing mission in South Korea. In this context, more recent studies (e.g., Schattle, 2015; Noh, 2018; Cho & Mosselson, 2018) have suggested that GCE in South Korea may eventually converge with the “dominant” model shared within a global polity, as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have begun to emerge as a legitimate provider of GCE in South Korea and critical rhetoric reflecting the nation’s economic and geopolitical realities has gradually gained traction in its GCE discourses. Having said that, the extent to which such changes imply any fundamental convergence is questionable, because, as argued by many GCE scholars (e.g., Andreotti, 2011; Goren & Yemini, 2017), GCE often unavoidably reflects the broader cultural and political aspects of the nation-state when it is implemented within a specific national context. Furthermore, given the both implicit and explicit Western assumptions embedded at the core of GCE, the logic of the imposition of Western values onto non-Western countries is almost always hidden in any criticism over the local adaptation of GCE in the Global South. Ultimately, the case of South Korea challenges a conventional understanding of citizenship education as decisively national or global rendered visible by its fraught national history and casts a doubt over any universal approach to GCE in the current historical moment when the global standard is synonymous with the Western standard.
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10 Critically Countering Appropriations of Global Citizenship Education in the Indian Context Hard, Gated and Unmentionable Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek Introduction After mentioning Global Citizenship (GC) in a remark during the discussion round of a seminar in India, one of the chapter’s authors was approached by a prominent environmental pedagogical scholar showing skepticism towards associating Global Citizenship and its Education (GC/E) within the current Indian education system: “Why do you mention GCE in relation to the context of India? We cannot talk of GCE when there are a countless number of problems that need to be looked at within India itself. GCE is impractical in India.” In this chapter, we will analyze some key reasons why GCE can be viewed as disempowering within the contexts of India, within the specific aspects of environmental and development pedagogies. Addressing the discussion briefly mentioned above with the scholar in India, this analysis will include the possibilities of practical-ness of GCE within environmental pedagogies and of the “hard-ness” of GC/E practice and research within India. The chapter will utilize research conducted by us in environmental pedagogies, GCE, and globalization and education, as well as first-hand experiences of the first author who is from New Delhi. With the plural wording of GCEs indicating many coinciding and conflicting models of GCE, we will explore what frameworks and accompanying processes lead to negative arguments to GC/E1 and, in turn, lead to difficulties in both its practice and research, both directly and indirectly. Utilizing the various typologies of GCEs, we will analyze the arguments for and against varying models as they coincide or conflict within some key Indian epistemologies and social structures. This chapter’s analysis will also have the focus on critical environmental pedagogies, inside and outside constructs of “sustainable development,” especially within both authors’ extensive work on Freirean-based ecopedagogy. Ecopedagogies as grounded within popular education models that emerged from the work of Paulo Freire of democratic, bottom-up educational
192 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek philosophies/theories allow for deeper, contextualized understandings that lead to transformational actions to end oppressions (i.e., praxis) (Gadotti, 2008a, 2008b; Gutiérrez & Prado, 2008; Kahn, 20190; Misiaszek, 2011, 2018). We focus on ecopedagogical teaching centering on praxis to end oppressions that emerge from the connections between social and environmental violence (e.g., socio-environmental violence). Since ecopedagogy and Citizenship Education are inherently bound together towards the two key global common goods, we also focus on citizenship in this chapter, utilizing our previous work (Syed, 2018; Misiaszek, 2015, 2016, 2018) on individual’s various spheres of citizenship (e.g. the pluralized citizenships) from local to global to planetary. Particularly, we will discuss how global citizenship (and its education) de-/aligns with local to national citizenships within India and nature overall as planetary citizenship, outside of anthropocentric citizenships. We analyze how the grounding of GCE might be appropriate within the very diverse contexts of India and how such frameworks coincide or conflict with environmental well-being goals. Also, we will suggest key needs for educational practice and research for GCE in India.
Exposing Complexities of GC/E in the Indian Context by Deconstructing GCEs Arguments and counter-arguments posed throughout the chapter, grounded in the voices of pedagogues and practitioners, help uncover the im/practicalities of GC/E within the realm of environmental pedagogies in India. From our previous research that included in-depth dialogues with environmental pedagogues in India (Syed, 2018), we have found relevant themes and appropriated them to the context of GC/E hard-ness in India; based on that, we carried out a second round of horizontal dialogues with practitioners in India focusing on GCE and environmental pedagogies for this chapter. In this section, we explain some complexities of GC/E in the Indian contexts, which best provide a basic understanding to the reader before going into details (in later sections of the chapter), and which also add to GC/E scholarship focusing on GC/E hard-ness in the Global South. First, GC/E is contentious because it is laden with often contradictory expectations, theoretical interpretations and methodologies within different contexts (de Andreotti, 2014; Gardner-McTaggart & Palmer, 2018), generating a vast multitude of conceptualizations and concerns at global to national to local levels (Ibrahim, 2005; Davies, Evans, & Reid, 2005). This is very true in India where such different understandings inherent in practices pose challenges to GC/E and do not yield similar results. Carlos Alberto Torres (2017a, 2017b) argued that for successful GCE, teaching must be towards2 achieving the global commons—universal goals that societies have “move[ing] beyond the notion of citizenship as
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 193 a kind of personal status, a combination of rights and duties that those who are legal members of the nation-state hold or should hold” (Torres, 2017b, p. 93). Living in a healthy environment that is sustainable is one of the three global commons. Although Torres discusses how these are universal “civil minimums and civic virtues in a globalized world” (Torres, 2017b, p. 93), critical GCE teaching for resulting praxis is contextual with increased respect and widened understandings of the world’s diversity. We argue that such contradictions of GC/Es help construct hard spaces in India, as well as the Global South overall, for GCE. Second, the word “Global” within the acronym GCE is often an initial point of conflict, “hardening” spaces with conceptions of citizenship as “universal” without sub-global contextual concerns through processes of globalization. GCE is unquestionably a process of globalization; however, the processes of globalization (i.e., globalizations as termed by Torres, 2009) depend on the model(s) of GCE. Stromquist (2009) has well described the perplexities of globalization as a paradox which has on one hand been the expanding international consensus in favor of democracy, pluralism, and respect for human rights, and on the other it is accompanied by growing economic inequalities, environmental threats, and what de Oliveira and Tandon (1995) called “unprecedented human suffering.” Other scholars (Arnove, 2007; Kellner, 2002; Stromquist, 2002; Torres, 2009, 2013) have described globalizations forming a contested terrain that can empower or disempower/oppress individuals and the world’s populations/societies in very different, and often in contradictory, ways. Such paradoxes of globalization affect education, GCE models (i.e., GCEs) forming similar contested terrains. In the Indian context, it is essential that public education is improved with regards to GC/E since individuals need to be able to critically “read” public policy, media and other avenues which shape public opinion to understand “what” such agendas propagate and “who” they serve. Therefore, in the analysis of GC/E in the Indian contexts, we look “beneath the surface,” of the motives/current practices as globalizations from above or from below, teaching to deconstruct the “G”—“Global.” Third, GCE is critiqued as often teaching Western-framed understandings of citizenship, especially within environmental pedagogies (Misiaszek, 2018). We argue the need for critical-based GCEs (denoted as critical GCE in this chapter) within the tenets of ecopedagogies, as essential in the Indian contexts. Critical GCE pedagogues ground the teaching for transformative actions for countering oppressive globalizations and utilize globalizations towards ending social violence and injustices. It is also vital that critical GC/E encapsulates both socio-environmental justice within the anthropocentric sphere (i.e., all humans) and sustainability within the rest of the planetary sphere, with the anthropocentric sphere as part of the rest of nature (i.e., planetary sphere) (Misiaszek, 2018). Such conceptions of non-anthropocentric citizenship spheres are
194 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek most frequently outside Western epistemologies. GCE has the task of educating for global social justice as part of being a citizen with undeniable basic rights irrespective of where you reside on planet earth (Abdi, 2011). We argue that for GC/E to be successful in India, the “C” in GCE must be taught with non-Western epistemological understandings, especially epistemologies of the Global South, aligning with Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2018) positioning these epistemologies as inherently countering oppressive epistemologies of the Global North. For example, even though issues of hegemony, extremist ideologies, environmental destruction for economic gains exist globally, the case of the Indian context is laden with its own peculiarities. These peculiarities in the sub-continent of India range from a right-wing Modi government dismantling public education institutions3 and promoting a Hindu-state ideology while disregarding minorities to roiling issues like lynch mobs4 and love jihad5 that run rampant across the country with a huge diversity of cultures, religions and languages. With many contestations like these that are pervasive in the country, it is essential to understand the local context of individuals. At the same time, it should be oriented towards larger global spheres, as well as widened to planetary perspectives. But while we pursue planetary citizenship, it is of utmost importance to increasingly understand local and global citizenship spheres. Planetary citizenship must have the overcome social inequalities, end of unsustainable environmental violence, eliminate unjust economic differences and integrate the cultural diversity of humanity as its foci; the imperative for this is peaceful c o-existence among humans and then viewing Earth as a citizen which humans inhabit, with other living beings (Gadotti, 2008a). Fourth, we argue that GCE must be woven with ecopedagogy to deepened and widened understandings of socio-environmental connections to “unveil” the effects, causes and underlying politics of social oppressions (Misiaszek, 2015, 2016, 2018). As a Freirean-based pedagogy (Freire, 1998, 2005), ecopedagogues emphasize the importance of socioenvironmental teaching that is contextually meaningful to students for praxis to emerge, including the essential incorporation of critical GCEs within ecopedagogies, and vice versa (Misiaszek, 2015). Ecopedagogy teaches to better understand the connections, including the politics, between social and environmental violence with the understanding that societal peace cannot be achieved with unsustainable environmental violence within the planetary sphere (Misiaszek, 2015, 2018; Misiaszek & Torres, 2019). Transforming oppressive socio-environmental realities requires teaching for socio-environmental praxis, aligned with critical pedagogical scholars (Apple, Au, & Gandin, 2009; Gadotti, 1996), through bottom-up solutions that address the often systematically hidden causes and effects of oppressions and violence. This coincides with our first assertion discussed in this section.
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 195 While developing the argument for critical GC/E grounded throughout previous research, we explore some key gaps in teaching and understanding global citizenship in India through dialogue with environmental pedagogues in India, as well as indicating reasons for GC/E as a “hard place” within the contexts. Included in the use of previous research conducted will be an environmental pedagogy pyramid model based on the first author’s research in India and China (Syed, 2018); even though the aforementioned research focused on ecopedagogies, it reinvents the emerged research themes through GCE scholarship and practices. Lastly, critical GCEs inherently counter pedagogies that perpetuate socio-environmental injustices and planetary unsustainability. We argue that this helps for their incorporation within “hard spaces” due to global citizenship seen as a tool for sustaining global hegemony. On the other hand, critical GCEs might further “harden” spaces due to its countering of hegemony, with sub-global hegemonic structures threatened by such pedagogies, including often accompanying neoliberal ideologies. For example, in the last four years, strong public institutions in India have come under threat, as Prime Minister Modi’s assertive Hindu-chauvinist government works to consolidate its own authority6; autonomy to educational institutions empower the neoliberals to claim their stake, and in the long run work towards unbridled commodification through selffinancing courses and fee hikes. This is a way to make premier higher educational institutions into degree-minting shops which will become the reserve of the rich and the poor will be permanently excluded (Tharoor, 2018). Some cases of opposition towards the government’s mandates have been deemed as anti-national or sedition, and the freedom of speech in premier institutions across India is under threat7; this entails that there is no room for any critical thought even in the universities that are at par with “global” standards. Our focus in the chapter will remain on the possibility of critical GCEs which may further “harden” spaces due to its countering of hegemony in the Indian context. But potentially critical GCEs, as critical pedagogy that counters hegemony (Apple, Au, & Gandin, 2009), may counter narrow, shallow, soft and/or neoliberal models of GC/E which are ineffective and largely oppressive by ignoring contexts with dominant ideologies as unproblematized.
India’s “Hard-ness”: Challenges to Critical GCE We cannot begin a reform of education unless we first understand that neither individual learning nor social equality can be enhanced by the rituals of schooling. We cannot go beyond the consumer society unless we first understand that obligatory public schools inevitably reproduce such a society, no matter what is taught in them. —Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (1983, p. 38)
196 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek From India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Indian leaders have often evoked the phrase vasudhaiva kutumbakam (“the world is one family”), taken from the Maha Upanishad 8, to elucidate the country’s global outlook. India’s former Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, took the same phrase to the international stage at the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2005. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam is an ancient Indian belief which embodies the idea, like global citizenship, of similar ethics along with tolerance, mutual respect and morality. A key question is whether GC/E, in the Indian context, helps individuals to understand and apply this ancient belief’s meaning in their thoughts and practices or not? This question further raises another fundamental question about GCE and environmental pedagogies in India: Are the current educational frameworks helping create a global citizenry who strive for socio-environmental justices and equality? Problemposing these questions, we will briefly highlight some Indian issues that are currently conflicting with critical GCE-ecopedagogical tenets. It is important to note that there are numerous reasons and arguments why India is a “hard space” for GC/E and that we only cover some in this chapter which indicates the numerous gaps that need to be addressed by future research in the field. Technical and Competitive Education Globalizations in India have put immense pressure on the education system. According to the research participants (Syed, 2018), neoliberal globalization is touting a notion of suppressing many youths’ schooling to teach only basic skills to serve a narrowed view of human capital theories to provide labor to fulfill elites’ interest; this wave is frequently because of the recent policies that have been enacted by the government. In 2005, the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) provided a similar curriculum for all of students’ first ten years of schooling, but recently there has been increasing national pressure from the Skill Development Ministry for vocational courses to start at grade level 3. A shift from earlier educational policies which were equity-based was seen as an education aligned with neoliberal ideologies, focusing on minimizing persons’ education for maximum “efficiency,” and non-critical vocational education programs. This research on environmental pedagogies in New Delhi also indicated that “gaps” are largely due to oppressive, neoliberal education within formal, informal and non-formal educational spaces (Syed, 2018). The connections between these oppression-reproducing types of education “harden” spaces by distancing local epistemological understandings, thus distancing critical GCE and ecopedagogical teaching. Teaching and research to better understandings coincide with ecopedagogical and GCE (Misiaszek, 2011, 2015, 2016, 2018).
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 197 Technical pedagogies must be questioned as the hindering of students’ critical thinking, especially at earlier schooling levels, necessary to grasp ideologies of global citizenship and environmentalism. As detailed, education is fatalistic because it does not build upon students’ innate potential, curiosities and creativities, but is instead a process of elimination and selection for future human capital resource allocation (Apple, 2004, 2006). Furthermore, in societies guided by the scarcity of resources, as well as the neoliberal ethos of social Darwinism, competitiveness or hierarchizing of individuals from technical and performanceoriented measuring scales becomes the standard norm that society tends to accept, including parents and teachers (Pathak, 2006, 2016). The transformative, dialectic essence of critical GCE and ecopedagogy is the opposite of the situation in India today with progressive, critical individuals and institutions increasingly coming under attack of the government and being politically defamed in the media. Those attacked are those that are associated with freedom of thought and questioning normative ideologies that sustain oppression. Thapar (2016) pointed out that: those that conform to education as learning by rote and providing supervised answers are not interfered with all that much, since this pattern of learning fits into a catechism style. . . . The ideology central to the BJP-RSS has no space or use for liberal thought. Education for such organizations means only what can be called a kind of catechism. This is a memorization of a narrow set of questions rooted in faith and belief and an equally narrow set of answers that prohibit any doubt or deviation. Therefore, educational centers that allow questioning and discussion are anathema and have to be dismantled. Thapar’s description of education is similar to an oppressive model of education; it is similar to Freire’s (2004, p. 84) description—“education becomes pure training, it becomes a pure transfer of content, it is almost like the training of animals, it is a mere exercise in adaptation to the world.” It also coincides with this chapter’s previous argument of “hardening” the Indian context due to technical vocationalization training, rather than critical education of vocational skills. Such models of education adversely affect students’ transformability possibilities, as Pathak (2018) gives a glimpse of that in the Indian context: I would insist that no social transformation is possible without the creative spark of human agency; and even in difficult times, we need to try our best to give the young a different vision of life. Young minds in India are being destroyed by a faulty pattern of education,
198 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek parental ambitions, the aggression of hyper-competitiveness and a flawed idea of “success.” These influences from education systems having intensified neoliberal ideologies further “hardens” but also increases the need for critical GCEs with ecopedagogies to enable social transformation through empowering the learners. The goals of socio-environmental justice of crucial GCE-ecopedagogical teaching beg the question of how this coincides, or mostly conflicts with, meritocratic education systems, such as within India. A highly meritocratic-based education system in which students advance on the basis of their merits or marks from their first levels of education leads to a dilemma about how global solidarity as part of global citizenry can be taught to students while they at a very early age are encouraged individually compete, with higher-stakes competition increasing rapidly through the grade levels. Some argue that solidarity and competitiveness are fundamentally antagonistic and that educational programs have traditionally aimed to build human capital at an individual level to engage in the job market and in society, not social capital for mutual success (UNESCO, 2014). However, many critical scholars, such as Michael Apple, express the need to problematize what is “balance” between competition that can bring about innovation but also needs collaboration, and competition that is harmful (Apple, 2004). Towards constructing critical GCE models within any contexts, including India, it is necessary to critically analyze and deconstruct schoolings’ structures themselves with competitiveness as one of many aspects. Historical Distortion Another example of suppressive action adding to the “hard-ness” and testing “practical-ness” of GCEs is that some Indian governments have changed textbooks to politically distort India’s history and othering by promoting biases and stereotypes. Jain (2017) explained one such case for the revision of textbooks in the Indian state of Rajasthan: Although the textbooks cover recent issues like demonetization and the Paris climate deal, there is no mention of the events that have contributed to the perception of growing intolerance in the country. . . . Also, the initiatives talked about in the textbooks highlight only the positive aspects, lacking any critical assessment. This is a clear example of “manufacturing consent.” Such corporate-sponsored propaganda models, heavily influenced by those in power and by commercialism, in/directly counter the concepts of critical GC/E. Pedagogies that enable students to critically question
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 199 and re-question hidden aspects of various issues need to occur holistically from local to global spheres; and in the recent past, neoliberal education has been working in opposition to this, as the Global North and Global South have differing priorities and points of in/equalities (Lapayese, 2003). However, the question is how globalizations from above center the Global North’s priorities throughout the world, often suppressing “true” development of the Global South (Misiaszek, 2019). The different settings within the Global South and North situate GC/E in these places differently. More often than not, many scholars view GCE as framed within Western tenets of citizenship (Misiaszek, 2015). Just as globalizations that can either center or decenter Westernization (Cudworth, 2003), GCEs can help students to deconstruct dominant framings/ideologies of global citizenship and the reproduction of inequalities from them, or GCE can help counter them. Participants also discussed how the term “global citizens” promoted political, economic, environmental and cultural aspects of the West, including what is “social justice.” These Westernized contexts, they argued, do not hold the same meanings and practices. A research participant, a professor on environment pedagogies from New Delhi, explained that in the Western context where natural and human resources are relatively less, “Western GCE” is centered around trying to sensitize citizens, not just their own consumer needs but also towards others—the less advantaged, the marginalized, which constitutes a majority of the Global South, because their needs are dependent on the Global South. “Gatedness” and Elitism of Western GC/E The scholar who was quoted at this chapter’s beginning and inspired us to write it elaborated upon the growing trend of gatedness in the community in New Delhi in a second discussion, stating the following: Gatedness is growing, whether it is a gated colony or a gated human being. They think it does not matter if they are a part of the community or not. Such a mindset aligns individuals with the “global” tag—removing themselves from the public and becoming hegemonically elite. Critical GC/E models oppose this; however, neoliberal GC/E models coincide with this line of thought. Neoliberal GC/E coincides with Dirk Postma’s (2006) argument that neoliberal ideology values all within one’s private sphere of ownership and power, devaluing the public sphere unless it interferes with the private sphere. Ecopedagogy and critical GCE, with education and actions, together counter forementioned global citizenship ideological endpoints that inherently ignore the well-being of others and Earth (Misiaszek, 2016, 2018).
200 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek Gating communities away from other communities, either literally or figuratively, counters the connectedness of our large, diverse populations, especially at the global and planetary spheres. Within critical GCE, it is essential to teach to position oneself in the local context, as well as widening spheres of citizenship (e.g., global, planetary spheres). It is from localized to globalized to planetary spheres of understanding and positioning one’s self, countering globalizations from above that position one’s self outside of others’ communities and without fellow citizens to care about. Elitism also coincided with the hard-ness of GC/E within India. Some participants explained that the terminology “global citizens” becomes problematic within terms of classism in India because it is promoted by the “elite” in education systems, and elitist private schools and universities are places of “creating global citizens” as a selling/marketing point within neoliberal frameworks. Therefore, it is seen as a vexed term in India. It was further pointed out that the elitist educational institutions align themselves with the West and deliberately ignore local issues and mainly focus their efforts to appear “international”: as appearing to have “education which is at par with Western standards.” This devalues and corrupts GCEs as non-critical. One participant, in a horizontal dialogue, stated the following: “Global Citizens” [is] merely a fancy epithet derived from “globalization fever” that the Global South catches on to. . . . “Global” sells; that has led to global schools, global solutions, global standards which leads to purposeful alienation from the local, with focus only on the global. It should be noted that it is harmful because it takes away the criticality from the citizens’ mindset. This phenomenon coincides with what Sanjaya Baru, former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, explained as the “old Indian craze for ‘imported’ stuff” in a news article (Baru, 2018), which he says has once again returned; but this time it also includes the education sector, including higher education, largely influenced by a younger population who imagines, without critical questioning, that Western universities are always superior to Indian ones. With successive governments, there has been a lackadaisical approach to the management of the institutions of knowledge creation. This has, on the one hand, been responsible for the decline in the image of public universities and, on the other, has created the space for the growth of privately (Indian and foreign) funded universities. (Baru, 2018) India has a fast-growing education market with many private universities beginning to compete for potential customers, often touting their
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 201 “world’s best [. . .] campus design and infrastructure created by ‘American architects’ ” (Heyink, 2018, p. 20) to lure students. In India, this “push” is often not associated with educational quality but more on marketing education models with “global orientation” or “American design” or “Western standards.” A sense of “hardening” the space for critical GCE emerges from the othering with concepts of elitism in teaching to become “global citizens.” In countering elitism with GC/E, we argue the need for global citizenship to be taught within democratic, dialogical learning spaces and action-based pedagogies for students and teachers to help amplify voices outside learning spaces from those who are often voiceless. Critical GCE spaces could be ones in which learners can share information, speak out, dialogue and conflict with each other’s opinions within safe learning spaces without violence of any form. Dialogue through diverse perspectives and theoretical propositions helps learners to critically understand and appreciate diversity in the context of India, as well as better understand the inequalities between India’s diverse populations. With regards to the growing need of democratic dialogue and the amplification of marginalized voices, Audrey Truschke (2018), author of Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, wrote the following from her experiences in India. I do not know what it will take to change the current trend of “compromising” by giving in to the demands of extremists who seek to silence others, which is empowering the most extremist and deplorable elements in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s India. But let us begin by talking about this alarming set of affairs, analyzing it, and resisting it, while we still can. The quote by Truschke echoes the tenets of critical GCE and ecopedagogy which call out the need to question and re-question the effects of globalizations and other aspects which may negatively impact the Indian education systems. Ecopedagogy emphasizes that it is essential to question “who benefits?” and at “whose expense?” from actions which are systematically taught as “necessary” (Misiaszek, 2018), with critical GCEs needing the same. Commercialization and Privatization Rampal (2018) pointed out, regarding the repealing of the University Grants Commission Act, that this brazen route towards commercialization leads to increased marginalization of lower socio-economic class students. Rampal (2018) stated: [that] the recent moves by the government delude hope in the future of higher education, and further distances itself from the
202 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek early policy vision of an equitable, transformative education in hope and courage. The present disposition is in no way committed to “academic autonomy” as was posited by the University Education Commission 1949, nor does it share its constitutional mandate of democracy, justice, liberty, and equality. We argue in the words of Ivan Illich’s (1983) Deschooling Society that it seems “no one is fully exempt from the exploitation of others in the schooling process” (p. 66). Global citizenship must be understood, constructed/reinvented for holistic inclusion of all voices in learning spaces and in India overall, as the process of constructing/reinventing GCEs with ecopedagogies in India. Abdi, Shultz, and Pillay (2015, p. 3) and Abdi (2011, p. 3) have described this need, along with the challenges within the Global South: in that anything classified as global, especially when it is uni-theoretically conceived and produced, can too easily be co-opted into serving neo-colonial, neo-imperial or even neo-patriarchy systems that deliberately globalize neoliberal ideologies which de-legitimate the needs and aspirations of marginalized populations. GCEs with ecopedagogies must be oriented in a way that counters the aforementioned oppressions. Privatization is another issue which is closely connected to the neoliberal agenda in India, as it is globally. For instance, recently there has been evidence of unjust political support for some private educational institutions. Recently, academics were outraged when The Jio Institute, founded by the wealthiest business tycoon in India, was declared an “Institution of Eminence” and the government marketed it as a world-class institution without it even existing in reality (Chaudhary, 2018). When we understand GCE within the purview of ecopedagogy that centralizes socio-environmental transformative education, such matters “harden” such places within oppressive neoliberal education politics of India. Often critical voices are judged by its immediate political implications coinciding with “market values” and seldom by a widened context of ethics, society, environmentalism and citizenship. Beliefs as Separating Constructing learning spaces within such ideologies of segregation between people of different religions, areas, cultures defeats the primary purpose of education. A participant drew parallels between the situation in India to that of South Africa during the time of apartheid, stating that “in terms of schooling system where high-priced private institutions keep students ‘away’ to prevent the students from engaging with
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 203 their immediate surroundings.” She stressed that in many cases students are systematically taught not to critically look at problems around them that may or may not directly concern them. This would coincide with softer GCEs and environmental pedagogies. In addition, this coincided with our previous analysis in which GCE is often perceived as education for elitism rather than pedagogies of empowerment for the often powerless—further hardening the spaces. In India, identity and citizenship are sensitive issues and solidifying the national identity itself is a challenge; furthermore, room for promoting a sense of citizenship at the global level is challenging—“hardening” the spaces for GCE teaching and research, including critical GC/E. Hindu nationalism, an extremist religious micro-nationalism of elites, in which elites make strategic political use of elements drawn from one religion to construct an exclusive, homogenized, repressive othering, “cultural” nationalist ideology, and practice to sustain/increase elite power, is on the rise9. India faces a time where Hindu nationalists propose to eliminate all non-Hindus from being citizens to create a Hindu nation. Freedom of speech is under question and Hindu nationalist groups have successfully led attempts to ban books, films and target individuals which they deem offensive. Envisioning critical global citizenship in such a scenario is very much a “hard” task. With a National Register of Citizens10 (NRC) being updated in several states, there is panic among certain populations that they may be dubbed foreigners11 or become “stateless.”12 Apart from this, other universal rights’ violations in different capacities are pervasive throughout the country by groups and individuals often with political and religious motives.
Soft GCEs in the Hard Spaces of India If global citizenship’s main goal is to “meet global challenges of today, towards re-defining the role of education to forge more just, peaceful, tolerant and inclusive societies” (UNESCO, 2014, p. 5), a key question is how can this be achieved in the context of India? It is important to highlight some key critiques of the practicality of GC/E. Within such critical analysis, reinvention of GCE to not be soft GCE as de Oliveria de Andreotti (2014, p. 28) defines as having the goal to empower individuals to act (or become active citizens) according to what has been defined for them as a good life or an ideal world within oppressive structures such as neoliberalism and post-colonialization. Such GCE is opposite to critical GCE, that “focuses on reflect[ing] critically on the legacies and processes of their cultures and contexts, to imagine different futures and to take responsibility for their decisions and actions” (de Andreotti, 2014, p. 28). In this section, we give evidence and argue that such soft GCEs further aid oppressions by strengthening neoliberal elitist self- importance, self-righteousness and cultural supremacy; reinforcing
204 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek colonial reasoning and power dynamics; and sustaining systems of privilege and alienation which are all very evident in today’s India. There are signs of modern articulations of authoritarianism in the guise of religious, sectarian and ethnic fundamentalisms, thus breaking the fabric of the country by dividing it into parts. Returning to the discussion of Indian politics of revising textbooks and manipulating media, especially as Bhutia (2017) argued as suppressing religious diversity towards favoring the religious majority, we problematize how such actions can be countered within critical GCEs and ecopedagogies. Such problematizing, which has many challenging aspects in such aspects which “hardens” spaces for critical GCE, includes the deconstruction of soft GCEs, including the politics behind them. Evident disparities between the motivations and meaning of those delivering GCE need to be centered in India’s educational systems. However, such conflict within education is often suppressed (Apple, 2004), with particular reasons for systematic oppression in India due to various factors which mostly point to power structures. Democratic, authentic dialogue is essential in critical GCE, because the difficulty of GCE in India is governed by socio-environmental and education structures that are deeply rooted in the country, and cannot be improved without constant dialogue which represents voices equally through different perspectives. Problem-posing dialogue is a requirement for praxis to emerge with solutions that are contextually local, but which also must be effective and justified within the larger nation-state, global and planetary spheres. The ideals of multiculturalism should be within national citizenship for successful critical GCE in India. Subaltern cultures in India cannot be sidelined in the process of saffronizing the state (creation of the Hindu Nationalist State). Without the appreciation of differences between cultures (i.e., multiculturalism), assimilation education models marginalize persons of “other” cultures and/or ethnicities “in both their community cultures and in the national civic culture because they could function effectively in neither” (Banks, 2001, p. 6). Returning to the problematizing of “development,” there are also many questions of how constructs of “development” are taught in/ directly. For example, one participant who is a teacher educator in New Delhi stated the following: Grade 5 students from private school students often say that development is when malls would open for 24 hours; on the other hand, public school students from the same grade said development is when their villages have hospitals. The contrast between the views of these five graders is stark, especially with the former situated neoliberal ideologies—such ideas embedded at such a young age amongst students, which makes critical GCE an imperative but is “hard” to teach.
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 205 Teaching ecopedagogy with critical GCEs is especially essential when teaching “development” and “sustainable development” to problem-pose the politics—who benefits and who suffers from differing frameworks of “development” (Misiaszek, 2018, 2015)? India’s intensifying neoliberal education agendas, as discussed previously, counter such teaching, even the most relevant local issues, let alone global issues. However, there are many complex and conflictive issues if populations toe the ideological lines of neoliberalism. This can be exemplified by the participant quote below from New Delhi, directly calling GC/E most often “hard” in the Indian contexts. When students are taught about fruits and production; they should be taught about hunger within their self-defined populations, as well as with the national and global spheres, and within the planetary sphere within the terms of “sustainability.” When they are taught about climate change, they should be made aware of the tree felling proposal for building high-rises made by government agencies in New Delhi . . . environmental and social are side-lined in favor of development-oriented agendas in education. There are many debates of the environment in connection with development, and they are ongoing with some studies indicating that economic development since 1991 has come mostly at the cost of the natural environment (Mukherjee & Kathuria, 2006). For example, Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs of the Government of India has recently agreed to cut down 14,000 trees for “re-development” of New Delhi which was met with protests in the capital. Ironically, the Urban Affairs Ministry claims that sustainable, balanced and integrated development of urban areas is a key priority of the government. Such problems and daily battles regarding development and environment are evidence that negotiation between environment and development is ongoing. Global citizenship becomes a herculean task when problems within the country demand continuous critical reading of a diverse and extremely large population, which will soon become the world’s largest population, overtaking China.
Critical GC/E: Sine Qua Non for “Hard” Spaces Hard-ness does not only arise from formal educational structures but is dependent on multitudinous factors, all of which cannot be covered indepth within this chapter. However, we argue that critical GCE in India must emerge, or in some cases be reinvented, within local contexts, local epistemologies and local narratives (Torres, 2017a; Misiaszek, 2018). Therefore, it necessitates a discussion on how critical GCE foundations coincide and conflict with the diverse contexts of India’s, as well as how
206 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek localized to global GCE frameworks coincide or conflict with socioenvironmental well-being. We utilize a Latin phrase—sine qua non—to emphasize an essential condition which in this case is Critical GC/E for the Indian context. India’s vast diversity provides a large enough canvas to understand these issues. The large canvas comprising the diversity of cultures, languages, people in India comes with inequalities at various social and environmental inequalities within the system. This was expressed by one participant stating: It is wrong if we move away from the issues within the country, in our cities, in our villages, and only look at global issues. It is our responsibility to first attend to local issues and understand them and their connections to the global issues. The inherent groundings of critical GC/E center better understanding of diverse populations such as India, and structures of oppressions within such diverse structures. Politically hidden inequality issues, from local to national to global influences, all need to be understood, including the connections, or “ties” between them, to determine necessary actions to end socio-environmental oppressions. These ties are underlying reasons for the more significant issues that appear on the surface, with noncritical GCEs mostly ignoring them, especially local perspectives. Local perspectives should act as imperative or starting point to the “global” picture, as well as continuous reinvention of GC/E models to be locally meaningful. However, as stated previously, many Indians view GC/E as the opposite of this—as elitist, as Western, as hegemonic globally and/or nationally. Critical GCE deconstructs oppressions that lie deeply rooted in Indian systems, as well as GCE models that are characterized by the last sentence. Revisiting the problematic terminology of “citizenship” that is “global” associated with neoliberal globalization increasingly normalized, we argue that this may necessitate the frequent moving away from GC/E terminologies for Indian contexts with appropriate terminology to better define critical GC/E towards redefining oppressive GC/E models. We are not arguing to cease using the term, but teaching with the selfrealization that using the terminology frequently forms barriers from critically teaching and learning the pedagogy itself. In other words, GC/E terminology often gets in the way of itself and self-restricts its essence. Critical pedagogies on the essence of critical global citizenship, we argue, can be the needed foundation to discuss definitions/terminology/frameworks of the latter, rather than the former. Therefore, we see critical GC/E as sine qua non (essential element) to counter and redefine oppressive GC/E models. As discussed previously, the current neoliberal bent of GCE in India counters the aim of “critical” GCE and is often
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 207 erroneously equated with neocolonialism, neoliberalism and/or Western standards. Such inaccurate associations are also brought up within current GCE models with connection to the environment. For instance, local environmental issues are ignored by the ones that are not affected and they are taught about “global” environmental issues which they fail to grasp because of poor local understandings. We propose to not alienate critical aspects of the local and global environment while advocating for critical GC/E. Therefore, it necessitates that critical GC/E is understood concurrently with environmental pedagogies or ecopedagogies. Ecopedagogical Shift and Ecopedagogical Literacies Ecopedagogies as well critical GCEs are transdisciplinary, with socio- environmental injustices being critically read and re-read to problempose the following question: Who benefits from the oppression and act of environmental violence (Misiaszek, 2018, 2015)? This aspect could be seen in the research data, as a research participant, who is an educational specialist in the field of GC/E in India, stated the following: We cannot only talk about food quality and not talk about hunger. When we teach about food, we should ask and raise questions about hunger. Because students are coming from all kinds of diverse backgrounds. Only critical pedagogy can teach students how to respect people from all backgrounds, and be dignified. Teaching through problematizing these realities through diverse perspectives, especially from those who suffer the most, is essential in critical GCE-ecopedagogical spaces. We argue shifting non-critical GCE approaches are particularly necessary for India, where GCE has increasingly become aligned to “globalization from above”—deconstructing neoliberal GCEs through critical deconstruction, including the utilization of ecopedagogical tools (in both teaching and research). Ecopedagogues use tools based on Freirean pedagogy such as democratic dialogue, conscientizacao (i.e., conscientization), reading and rereading the world, and action-based teaching for praxis. Freire’s notion of conscientizacao—becoming more fully human through transforming the oppressive elements of reality—is at the center of critical pedagogical practice and successful ecopedagogy which aims at achieving praxis. Ecopedagogy with GCE constructs teaching in the contexts of everyone in the learning space and to better understand those marginalized outside of the space, with a specific focus on environmental violence linked to oppressions and inherent rights of nature outside of the human sphere. Freire emphasized on reading the world before reading the word, or in other words “reading the world always precedes reading the
208 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek word, and reading the word implies continually reading the world” (Freire & Macedo, 1987, p. 35). Ecopedagogical literacy is a reinvention of Freire’s reading “the world” to include the reading of Earth as a whole and the World as social interactions of humans (Misiaszek & Torres, 2019); (Misiaszek, 2019). We argue that critical GCE with ecopedagogy, along with the teaching of ecopedagogical literacies, are essential in India. Ecopedagogies provide multiple lenses to view various socio-environmentally oppressive issues with diverse perspectives and epistemologies, and how GC/E models and tenets coincide or conflict with ecopedagogical goals as discussed previously. Ecopedagogues using multiple lenses to understand such issues and “question re-question” structures of GC/E within education and socio- and environmental spheres will help orient learners towards great awareness and “praxis” (Misiaszek, 2018). Context of Place and Pedagogies The research in successful environmental pedagogies in India grounded in environment pedagogy practices shows that it is indispensable to understand the setting/context within the context of education towards ecopedagogy or GCE (Syed, 2018). The research developed a framework for successful environmental pedagogies which uses pedagogical praxis and intent of critical pedagogy, along with participatory methodologies, to allow for investigation of relevant socio-environmental issues in urban environments by establishing a connection with the context of the place for successful environment pedagogy. Freire’s idea of reading the world before reading the word encapsulates the importance of GCE to be used critically within the context of place by “perceive[ing] social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (Freire, 1970, p. 17). The inclusion of context of place along with critical pedagogy and contextualized theories in the framework challenges educators on the relationship between the kind of education they pursue to the places they inhabit and leave behind for future generations. Syed (2018) adapted critical pedagogy of place in the framework in place of place-based education because a “place” is more than a location on a map, it has a lived history and “expands a cultural landscape to include related ecosystems, bioregions, and all the space-specific interactions between the human and the more-than-human world” (Gruenewald, 2014, p. 143). Such an example of an approach to environmental pedagogies could work with GCE in India, jointly working in a unified direction with Freirean pedagogy and crucial elements of ecopedagogy. It embodies the idea of Freire to question and re-question, also mentioned in Misiaszek (2018). Critical pedagogy of place encourages those critical questions that “need” to be asked, such as the following: What
Countering Appropriations of GCE in India 209 has happened here?; What is happening here?; and What should happen here? These three key questions can be used to deconstruct and reconstruct “place” through local cultures and histories (North & Harasymchuk, 2012). In the context of problematizing the power dynamics of local to global entities steering India’s educational systems, critical questioning for successful GCE coincides with Misiaszek’s (2018) argued questions necessary for successful ecopedagogy—who is benefitting, who is not and at whose cost?
Conclusion: Global and Planetary Citizenship Towards Ending Neoliberalism There are numerous “next steps” that we have argued are necessary throughout this chapter, with this brief final section re-emphasizing the need for critical global and planetary citizenship education to counter neoliberalism that separates humans from each other and the rest of nature. As expressed in previous sections, the “hard-ness” of GCE in India is largely due to the neoliberal global citizenship framings. The accompanying neoliberal GCE models do not only place one’s self— one’s private sphere—as solely valued but the teaching centers the “impractical-ness” of GCE for empowering the oppressed. Critical GCEs counter these neoliberal constructs of global citizenship and education for these constructs (i.e., countering neoliberal GCEs) by placing value only with economic terms without concern of justice (i.e., outside of economic justice models); critical GCE is popularly deemed useless. We strongly agree with the impracticability of global citizenship within neoliberal frameworks with them needing to be obliterated. The oppressive nature of GCE within the neoliberal agenda is similar to the neoliberal esD (see Misiaszek, 2018), with the problematizing of “development,” especially hegemonic Development indicated by a capitalized “D.” Along with critical GC/E, we emphasized the need for planetary citizenship as described previously—humans as citizens of one another holistically and with and part of the planet. With the prioritization of the planet holistically, planetary citizenship inherently counters neoliberal agendas (Misiaszek, 2018). There are various pedagogical approaches to teaching the global and planetary spheres of citizenship. For example, there is the notion of “de-centering” as argued by UNESCO (2014) as a gradual process of expanding the focus of learners from their local realities to include, connect them to, and provide them with a vision of other realities and possibilities. This concept sees the local versus global as a continuum and acts as a bridge over the gap between the two. Using such an approach will pan not only the local contexts but also orient individuals towards the larger pictures; this encapsulates the essence of planetary citizenship which is emphasized by ecopedagogy as well. What we argue is
210 Syed Nitas Iftekhar and Greg William Misiaszek the use of various approaches towards narrowing what Misiaszek (2018) termed as anthropo-bio-centric gaps. These gaps are the “taught” disconnections between human populations (i.e., “anthropocentric gaps”) with the disconnections of us humans with the rest of nature (i.e., “biocentric gaps”). The complexities and challenges of critical GC/E can be strengths, as the problematizing itself as teaching and learning. It should be seen as an advantage rather than as a weakness, as it obliges those engaged in GCE to continuously re-examine, re-question perceptions, values, beliefs and worldviews. India’s vast diversity of cultures, traditions, languages, religions and identities within India very much calls upon the need and practicalness of critical GC/E in the country. With this need and practicality of critical GC/E, the abolishment of neoliberal GC/E ideology is as critical as GCEs’ grounding with planetary citizenship education.
Acknowledgment From Syed Nitas Iftekhar With all the steps I take forward, I am grateful and want to thank those around me who have contributed in different ways. Particularly, my parents, Mr. Syed Neaz Ahmad and Mrs. Aayesha Neaz for providing me with more than I could ever ask for in all aspects; because of their encouragement, I try to give back to society and the planet, as much as I can, through my work and constantly strive to improve myself. Special thanks to Greg and Lauren, my mentors and friends, for the opportunities they have given me to collaborate with them. Peace.
Notes 1. In the text, GCE will indicate multiple pedagogical models. GC/E will indicate both Global Citizeship and/or its education. Critical GC/E (or GCE) indicates Critical-based frameworks and/or models as defined in the chapter. 2. The term “towards” signifies utopic goals to determine the pathways for obtaining them without ever reaching them. 3. www.atimes.com/as-indias-institutions-come-under-attack-indias-democracyfinds-itself-facing-a-threat-from-within/ 4. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/20/mobs-killing-muslimsindia-narendra-modi-bjp 5. www.newyorker.com/culture/2017-in-review/the-year-of-love-jihad-in-india 6. www.atimes.com/as-indias-institutions-come-under-attack-indias-democracyfinds-itself-facing-a-threat-from-within/ 7. www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/asia/india-universities-nationalism-abvp/ index.html 8. The Maha Upanishad is a Sanskrit text and is one of the minor Upanishads of Hinduism. The text is classified as a Vaishnava Upanishad. The text has been influential in the major Hindu literature that followed it. 9. www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/india-modi-culture/ 10. www.nrcassam.nic.in/wha_nrc.html 11. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45002670 12. www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45002549
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Index
Abdi, A. 53, 56 Aboriginal people: Ngarrindjeri community 52 – 53; “Uluru Declaration of the Heart” 51 – 52 achievements, of citizenship education in Chinese schools 19 activism 49 – 51; “allyship” 54; “Uluru Declaration of the Heart” 51 – 52 Africa 47; “banking system of education” 169 – 170; colonialism 142; competency-based curriculum 72 – 74; development traps 148, 149, 150; dilemmas in Citizenship Education (CE) 167 – 168; inefficiency in aid and development 146; Liberia 168; literacy rates 154 – 155; planners 146, 157; postcolonialism in 150 – 151, 169; preservation of identity in 165; research question focusing on a comparison of countries in 143; status of CE in Zimbabwe 166 – 167; teaching of citizenship in 169 – 170; Ubuntu 167, 169; see also Democratic Republic of the Congo; Kenya; Zimbabwe African Social Studies Programme 168 Agamben, G. 79 Ahmed, S. 1, 5 – 6; Cultural Politics of Emotion, The 69 Alexander, J. 166 “allyship” 54 Als, H. 3 Aman, R. 53 Americanization 98 Anderson, B. 98 anthropo-bio-centric gaps 210 Aporia 4 Appadurai, A. 55, 57
Appiah, K. A., “Stonewall and the myth of self-deliverance” 54 Apple, M. 198 Archer, C. 145 Assié-Lumumba, N’Dri Thérèse 169; “The Ubuntu Paradigm and Comparative and International Education: Epistemological Challenges and Opportunities in Our Field” 47 Atlas. ti software 71 – 72 Austin, J. L. 159 Australia 12, 39; aboriginal communities 40; Ngarrindjeri community 52 – 53; racism in 48 – 49; “Uluru Declaration of the Heart” 51 – 52 autoethnography 11 – 12, 17 autoethnonegraphy 11 – 12 autotheory 3, 4 Babakiueria (Barbecue Area) 49 bachelor’s degree, privilege of in Eritrea 117 Baldwin, J., If Beale Street Could Talk 48 Banana, C. 166 “banking system of education” 169 – 170 Baru, S. 200 Basic Education Curriculum Reform Outline 18 Bauman, Z. 112 beliefs as barriers 202 – 203 Bensted, R. 157 Berg, B. 31 Bhutia, U. 204 blindness of practice 7 Blomkamp, Neill, Elysium (2003) 101 – 102
216 Index Bolivia 53 Bratton, M. 166 Brewer, J. 30 bridging 51 – 54 Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory 70 Brook, T. “How the Global Box Office Is Changing Hollywood” 97 Bungu, L. 11 Burke, K. J. 9, 50 capitalism, and global neoliberal media culture 96 – 97 Carlson, B. 51 Cartesian citizenship 103 censorship 2 Chang, I. 2 Chen, K. H. 47 China 12; achievements of citizenship education in schools 19; Basic Education Curriculum Reform Outline 18; censorship 2; challenges and solutions for contacting and selecting research objects 28 – 29; choosing suitable means of sending invitation letters to research participants 29; citizenship education 36; citizenship education in 16, 17, 18 – 19; confronting challenges for field immersion 33 – 35; “Core Values of Chinese Socialism” 18 – 19; cultivation of a friendly environment and humanistic culture in school 19 – 20; democratic education in 17, 22; development of participatory curriculums and activities 20 – 22; expressing personal opinion about school management in 28; gaining access to schools in 30 – 31; issues upon finishing fieldwork in 35 – 36; national unified university and college entrance examination system 22 – 25; obtaining information about school activities 35; Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development 18, 23; reform schools 25; school gatekeepers in 31 – 33; “two scores and one percentage” 24 – 25 Choudry, A. 49
Christianity, religious tolerance in Tanzania 86 – 87 chronosystem 70 citizenship 163; Cartesian 103; defining 94 – 95; nonanthropocentric 193 – 194; and patriotism 163; planetary 194, 209 – 210 Citizenship Education (CE) 36, 163; achievements of in Chinese schools 19; challenges and solutions for contacting and selecting research objects in China 28 – 29; in China 16, 18 – 19; community involvement 172; culture circles 172 – 173; “dancing in chains” 16; dilemmas in 167 – 168; dynamics of 175; and ecopedagogies 192; education as a practice of freedom 170; enhancement of subjects 173; ethnography 17; expanding pattern of 178; global narratives in 179 – 180; homegrown solutions 171 – 172; local rituals 171; in postcolonial contexts 164 – 165; preservice training programs 173 – 174; prioritizing indigenous languages 170 – 171; scope of 174 – 175; tensions in 168 – 169; in Zimbabwe 165, 166 – 167 Civic Education (CE) 71, 73, 80, 82; changes in curricula 86; develecological advocacy 89; and religious tolerance 86 – 87; role of technology and media 86 Codó, E. 121 college entrance examination: Chinese 22 – 25; “two scores and one percentage” 24 – 25 Collier, P. 144, 147, 156, 157 colonialism 41, 76, 81, 142, 147, 165, 184; Tanzania 73 colonialization 151 communities 39 – 40; aboriginal 40; Chris and Masoud’s encounter 77 – 79; dark ages 77; decision-making in 40; elders’ mistrust 79 – 80; and family 88, 89; gatedness 199 – 201; imagined 97 – 99; involvement in CE 172; Kenyan, perspective on development 152 – 154; Ngarrindjeri 52 – 53; Tanzanian 73 – 74; Ubuntu 167, 169
Index 217 comparing different definitions of hard spaces 144 – 145 Confucianism, as roadblock to GCE implementation in South Korea 181 – 183 Connell, R., Toward a Postcolonial Comparative and International Education 40 conscientizacao 169, 207 constructing identity 94 – 95; and media culture 96 – 97 constructivism 57n1 contemplating global presence, positionality and purview 44 – 45 content analysis 106 cosmopolitanism 38 counter-hegemony 8, 9 courses, Comparative Education Research Methodologies 2 critical conjunctures 4 critical consciousness 169 critical discourse analysis 71 critical GCE in India 205 – 207; ecopedagogies 207 – 208 critical media literacy 106 – 107 critical pedagogy 81, 206 critical race theory 103, 104, 141 critical theory 38 cross-cultural readings 39, 40, 48; shifting to 42 – 43 Crozier, G. 9 cultural citizenship, teaching through media 105 – 107 cultural identity 135; learning new culture 125 – 127; socio-cultural integration 131 – 132 cultural understanding 47 culturally sensitive translation 140 – 141 culture: diatopical hermeneutics 7, 8; and local work experience 127 – 130; media 97 – 98; work 128 curriculum 165; “banking system of education” 169 – 170; participatory, development of in China 20 – 22; Tanzanian CE 86; textbooks in Tanzanian education 81 – 82 “dancing in chains” 16, 26 dark ages 76, 77 Davis, R. B. 39 De Haas, H. 113 de Sousa Santos, B. 6 – 7, 8, 56, 57, 73, 107, 143, 194
“de-centering” 209 decision-making, in communities 40 decolonization 39 deconstructing GCE 192 – 195 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 103 – 104 democratic education 22; in China 17, 18 – 19, 22; external challenges 22 – 25; internal challenges 25 – 28 Democratic Republic of the Congo 12; as development trap 145, 148, 149, 150; literacy rates 154 – 155 develecological advocacy 89 development traps 155 development: from a Kenyan local community perspective 152 – 154; planners 157; waste of resources in 159 development aid: inefficiency in 146; planners 146 development traps 145, 148, 149, 150; results of the comparison of definitions of hard spaces 155 – 158 dharma 7 diatopical hermeneutics 7, 8 dignity 7 dilemmas in Citizenship Education (CE) 167 – 168 Dion, M. 54 discourse analysis 106 diversity 40, 41, 42, 93, 98, 113; and race 103 Dustmann, C. 120 Easterly, W. 146 ecopedagogies 191 – 192, 194 – 195, 197, 199 – 200, 202, 205, 207 – 208, 208, 209 – 210 educational qualification of Eritrean migrants 114 – 118; returning to college 130 – 133 Eidhof, B. B. 165 elitism of Western GCE 199 – 201 Elysium (2003) 101 – 102 emotional habitus 88, 89 emotional pedagogy 89 emotions 6, 69, 141; fear 73; internal challenges to democratic education in China 25 – 28; politics of 69, 70; politics of 71, 77; socio-cultural 72; surface bodies 69, 70 empowerment 40 engagement 44; with the self 55 epistemicide 73, 86
218 Index equity, in GCE 6 Eritrean migrants 12, 112, 113; cultural identity 122 – 124; educational qualification 114 – 118; Eritrean Secondary Education Certificate Examinations (ESECE) 116; “integration paradox” 117; language barrier 120 – 122; learning new culture 125 – 127; local work experience and culture 127 – 130; returning to college 130 – 133; sociocultural integration 134; struggle to fit in 124 – 125; work experience 118 – 120 Eritrean Secondary Education Certificate Examinations (ESECE) 116 ethics review processes 6 ethnography 17 exclusion 42 exosystem 70, 75 – 77; fear of 83 exploring resources and multiple viewpoints 45 – 46 external challenges to democratic education in China 22 – 25 Fabbri, F. 120 family 88, 89 fear 73; of the exosystem 83; Islamophobia 100 feminism: and identity 95; and scopophilia 101 field immersion, in Chinese schools 33 – 35 firewalls 12 Fokkema, T. 113 Foucault, M. 106 Frazer, R. 51 Freire 147, 171 – 172, 174, 208; conscientizacao 169; inédito viável 12 Garrido, M. R. 121 gatedness of Western GCE 199 – 201 gatekeepers, identifying in Chinese schools 31 – 33 gender identity 45, 47, 49, 93 – 95, 143, 152, 154, 164 Ghana 168 Giddens, A. 145 Gilligan, C. 50 Giroux, H. 97 glamorization of the “American way of life” 98 – 99
global citizenship 2, 38; and cultural identity 122 – 124 Global Citizenship Education (GCE) 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 69, 72, 87, 89, 140, 146, 158, 159, 178, 187, 198 – 199, 209 – 210; and “banking system of education” 169 – 170; beliefs as barriers 202 – 203; Chris and Masoud’s encounter 78; comparing different definitions of hard spaces 144 – 145; competencies 70, 89; culturally sensitive translation 140 – 141; deconstructing 192 – 195; develecological advocacy 89; diatopical hermeneutics 8; ecopedagogies 194 – 195, 202, 205, 207 – 208; elders’ mistrust 79 – 80; equity 6; fear of the exosystem 83; firewalls 2 – 3; global commons 192 – 193; hard spaces in Tanzania 74 – 75, 80; implementing in Israel 181; in India 191, 192, 195 – 196; and migration 113; and multiculturalism 104 – 105; mutual intelligibility 83 – 85; politics of emotions 70, 71; and race 103; and religious tolerance 86 – 87; research question focusing on a comparison of countries in 143; results of the comparison of definitions of hard spaces 155 – 158; role of technology and media 86; socio-emotional learning outcomes 5; soft 203 – 205; in South Korea 179, 181 – 183, 183 – 186; teaching cultural citizenship through media 105 – 107; technical and competitive education in India 196 – 198; theory and practice 7; in the US 180; Western 199 – 201; see also citizenship education Global Citizenship (GC) 191 global commons 192 – 193 Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) 179 global meaning making 39, 41, 42, 55, 57; keys to 43 – 44; objectivity and 40; see also keys to global meaning making global narratives in Citizenship Education (CE) 179 – 180 global neoliberal media culture, and capitalism 96 – 97
Index 219 Global North 98 – 99, 107, 141; comparing different definitions of hard spaces 144 – 145 global reading 38; and activism 49 – 51; and communities 39 – 40; communities 39 – 40; shifting to 42 – 43; sophistication of readers 44; see also global meaning making Global South 9, 99, 101 – 102; comparing different definitions of hard spaces 144 – 145; NeoOrientalism 99 – 100; Orientalism 100; surveillance 2 globalism 42 globalization 36, 81, 95, 96 – 97, 109, 113, 164, 185; and human rights 193; unresolved challenges of the literature on 107 – 108 Gore, A., An Inconvenient Truth 106 Goren, H. 181 Gramsci, A. 49, 50, 143 Greene, S. 50 Gregory, M. R. 19, 48 Guerrilla 4 Gutiérrez, F. 41 – 42 Haas, H. 113 Habermas. J. 39 Hale, S. 6, 142 Hall, B. 49 Hall, S. 95, 143 Haluza-Delay, R. 49 hard spaces 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 69, 78, 80, 85 – 86, 140, 146, 195, 196; comparing different definitions of 144 – 145; discourse on race in 102 – 105; finding soft spaces in 174 – 175; in implementing GCE, South Korea as 181 – 186; in India 193, 195 – 196; research question focusing on a comparison of countries in 143; results of the comparison of definitions of 155 – 158; soft GCEs in 203 – 205; in Tanzania 74 – 75 health sector, in United Kingdom 131 higher education institutions (HEIs), Eritrean migrants’ return to college 130 – 133 Hinduism 194, 195, 203; dharma 7; vasudhaiva kutumbakam (“the world is one family”) 196; see also India Hollywood: Elysium (2003) 101 – 102; and imagined global communities
98 – 99; and media culture 97; and Neo-Orientalism 99 – 100; Steven Spielberg 109 Howe, L. 39 Hughes, A. 166 – 167 human rights 5, 7, 56, 112; and globalization 193 humanistic school environment 19 – 20 “I Will Marry When I Want” 152 – 154 identity 93, 94, 96; constructing 94 – 95, 96; cultural 122 – 124, 135; gender 95; minjok 182 – 183, 184, 186; and positionality 164; preservation of in Africa 165; and race 102 – 105; sameness in 107 ideology: neoliberal 199; and race 103 Illich, I., Deschooling Society 202 imagined global communities 97 – 99 immigrants 99, 100; African 112; and cultural identity 122 – 124; Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 103 – 104; “integration paradox” 113, 117; and the language barrier 120 – 122; learning new culture 125 – 127; local work experience and culture 127 – 130; and multiculturalism 104 – 105; returning to college 130 – 133; socio-cultural integration 131 – 132, 134; struggle to fit in 124 – 125; work experience of Eritrean migrants 118 – 120; see also Eritrean migrants India 12; challenges to critical GCE 195 – 196; commercialization 201 – 202; complexities of GCE in 192 – 195; critical GCE in 205 – 207; ecopedagogies 202, 205, 207 – 208; Global Citizenship Education (GCE) 191, 192; hard spaces in 193, 195 – 196; historical distortion through textbooks 198 – 199; identity 203; privatization in 201 – 202; soft GCEs in hard spaces of 203 – 205; technical and competitive education 196 – 198 Indigenous communities 51 Indigenous languages, prioritizing 170 – 171 inédito viável 12 inefficiency in aid and development 146
220 Index inequality 97 Information Age 95 “integration paradox” 117 internal challenges to democratic education in China 25 – 28 Islam: and Neo-Orientalism 99, 104 – 105; religious tolerance in Tanzania 86 – 87; umma 7 Islamophobia 100 Israel, Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in 181 Jaworsky, B. N. 113 Jourdan, C., Language, Culture and Society 69 kaffir 87 Kang, W.-T. 183 Kenya 12; African Social Studies Programme 168; development from the perspective of the local community 152 – 154; as development trap 145, 148, 149, 150; dilemmas in Citizenship Education (CE) 167 – 168; literacy rates 154 – 155 keys to global meaning making 43 – 44, 54 – 55; bridging and leveraging 51 – 54; contemplating global presence, positionality and purview 44 – 45; contemplating self and positionalities 47 – 49; exploring multiple viewpoints and approaches 46; exploring resources and multiple viewpoints 45 – 46; probing socio-political currents 46 – 47; transforming: from connoisseur to activist 49 – 51 knowledge: epistemicide 73, 86; mutual intelligibility 83 – 85; translation of 7 Koestenbaum, W. 3 Kohlberg, L. 56 Korea 12 Korff, R. 164 labels 12 LaMonde, A. 50 language 141 – 142; indigenous 167, 170 – 171; mutual intelligibility 83 – 85 language barrier for Eritrean migrants 120 – 122 Lather, P. 6, 50 Laverty, M. J. 48
learning outcomes 5 – 6 Lei, Y. 18 Levitt, P. 113 LGTBQ, “allyship” 54 Li, C. 47 Liberia 150 – 151, 168 literacy rates, in Africa 154 – 155 local communities: gatedness 199 – 200; Kenyan, perspective on development 152 – 154; Ubuntu 167, 169 local work experience, and culture 127 – 130 localization 107 localized translation 144 Maha Upanishad 196 Mararike, C. G. 171 Marshall Plan 98 Matias, C. 141, 142 M’Bokolo, E. 144, 145, 147, 150 – 151, 155 – 156, 157 McGregor, J. 166 McKenna, M. K. 50 media 93; American 98; Americanization 98; critical media literacy 106 – 107; culture of 96 – 97, 97 – 98; and identity 94; teaching cultural citizenship through 105 – 107; as vehicle for activism 50 – 51 memes 51 mesosystem 70, 80 microsystem 70, 77 microtargeting 45 – 46 migration 112, 113; cultural identity 122 – 124; and education 113; and Global Citizenship Education (GCE) 113; “integration paradox” 117; and the language barrier 120 – 122; learning new culture 125 – 127; local work experience and culture 127 – 130; socio-cultural integration 131 – 132, 134; see also Eritrean migrants; immigrants minjok 182, 184, 186 Misiaszek, G. 208 – 209 Mnangagwa, Emmerson 165 – 166 modernism 76, 78 modernization 145 Modi, N. 196 Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) 166 Mugabe, R. G. 165 – 166 multiculturalism, in South Korea 104 – 105
Index 221 Mulvey, L. 101 Mundy, K. 164 mutual intelligibility 83 – 85 narratives, global 41, 179 – 180 National Academic Recognition Information Centre (NARIC) 115 National and Strategic Studies (NASS) 167 National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 196 national identity 89, 95; in India 203; in South Korea 181 – 183, 183 – 186, 186; of Tanzania 73, 74; Utanzania 85 – 86; see also identity national unified university and college entrance examination system in China 22 – 25 Nehru, J. 196 Nelson, M. 3 neoliberalism 96 – 97, 108, 186, 196, 199, 205, 206, 207, 209 – 210 Neo-Orientalism 99 – 100, 104; and the discourse on race 100 – 102; and Islam 104 – 105 Ngarrindjeri community 52 – 53 non-anthropocentric citizenship 193 – 194 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) 187 North Korea 183 – 186 Nussbaum, M. 39 “objectified other” 101 objectivity 40; exploring multiple viewpoints and approaches 46; exploring resources and multiple viewpoints 45 – 46 Orientalism 100 “other, the” 40, 42, 94; Elysium (2003) 101 – 102; Neo-Orientalism 99 Outline of the National Medium- and Long-Term Program for Education Reform and Development 18, 23 Park, C. M. 47 passé-muraille 69, 87 Pathak, A. 197 – 198 patriotism 163; National and Strategic Studies (NASS) 167 pedagogical methodology 9 – 10, 83, 103 – 104; critical media literacy 106 – 107; ecopedagogies 191 – 192, 194 – 195, 197, 199 – 200, 202, 205, 209 – 210
pedagogy 56, 71, 81, 89, 105, 108, 132 – 133, 207; and place 208 – 209 Peirce, C. 48 Perry, M. 50 planetary citizenship 209 – 210 planners 146, 157 political ecology of Zimbabwe 165 – 166 political sensitivity 5 politics of emotions 69, 70, 71, 77 positionalities 47 – 49, 164 postcolonialism 144, 145, 169; in Africa 150 – 151; and Citizenship Education (CE) 164 – 165 Postma, D. 199 postmodernism 58n1, 77, 79 – 80, 86 practice: and research 17; and theory 7 pre-service training programs 173 – 174 prioritizing indigenous languages 170 – 171 privatization in India 201 – 202 probing socio-political currents 46 – 47 projection 89 Quaynor, L. J. 168 race: critical race theory 103; in hard spaces 102 – 105; and multiculturalism 104 – 105; and “the other” 100 – 102 racism: Elysium (2003) 101 – 102; and Neo-Orientalism 100; towards indigenous populations 48 – 49 Radner, H. 95 Rampal, A. 201 – 202 Reeves, C. L. 32 reform schools, Chinese 25 refugees 117 – 118 religious tolerance 86 – 87 research: advance preparation before first meeting 31 – 32; challenges and solutions for contacting and selecting research objects 28 – 29; choosing suitable means of sending invitation letters 29; confront challenges for field immersion 33 – 35; “dancing in chains” 16; gaining access to schools in China 30 – 31; identifying school gatekeepers in China 31 – 33; issues upon finishing fieldwork 35 – 36; necessary qualities for researchers 33; obtaining information about
222 Index school activities in China 35; participatory 50; pedagogical methodology 9 – 10; and practice 17; waiting for response 29 – 30 resources 142 Rigney, D. 52 – 53 rituals 171 Rogers, R. 50 Roman, L. 56 Rorty, R. 48 Russell, S. G. 34 Rwanda 12; as development trap 145, 148, 149, 150; literacy rates 154 – 155
national identity 183 – 186; textbooks 185 – 186 Spielberg, S., Ready Player One 109 Sriprakash, Arathi, Toward a Postcolonial Comparative and International Education 40 standardization 41 Stromquist, N. P. 193 stuck places 6 surface bodies 69, 70; fear 73 surveillance 2 sustainable development 191, 193 Syed, N. I. 208
Said, E. 99, 142 schools 89, 165 scopophilia 101 Sears, A. 166 – 167 self 95, 103, 107; contemplating 47 – 49; engagement with 55 sensitivity 6, 10 Shi, Z. 47 Siasa-politics 74 Singh, M. 200 Skinner, Q. 142, 159 small culture 4 – 5 Smith, L. 39, 53 social Darwinism 197 social death 170 social justice 97, 102, 104, 184, 194, 199 social media 46, 86, 109; and activism 50 – 51; exploring resources and multiple viewpoints 45 – 46; obtaining information about school activities in China 35 socialism, of Tanzania 76 – 77 socio-cultural emotions 72 socio-cultural integration 131 – 132, 134 socio-emotional learner attribute 5 soft spaces 11; finding in hard spaces 174 – 175 sophistication of readers 44 South Africa 112 South Korea 178, 179, 187; Confucianism as roadblock to GCE implementation 181 – 183; Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) 179; migrant workers in 109n1; minjok 182 – 183, 184, 186; multiculturalism in 104 – 105;
Takayama, K. 47, 53; Toward a Postcolonial Comparative and International Education 40 TANU 74 Tanzania 12, 70; changes in CE curricula 86; Chris and Masoud’s encounter 77 – 79; Civic Education (CE) 71, 72, 73, 82; communities 73 – 74; elders’ mistrust 79 – 80; exosystem 75 – 77; fear of the exosystem 83; hard spaces 74 – 75; historical trend and global forces 72 – 74; interviews 75 – 77; microsystem 77; mutual intelligibility 83 – 85; national identity 73, 74; nature of students 82 – 83; religious leaders 86 – 87; schools 80 – 85; Siasa-politics 74; socialism of 76 – 77; Ujamaa na Kujitegemea 85; Ujamaa values 74; Utanzania 85 – 86 teachers: ecopedagogies 194 – 195, 197, 199 – 200, 202, 205, 207 – 208, 209 – 210; expressing personal opinion about school management in China 28; internal challenges to democratic education in China 25 – 28 teaching cultural citizenship through media 105 – 107 technical and competitive education in India 196 – 198 technology: and identity construction 95; social media 96 tensions in Citizenship Education (CE) 168 – 169 textbooks: and historical distortion in India 198 – 199; in South Korean
Index 223 schools 185 – 186; in Tanzanian education 81 – 82 textual analysis 106 Thapar, R. 197 theory, and practice 7 Torres, C. A. 2, 4, 192 transformative changes 51 translation 7, 8, 142; culturally sensitive 140 – 141; localized 144 tribography 39 Tribu No, “No Manifesto” 3 – 4, 10, 11 Truschke, A. 201 trust 30 – 31 Tsegay, S. 11 Tsvangirai, M. 166 Tuck, E. 41 Tuite, K., Language, Culture and Society 69 “two scores and one percentage” 24 – 25 Ubuntu 167, 169 Ujamaa na Kujitegemea 85 Ujamaa values 74 “Uluru Declaration of the Heart” 51 – 52 umma 7 UNESCO 2, 143; Global Citizenship Education (GCE) 5; learning outcomes 5 – 6; “Statement on Race” 102 – 103 United Kingdom: and cultural identity of Eritrean migrants 122 – 124; educational qualification of Eritrean migrants 114 – 118; Eritrean migrants’ return to college 130 – 133; health sector 131; “integration paradox” 117; language barrier for Eritrean migrants 120 – 122; work experience of Eritrean migrants 118 – 120 United States 12; Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in 180 universalism 41 universities 40 – 41 university libraries 1
unpainted spaces 11 – 12 unresolved challenges of the literature on globalization 107 – 108 Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) 149 Utanzania 85 – 86 vasudhaiva kutumbakam (“the world is one family”) 196 Verkuyten, M. 113, 117 Virtual Proxy Network (VPN) 1 volunteering 128 – 129 Western GCE 199 – 200 Willinsky, J., Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End 56 Willis, P. 50 Winnicott, D. 78 – 79 Winters, K. 50 work culture 128 – 130 work experience of Eritrean migrants 118 – 120 work in hard spaces 9; pedagogical methodology 9 – 10 Yang, K. W. 41 ZANU PF 166 Zhang, J. 18 Zhong, M. 18 Zimbabwe 12, 164; Civic Education (CE) 165; community involvement in CE 172; culture circles 172 – 173; dilemmas in Citizenship Education (CE) 167 – 168; dynamics of CE 175; education as a practice of freedom 170; enhancement of CE subjects 173; local rituals 171; National and Strategic Studies (NASS) 167; political ecology 165 – 166; preservice training programs 173 – 174; prioritizing Indigenous languages in 170 – 171; scope of CE 174 – 175; status of CE in 166 – 167; tensions in Citizenship Education (CE) 168 – 169; ZANU PF 166