The spate of local (#Rhodesmustfall, #Feesmustfall) and global (such as Occupy, Arabspring) protest movements point to the multiple forms of exclusion that characterise late Capitalism. These exclusions are not only detrimental to the majority of humans, but also to the earth. The protests at higher education institutions are directed at institutional mechanisms and pedagogies that exclude the majority from meaningful participation in defining the social and environmental good. This article is a conceptual investigation into aspects of a posthuman pedagogy that aims to define notions of sociality and justice. A pedagogy of social justice does not simply aim at the inclusion of the marginalised in the social order, but queries the ways social ordering draws on an economy of lack and desire, the very resources of transformation. It is claimed that a posthuman perspective could do justice to the becoming of humans, nonhumans and earth. Particular aspects of a pedagogy of social justice are discussed such as desire, enjoyment; becoming and responsibility. It is argued that a focus on the production of desire through which students become minoritarian could enhance their power of differential becomings and their constructive engagement in the transformation of reality.
PROTESTSThe higher education scene in South Africa has recently been dominated by student protests such as #rhodesmustfall and #feesmustfall. These movements express critique of social inequalities, colonial epistemologies, oppressive pedagogies, bureaucratic management in and financial exclusion from universities. They associate closely with workers' demands for insourcing (#outsourcingmustfall) and decent remuneration.The protests are part of the growing global awareness of the social and environmental unsustainability of neoliberal politics and global capitalist practices. They could be seen as part of what Raymond Williams (1965) calls the 'long revolution' towards self-governance. This continuing revolution could be detected among the South African 'born free' generation (those born after the establishment of the democratic state in 1994). This generation demands with new energy and urgency the continuation of the South African revolution through the realisation of the promises of democracy. As could be expected, the older generation, particularly those who were part of the democratic revolution in South Africa, are 'bewildered and angry when the new young generation asserts that the revolution has after all not EDITORIAL
In order to extend its scope, depth and effectiveness, critique should shift from its reliance on humanistic assumptions and be reconceptualised as a sociomaterial practice through which realities are enacted differently as multiple and tensional. This kind of critique counters the ways regimes of power are materially entrenched. This article explores such an alternative conception of critique by drawing on Butler's notion of performativity, the agential realism of Barad and the ontological politics of Mol. It explores the particular ways in which actor-network theory could be understood as a resource of critique. Because of its central role in the enactment of reality, Education is an important field within which critique is developed further in relation to ontological and epistemological assumptions behind different learning spaces and the incoherences and tensions of different ontics. IntroductionCritical traditions in education are largely characterised by rationalist and humanist assumptions which require an autonomous and rational human agent and which conceptualise transformation from a position of moral and cognitive privilege. Such humanist forms of critique mainly operate in the (linguistic) discursive sphere where ideologies and false consciousness are uncovered and where transformative praxis is based on changed beliefs. The main problem with these forms of critique lies in its inability to adequately recognise the nature of materiality, the materiality of regimes of power and to investigate more fully how possibilities of agency could be opened up.This article conceptualises critique in a way that attempts to avoid the humanism within Marxist, Neo-Marxist and postmodern approaches. It wants to avoid postmodern foci on (linguistic) discursiveness and identityformation, and the Marxist human-centred agent of critique. It accepts the postmodern modesty about emancipatory goals in contrast to the Marxist ideal of revolutionary replacement of capitalism. It represents a return to the *acknowledgement of the role of the material without equating the material with the economic (means and relations of production). Neither the material nor the discursive are taken to be determining factors in the final instance. The focus on the materiality of critique corresponds to the way forms of oppression and exclusion are embedded in material and embodied practices.It is important to investigate the critical potential of education which plays an important role in the reproduction of the conditions of oppression and exclusion. Education is also one place where the possibilities for agency could be explored because it is one of the important locations of cultural production and reproduction. An attempt is made to illustrate in a concrete and material way how critique might function in education. The investigation does not focus on an analysis and critique of dominating practices, but on the possibilities of alternative ones. The article analyses two examples of educational practices in order to establish what a sociomate...
The aim of the panel discussion was to stimulate a meta-theoretical discussion about the relationship between the Humanities and Information Systems in a way opposite to the usual. A lot of research has been conducted on the application of computing in the Humanities, but this panel explored the reverse process of enrichment that takes place. The purpose was to give recognition to work that has already been done in this regard by means of identifying a substantial sub-discipline, but also to inspire more and deliberate research that explores ways to enhance Information Systems by interweaving insights and methods from the Humanities. Such an endeavor may enhance ICT to empower the communities using these technologies.
The 2015/6 student protests in South Africa questioned the 1994 postcolonial settlement by drawing attention to the demands of decoloniality. The processes of decoloniality are characterised by an openness to pedagogies, epistemologies and forms of governance that promote a plurality of becomings. In order to investigate how educational practices could contribute towards decoloniality, this article draws on Rancière's notion of "equal intelligence". It is argued that this notion of radical equality could assist educators to redefine themselves and their role in emancipatory and decolonial education. This role avoids the extremes of the authoritarian educator on the one hand, and the egalitarian educator, on the other. "Equal intelligence" makes possible a pedagogical space which demands of the student to use his/her intelligence to generate knowledge that does not reproduce a hegemonic tradition. Equality is not the result of an educational intervention, but a presumption that shapes the pedagogical relation as such. This applies also to decolonisation: The presumption of equal intelligence is a powerful way to decolonise the mind. In this process the educator has an important role to play to create a context where the will and the freedom to participate in the construction of powerful knowledge is kept alive.
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