Sticky categorizations: processes of marginalization and (im)possible mo(ve)ments of transcending marginalization

Abstract

What are the possibilities and/or limitations for becoming subjects differenciated from previous categorizations, such as "troublemaker", to which certain students are subjected? This is the question analyzed in this paper, based on observations of, and narratives and perspectives of, two 15-year-old ethnic minority boys at a school in Denmark. Drawing on the work of Deleuze and Guattari and their concepts of "smooth" and "striated" spaces, I explore spaces where energies are mobilized through ongoing generated and created relations, and how spaces where this does not seem possible, tend to trap and thereby limit the person being categorized. Through the analyses, I will show how repetitive, limiting categorizations in and over time tend to "stick" to the boys being categorized, and how the sticky categorizations obstruct their future possibilities for change and viable lives within the school.

Too much parental cooperation? Parent–teacher cooperation and how it influences professional responsibility among Danish schoolteachers

“…Drawing on Woodward (cited in Lagermann, 2015), teachers’ participation was like being organized in a striated space where relatively strict boundaries for teachers’ participation were drawn. Clegg et al (2005: 160) explain how processes of becoming are the ‘folding and unfolding of lines, the knotting and netting of different materials and organs that mutually de- and reterritorialize each other in order to become something different’ – for instance, from earlier ways of becoming.…”

“…Clegg et al (2005: 160) explain how processes of becoming are the ‘folding and unfolding of lines, the knotting and netting of different materials and organs that mutually de- and reterritorialize each other in order to become something different’ – for instance, from earlier ways of becoming. From the perspective of Lave and Wenger (1991) and Woodward (2007, cited in Lagermann, 2015: 578), the social situation in parent–teacher communities allowed teachers certain movements, which were neither pure ‘lines of flight’ nor completely blocked spaces of becoming, but rather oscillations between different points and boundaries – the boundary being parents’ somewhat unrestricted ‘lines of flight’ in their relatively smooth spaces. This suggests that teachers could only partly control the space of parental cooperation and only partly transcend the opportunities created for them to produce smoothness, change and deterritorialization in parental cooperation.…”

“…The data analysis focused on a decentred analytical approach (Lagermann, 2015: 574), which breaks with dominant individualizing discourses since it emphasizes that people are social participants involved in personal trajectories in relation to structural arrangements of social practice (Dreier, 2008, cited in Lagermann, 2015: 575). All of the observations and interviews were transcribed in full and – alongside documents downloaded from Forældreintra – translated from Danish into English.…”

“…Institutional settings are spaces which transform and entail boundaries, opportunities and conditions for different kinds of practice (Dahl, 2017). According to Woodward (2007, cited in Lagermann, 2015: 578), striated spaces are created by territorial lines that ‘organize by drawing strict boundaries, creating binary oppositions and dividing space into rigid segments with a hierarchical structure’, whereas smooth spaces create opportunities for change, referred to as ‘lines of flight’, where a line is ‘a pure movement of change’ that is open-ended. Lagermann (2015: 578) argues that these two spaces coexist interdependently within the same space and are always interwoven.…”

“…According to Woodward (2007, cited in Lagermann, 2015: 578), striated spaces are created by territorial lines that ‘organize by drawing strict boundaries, creating binary oppositions and dividing space into rigid segments with a hierarchical structure’, whereas smooth spaces create opportunities for change, referred to as ‘lines of flight’, where a line is ‘a pure movement of change’ that is open-ended. Lagermann (2015: 578) argues that these two spaces coexist interdependently within the same space and are always interwoven. This might explain how teachers’ opportunities for participation and thus learning in parent–teacher communities offer diverse opportunities for change – for instance, in teachers’ professionalism.…”