Countering Asocial Justice: Consumer Culture, Stance and a Cartography of Encounter

Abstract

In Social Foundations classrooms, social justice approaches to questions of difference are certainly part of the curriculum. After teaching numerous Social Foundations courses, I encountered several issues related to the way rigid identity categories were complemented by neoliberal narratives that seemed to limit class conversation in troubling ways-particularly in that students had a difficult time articulating a sense of connection with others beyond their circles of acquaintances. This dissertation is an exploration of how I might resolve some of those dilemmas. I problematize the neoliberal subject position as it relates to questions of social justice, and offer that a relational approach to others may be a useful counter. Inspired by several scholars who address theoretical relational curricular possibilities, I designed a course using a consumer culture approach to constructing Other as a conceptual lens through which to begin talking about difference. Using student data from that class, I introduce stance analysis as a way to interpret the data in terms of the ways students either reinscribed or interrupted a sense of neoliberal relationality. Finally, using the methodological approach of social cartography, I created a map wherein students could plot their encounters across difference. This map is intended as a pedagogical heuristic that could be used to destabilize a self-possessed and individualistic neoliberal sense of self. To this end, the map is oriented toward an approach to self and Other that is contingent, ongoing and contextually mediated. I explore the pedagogical implications of the map and suggest that such approaches may be useful for better understanding how we are relationally constituted. I argue that entering social justice conversations from this vantage point may avoid some of the trappings of rigid identity categories without resorting to commonsense neoliberal narratives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone [phone]. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]