Content area
Full text
In this article I explore the development of a critical pedagogy that interrogates commonly held assumptions about identity and culture in social, political, and historical perceptions of cultural difference. I attempt to deconstruct dichotomizing tendencies of thinking about differences, with the aim to position thinking in the borderland or on the fault line between cultures, a "third space" in which to live critically. I examine perspectives of critical consciousness, third-space positionings, and dialogic negotiations of differences through the lenses of feminist theory, narrative enquiry, and literary theory to suggest how these perspectives may lead to cross-cultural identifications or understandings in post-secondary classrooms. The responsibility for the tracing of the "other" within self is seen as central to teaching practice, in order to live, as T. Minh-ha Trinh (1989b) states: "fearlessly with and within difference(s)" (p. 84).
Cet article porte sur le developpement de la pedagogie critique, qui remet en question certaines idees preconcues sur l'identite et la culture dans les perceptions sociales, politiques et historiques. L'auteure expose les points de vue de la conscience critique a travers la theorie feministe, l'investigation narrative et la theorie litteraire afin de montrer comment ces perspectives peuvent mener a la comprehension interculturelle dans des cours au niveau postsecondaire. La responsabilite de cerner << l'autre >> a l'interieur de soi est presentee comme un aspect cle de l'enseignement << sans apprehension en compagnie et au sein de difference(s) >> (T. Minh-ha Trinh, 1989b, p. 84).
Prologue: Positionings
Critical pedagogy that engages students and teachers in dialogues about diverse forms of cross-cultural narratives can deconstruct dichotomizing and pervasive polarizing tendencies by positioning thinking in the borderland or on the fault line between cultures, in what Bhaba (1994) refers to as a "third space." This notion of a third space in which to live critically between multiple cultures is also reflected in the perspectives of critical consciousness of feminist theorists Anzaldua (1987), Kramsch (1993a, 1993b) Kramsch and Hoene (1995), Haraway (1985), and hooks (1984, 1989), among others. Although these positionings are common themes in women's studies courses, their application to classroom communities in Faculties of Education is more novel. My goal is to suggest how third-space positionings and pedagogical aims can destabilize entrenched ethno-centrism, leading to cross-cultural understandings in classroom communities.
As...