ARTICLEHope and responsibility: embracing different types of knowledge whilst generating my own living-educational- theoryGiulia CarozziPh.D. Student, Edinburgh University, Moray House School of Education and SportABSTRACTFor Foucault, discourses shape people’s knowledge and inform how they act in a society. Power over others is legitimated by dominant discourses, a means through which hegemony discloses itself: a given group is entitled to oppress another. As a parent-educator based in Italy, I see such discourses manifesting themselves in actions and speeches. As a researcher, I also perceive the power of the dominant discourse promoted by the Western academies, which excludes many diverse knowledge systems present in the world. Using personally-orientated action research, in my living- educational-theory enquiry I aim to make a more aware contribu-tion in the socio-historical and socio-cultural context I live in. I therefore clarify which values inform my way of being, and I analyse how much I’ve been influenced by dominant discourses which go against the values I hold. It is my responsibility to respect and absorb different types of knowledge, recognising the other as significant. In this, I’m led by a sense of hope: while acting against dominant discourses, I, and others, are making use of our social imaginations. In my hometown a community of authentic learners is forming. In it, we seek to convert ‘power-over’ to ‘power-with’ as we generate educational knowledge together.ARTICLE HISTORY Received 10 January 2020 Accepted 6 January 2021 KEYWORDS Hope; responsibility; dominant discourses; Living Theory; ontological valuesIntroductionIn this article I show how I am part of a ‘messy and imperfect present’ (Mowles 2010, 153) which affects me. Specifically, as a parent-educator, I am part of the Italian context, with its own discourses being promoted and influencing me; I am also a researcher, brought up in and shaped by ‘Western thinking’ (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019, 17). I am con-stantly influenced by ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault 1980, 130) that limit my horizon of understanding. If I wish to break the line that limits my own horizon, ‘as a citizen of the world who wishes to reach beyond’ (Greene 2018, 3), I must first define and understand what constitute it.In the first section of this paper, on Dominant discourses, I frame theoretically what I intend by ‘discourses’ and ‘dominant discourses’, moving then to a description of the context in which this article was written. Through a Living Theory approach, I am able to CONTACT Giulia Carozzi G.Carozzi@sms.ed.ac.ukThis article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH 2023, VOL. 31, NO. 1, 21–35 https://doi.org/10.1080/09650792.2021.1880458© 2021 Educational Action Research
recognise the ontological contribution that educational encounters have played in my life and how those have often been challenging. They’ve disclosed my own contradictions, making me dive into the gap between my own thoughts and deeds. They’ve also made me realise how often, and in what ways, I am the blind bearer of the socio-historical and socio-cultural understandings I was brought up in.Moving on from an analysis of what a Living Theory approach is, in the second section of this article, on Discourses and the ‘I’, the focus shifts from a theoretical analysis to the I’s own experience and learning processes. In the third section, on Taking actions: from thoughts to deeds, I focus on how my learning affects my actions and practices. In the Conclusion, I briefly summarize how dominant discourses work on my identities contributing to the definition of who to marginalise and how to margin-alise. I finally discuss the difficulties I faced in writing this article as a woman (Spender 1985).Overall this article is intended to be a contribution to the knowledge democracy debate begun in Educational Action Research in 2019 (Rowell and Feldman 2019a). It is built on a moral imperative I feel: to claim to believe in ‘freedom, justice, compassion, respect for persons love and democracy’ (Whitehead 2018, 76) and to write theoretically and abstractly about those values isn’t enough for me. I need to give a critical account of my own personal struggles in relation to the dominant discourses that surround me and of my efforts towards ‘respecting the knowledge of the people’ (Freire in Bell et al. 1990, 101), based on my own lived experiences (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019). My understanding of what counts as critical in the account I am about to give is connected with the unmasking and exposing (Writer 2008) of my own self in my learning processes. In this sense I try to acknowledge that ‘the need for personal reflection and recognition of one’s personal history as a contributor to the current situation are key in enabling the decolonising process’ (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019, 14). This article moves on from the recognition of such need; it is a response to the invitation to bring forward in Western academia a self-critical reflection (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019) and methodological inventiveness (Dadds and Hart 2001), avoiding any further postpone-ment in responding to this call, and acting on it in the present.As a researcher, I must develop a critical consciousness with regard to my personal knowledge (Freire 2000; Rowell and Feldman 2019b) and try to make explicit that I am influenced by the dominant discourses promoted by Western academies, on what counts as knowledge, how that knowledge should be represented and whose knowledge counts (Lemkes 2018). Therefore, my way of contributing to knowledge democracy is to develop a critical analysis of my lived experiences and knowledge construction through which the power of ‘the dominant epistemology of Western Academies’ might be disclosed (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019, 16); as well as to acknowledge, through my writing, that ‘democracy rests on the premise that different voices are integral to the validity of a democratic society’ (Gilligan 2011, 22). As a researcher, I believe it to be my responsibility to recognise, ‘respect’ and embrace the educational ‘knowledge of the people’ (Freire in Bell et al. 1990, 101) in which I perceive values which carry ‘hope for the flourishing of humanity’ (Whitehead 2018, 141). I try to do so as a learner; however, I must at the same time, strive to be authentic, in critically reflecting on my own experiences, and developing an awareness of the ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault 1980, 130) under which I operate.22G. CAROZZI
Dominant discoursesSocial practices and beliefs are fed by discourses: ‘the production of knowledge through language’ (Hall 1992, 291). Discourses build meanings. They affect how people act and what they desire; discourses become the ‘theme of appropriation or rivalry’ (Foucault 1972, 105). In order to be comprehended, discourses rely on social knowledge as the body of meanings affecting the understandings of reality in a given society (Chandler and Munday 2016).For the above qualities, those in a society who ‘have the power and the means of communication’ (Letseka and Pitsoe 2013, 24) often employ discourses to present an oversimplified image of reality, establishing whose reality counts (Hall 1992; Letseka and Pitsoe 2013). In such cases, discourses become dominant means through which those in a society who occupy positions of power feel entitled to generate a social knowledge (Van Dijk 2003) which is built on the principle of inclusion and exclusion (Pitsoe and Letseka 2013). It is on this principle that dominant discourses become spaces for over-simplified dichotomies that affect how people act (Hall 1992); they work on a sharp division of us versus other(s) (Pitsoe and Letseka 2013). The other can either join the us, giving up what characterizes his/her otherness, or if not, faces marginalisation (Pitsoe and Letseka 2013).The oversimplified idea of a united us, promoted by dominant discourses, entitles people, who identify themselves in such a category, to exert their power over the other (Eyben, Harris, and Pettit 2016); from this perspective, dominant discourses become tools for ‘the normalisation of a particular hegemony’ (Wood, McAteer, and Whitehead 2019, 15). A given group dominates another, yet such dominance becomes so pervasive through institutionalised structures of oppression (education, political and legal systems) that societies see it as natural and inevitable (Padovani 2018).Dominant discourses in the Italian context‘Migration is one of the most divisive policy topics in today’s Europe’ and ‘immigration seems to be one of the greatest concerns among European Union citizens’ (Batsaikhan, Darvas, and Raposo 2018, 6, 8). Immigration has become one of the central issues in far- right political campaigns across Europe (Padovani 2018); in Italy, the right-wing Lega Nord party, has made strong anti-immigration propaganda the heart of its political agenda and identity (Colombo 2013).With Lega Nord’s increased presence on the political scene (Stille 2018), the power of its anti-immigrant discourse has grown. Dominant discourses, employed by Lega Nord, have become institutionalised and their presence on both media and public talks has increased (Padovani 2018). Derogatory terms to frame the other have become normalised, as the power of Lega Nord has grown; they’ve become a means to remind us whose reality counts. The following slogans and extracts from Lega Nord’s political campaigns can be seen as examples of how hegemony in Italy is promoted through the use of a direct, dominant language (Padovani 2018).‘Stop the invasion’ (Padovani 2018, 3554); ‘Italians first’ (Mayr 2018, n. p.); ‘Immigrants who steal, fight, rape, and deal drugs’ (Horowitz 2019, n. p.); ‘If we don’t take back control of our roots, Europe will become an Islamic caliphate’ (Amiel and Monella 2019, EDUCATIONAL ACTION RESEARCH23
