Page 43 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 5-6: Teaching Feminism, ed. Valerija Vendramin
P. 43
b. kašić ■ feminism as epistemic disobedience ...
“epistemology of ignorance” that obscures, negates or distorts social re-
alities (sex/gender realities, in particular) and its problems, several theo-
rists (Boler & Zembylas, 2002; Mignolo, 2007; Vargas, 2018, among oth-
ers) developed the “epistemology of discomfort” as a counter-concept.
Emerging from another ethics, it was the foundation for a “pedagogy of
discomfort” which in the meantime became the basis for liberating ways
of knowing. Although we have never actually so named the pedagogy that
has been used in teaching Women’s Studies, in many cases the practices
have confirmed its use and validity.
The “pedagogy of discomfort” is briefly an explorative critical meth-
od and a tool for unfolding purported discomfort issues such as lesbian/
gay sexuality or sexual violence against women in order to understand the
layers of obstacles, misunderstandings and the reasons for mimicry or si-
lencing; or in order to see and act beyond the normal, namely, normative
guidelines referring to hetero-normativism, beliefs or “habits of mind”
linked to it. In other words, to see the world actively and consciously is
to be made uncomfortable, if I follow this line of argument. According to
Boler and Zembylas (2002, p. 2), this pedagogy engages students to enter
into risky spaces of controversial ethical questions, calling them to critical
awareness and action. Critical knowledge, according to them, is possible
only in a “safe classroom” and by use of one’s own emotional investment,
when “collective witnessing” of experience creates a collective engagement
which is recognised, known and felt.
On several occasions, I have faced this powerful momentum of col-
lective awareness when violence against women was at stake, activating
different aspects of personal and collective attachment, but also some very
emotional breakdowns, intensified or unsolvable disputes among stu-
dents. Nowadays, issues surrounding “sexual work” and prostitution sig-
nify such insurmountable controversy both among feminist scholars and
students that it is unlikely to be resolved easily, if at all.
Nevertheless, liberating knowledge for feminists means not only
making transparent all the models embedded in the relationship of subor-
dination and domination, but a way to destabilise those relations or plac-
es that disenable a space for change by persevering on gender asymmetry
and other epistemologically established power of matrice(s).
The education we are addressing here is always a project that deals
both with the positional perspective that concerns women, gender, queer,
or positional/political dimensions of one’s own subjectivity as well as with
the complexity of creative work in favour of social change, namely pro-
gressive social action.
41
“epistemology of ignorance” that obscures, negates or distorts social re-
alities (sex/gender realities, in particular) and its problems, several theo-
rists (Boler & Zembylas, 2002; Mignolo, 2007; Vargas, 2018, among oth-
ers) developed the “epistemology of discomfort” as a counter-concept.
Emerging from another ethics, it was the foundation for a “pedagogy of
discomfort” which in the meantime became the basis for liberating ways
of knowing. Although we have never actually so named the pedagogy that
has been used in teaching Women’s Studies, in many cases the practices
have confirmed its use and validity.
The “pedagogy of discomfort” is briefly an explorative critical meth-
od and a tool for unfolding purported discomfort issues such as lesbian/
gay sexuality or sexual violence against women in order to understand the
layers of obstacles, misunderstandings and the reasons for mimicry or si-
lencing; or in order to see and act beyond the normal, namely, normative
guidelines referring to hetero-normativism, beliefs or “habits of mind”
linked to it. In other words, to see the world actively and consciously is
to be made uncomfortable, if I follow this line of argument. According to
Boler and Zembylas (2002, p. 2), this pedagogy engages students to enter
into risky spaces of controversial ethical questions, calling them to critical
awareness and action. Critical knowledge, according to them, is possible
only in a “safe classroom” and by use of one’s own emotional investment,
when “collective witnessing” of experience creates a collective engagement
which is recognised, known and felt.
On several occasions, I have faced this powerful momentum of col-
lective awareness when violence against women was at stake, activating
different aspects of personal and collective attachment, but also some very
emotional breakdowns, intensified or unsolvable disputes among stu-
dents. Nowadays, issues surrounding “sexual work” and prostitution sig-
nify such insurmountable controversy both among feminist scholars and
students that it is unlikely to be resolved easily, if at all.
Nevertheless, liberating knowledge for feminists means not only
making transparent all the models embedded in the relationship of subor-
dination and domination, but a way to destabilise those relations or plac-
es that disenable a space for change by persevering on gender asymmetry
and other epistemologically established power of matrice(s).
The education we are addressing here is always a project that deals
both with the positional perspective that concerns women, gender, queer,
or positional/political dimensions of one’s own subjectivity as well as with
the complexity of creative work in favour of social change, namely pro-
gressive social action.
41
