The following document captures the output and discussions from a recent Creative Education workshop, ‘Queer and Embodied Pedagogies in HE Learning and Teaching’.
This first installment, focusing on queer pedagogies, and features contributions from participants.
Session participants include: Alex Bell, Emilie Giles, Flora Szabo, Hok Shing Tsang, James Arteaga, Katarina Sengstaken, Kathryn Coventry, Katso Otukile, Kumbirai Makumbe, Libby Billings, Maria Abdelkarim, Meredith Wood, Preeti Sood, Smin Smith, Sophie Allsopp, Sophie Frost, Tolu Abiola and Veselina Dashinova
Discussions were facilitated by Nikolai Elkins and Max Chester. This documented has been co-created by participants and edited by Nikolai Elkins
Throughout this document, you will encounter post-it-notes; these have been written by participants throughout the session. In producing this document, some editing has occurred for coherence, or to reduce duplication.
FORWARD FROM WORKSHOP PARTICIPANT, ALEX BELL
As educators, we emphasise to our students the need to apply critical thinking and rational approaches to research and learning. The hierarchy of thinking in higher education often seems at arm’s length from the heart of feeling – a tension perhaps at odds with the nature of creativity.
The workshop and resources made me consider re-framing this in my own practice to try and apply critical feeling – using empathy, slowness, compassion, and presence to understand LGBTQ+ (or any student for that matter, who identifies as othered) experiences and perspectives.
The workshop was a safe and friendly space to discuss ways of co-creating learning spaces that prioritise belonging.
WHAT QUALITIES DO YOU NEED TO ‘GET IN’ AND ‘GET ON’
INSIDE AND OUTSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION
Who is privileged inside creative higher education institution?
BELONGING HIERACHIES
PERSPECTIVES
FACILITATION THEORY SAFENESS
LEARNER CENTERED
TOGETHERNESS
C0-INTERACTION
Who is outside the university?
Affluent/middle class students, students who have the capacity/support to take risks
Students whose parents have been to university
Students able to complete foundation diploma - already familiar with university enrivoment/education
Geography - those already within Western/colonial nations
Students that don’t feel visible or are actively erased from the curriculum
Students that don’t see themselves reflected within their curriculums, int he reading lists...(Students who aren’t represented)
Students don’t share the same values as the institutions that they are in
The students that don’t want to or can’t perform or assimilate.
How do you get on?
Students who see themselves reflected in the curriculum
Adopting a neo-liberal drive
Assimilate your knowledge, beliefs and skills
A fugitive co-existence with unbelonging?
Playing into perfomativity, knowing how to perform a particular identity in order to “get on”
THE WATCHED AND THE WATCHERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
In our session we discussed the analogy of the Panopticon (all seeing – pan optikos), which Steadman (2007) describes as a conscience-building device. This was popularised by Michel Foucault (1989), who referred to the Panopticon – an architectural design by Jeremy Bentham – as a metaphor for societal surveillance.
The structure allows a warden to observe prisoners covertly, without their awareness of being monitored. This invisibility traps them, leading to a self-censorship as means of conformity, driven by the constant fear of surveillance. This type of control relies more on the internalisation of fear rather than on direct force. Foucault suggests that a similar method of coercion is applied in educational settings, where both educators and students are subtly compelled to adopt and perpetuate specific ideas, ideals, beliefs, and values through their academic and social interactions.
This dynamic of power is further strengthened by the focus on self-discipline and compliance with institutional norms, which, while often implicit, are distinctly widespread. These may encompass aspects such as the curriculum, language use, prevailing heteronormative narratives and histories, or even particular modes of reflection and engagement - a performative ‘academic passing’ self (Elkins, 2024).
How do you ‘get on’ in higher education if you are made to be ‘outside’ of it?
able to be identified and shaped neatly categorised making others comfortable minimising yourself non-conflict, willing to appease, willing to fit in able to satisfy and meet all the criteria
In the metaphor of the train, students would need to align themselves to the institution - or face being derailed.
HOW MIGHT WE QUEER OUR PEDAGOGIES, OR INSTUTION, TO BRIDGE
THE GAP?
BECOME UNGOVERNABLE
Higher education needs to create environments where students and staff can be ungovernable: we must value academic freedom we must promote criticality and raise awareness we must foster fluidity and ambiguity we must nurture speculation and possibility
Create conditions for autonomy: Seek opportunities to offer choice and multiple modes of engagement for allthis can be for curriculum interaction and assessment outcomes. Embrace diverse thinking.
Re-assess the hegemony and what we deem as ‘safe spaces’: Expose systems within students spaces and facilitate space to challenge these. Communicate and develop meaningful dialogue between students. Co-create safe places where students feel represented
Foucault, M. (1970) TheOrderofThings. London: Routledge. At: https://www.routledge.com/The-Order-of-Things/Foucault/p/book/9780415267373 (Accessed 22/12/2022).
Foucault, M. (1975) DisciplineandPunish:TheBirthofthePrison. Translated by Sheridan, A. London: Penguin.
Cisney, V. W. and Morar, N. (eds.) (2016) Biopower:Foucaultandbeyond. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.
Foucault, M. (2020) Power:TheEssentialWorksofMichelFoucault1954-1984. London: Penguin Classics.
Foucault, M. and Gordon, C. (1980) Power/knowledge:selectedinterviewsandother writings,1972-1977. (1st American ed) New York: Pantheon Books.
Galič, M., Timan, T. and Koops, B.-J. (2017) 'Bentham, Deleuze and Beyond: An Overview of Surveillance Theories from the Panopticon to Participation' In: Philosophy&Technology 30 (1) pp.9–37.
Mudge, S. L. (2008) 'What is neo-liberalism?' In: Socio-EconomicReview 6 (4) pp.703–731. Harvey, D. (2020) TheAnti-CapitalistChronicles. Pluto Press. At: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctv17ppcd0 (Accessed 24/11/2023).
Duggan, L. (2002) 'The New Homonormativity: The Sexual Politics of Neoliberalism' At: https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/733/chapter/134601/The-NewHomonormativityThe-Sexual-Politics-of (Accessed 26/11/2023).
Barker, M.-J. and Scheele, J. (2016) Queer:agraphichistory. London: Icon Books Ltd.
