Exploring Queer & Embodied Pedagogies Zine | Creative Education

CREATIVE EDUCATION CREATIVE EDUCATION CREATIVE EDUCATION

EXPLORING QUEER PEDAGOGIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNING AND TEACHING

CREATIVEEDUCATION.UCA.AC.UK

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

INCL USIV E CRE Throughout this ATIN G SA PLA document, you will FE CES encounter post-it-notes; EMP OWE these have been written by RME REP NT participants throughout RES ENT the session. In producing ATIO N 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.

Alex Bell Liaison Librarian, UCA

CREATIVEEDUCATION.UCA.AC.UK

QUEER PEDAGOGIES CO-CONSTRUCTED KNOWLEDGE

E/ S I W ER H T O L/ ING A N C I I G RCH IMA A R E -HI ON I ANTI T I L ABO M, R O F CON O T E ( M L O A C S / BE REFU ) E T ILA M I LE S B A AS N ER V O G UN

😈

HOW CAN WE BRIDGE THE GAP?

WHO, AND WHAT, IS ‘IN’ THE HE?

WHO IS ON THE ‘OUTSIDE’?

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

Affluent/middle class students, students who have the capacity/support to take risks Students who see themselves reflected in the curriculum 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

Who is outside the university?

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?

Adopting a neo-liberal drive Assimilate your knowledge, beliefs and skills Playing into perfomativity, knowing how to perform a particular identity in order to “get on” A fugitive co-existence with unbelonging?

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 all this 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 GING N O L BE SSION A P M CO ILING C N O REC Y TIVIT I S N SE NITY U M COM GOGY A D E P ESS” ICAL R T I G R O C PR K IN R O “W ANCE T S I S RE NG EATI R C O C DING N U O GR FORE

DISMANTLING HIERARCHIES / (PROBLEMATIC) LEGACIES NURTURING FREEDOM?

QUEST IONIN IDENT G IFYIN G HIE R ARCH RESPO IES NSES DIALO GUE & DISCU SSION DISRU PTING CHOIC ES

SESSION REFERENCES

Nelson, C. D. (2012) 'Emerging queer epistemologies in studies of ‘gay’-student discourses' In: Journal of Language and Sexuality 1 (1) pp.79–105.

Chambers, D., Tincknell, E. and Loon, J. V. (2004) 'Peer regulation of teenage sexual identities' In: Gender and Education 16 (3) pp.397–415.

Steadman, P. (2007) 'The Contradictions of Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon Penitentiary' In: Journal of Bentham Studies 9 Foucault, M. (1978) The history of sexuality. (1st Vintage Books ed.) (s.l.): Vintage Books.

Foucault, M. (1970) The Order of Things. London: Routledge. At: https://www.routledge.com/The-Order-of-Things/Foucault/p/book/9780415267373 (Accessed 22/12/2022).

Foucault, M. (1975) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Sheridan, A. London: Penguin.

Cisney, V. W. and Morar, N. (eds.) (2016) Biopower: Foucault and beyond. Chicago ; London: The University of Chicago Press.

Foucault, M. (2020) Power: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault 1954-1984. London: Penguin Classics.

Foucault, M. and Gordon, C. (1980) Power/knowledge: selected interviews and other 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-Economic Review 6 (4) pp.703–731.

Harvey, D. (2020) The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles. Pluto Press. At: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/j.ctv17ppcd0 (Accessed 24/11/2023).

Larner, W. (2000) 'Neo-liberalism: Policy, Ideology, Governmentality' In: Studies in Political Economy 63 (1) pp.5–25.

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: a graphic history. London: Icon Books Ltd.