Hello Namrata - Salaam Alaikum!! How are you? I remember with great warmth
the generosity of your visit to the Masters group at the Royal Agricultural
College. What a good day of curious enquiry we shared together. Could I have
your email please - mine are [log in to unmask], and
[log in to unmask]
Salaam Alaikum to All
I would like to knit together a couple of suggestions flowing through the
exchanges that resonate deeply with me. They are exciting because they point
to what I appreciate as connecting with our theme:
WHAT STANDARDS OF JUDGEMENT DO WE USE IN EVALUATING THE QUALITY OF THE
EDUCATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATIONAL THEORIES WE ARE CREATING AS
PRACTITIONER-RESEARCHERS?
First, let's take Pip's suggestion about publication, and Jack's firm
response. Let me add support by linking Pip's suggestion to Namrata's
identification of the importance of 'capacity building' especially when
working on issues related to rights, gender and oppression of the
underprivileged.
This is a political standard of judgement in effect. It relates so closely
with an understanding developed over six years of research, scholarship and
friendship with Nceku Nyathi (PhD researcher/teaching associate at Leicester
University in the UK) when we refer to a postcolonial way of being that is
characterized by a certain ethics and politics (Nyathi and Murray, 2005).
This ethics and politics of postcolonialism includes on the one hand the
resistance to oppression held in rupture, discontinuity and severance with
colonial projects and agendas, the decolonization of vestigial colonial
attitudes often held in liberal dispositions. I have internalized these
political notions as profoundly important for guiding my 'right action' as a
teacher, in everyday ways, in my predominantly white HEI. But as my HEI
changes and gradually moves towards being more aware of 'unthinking
exclusion' as racism I have had to transform, too. It is insufficient for me
to now simply adopt the role of 'anti-colonial warrior'. My resistance has
disrupted, has severed, and has also led to decolonization to the extent
that my ideas are taken seriously. I am consulted for my insights and
awareness. Important - and seemingly axiomatic standards of judgement that
can seem adamantine and fixed - also need to be dissolved. And replaced with
what? Well, I think Namrata and Pip point to this, and it is the value of
capacity building. The narrative knowledge contained in this list is worthy
of publication and builds capacity for a different quality of ethics and
politics of post/-colonial action. By postcolonial I also cleave to a notion
of 'something beyond a life world that is colonized by others prejudicial
junk as well as my own. My students, young adults, for the most part,
deserve me to be transforming and jettisoning my junk if I'm asking them to
stretch into their consciousness in similar fashion. What do you say?
On the other hand an ethics and politics of postcolonialism also requires an
inclusional will to share insights and knowledge within my HEI, the will to
Ubuntu, the will to Adab (i.e., a compassionate humanity), and the will to
build capacity in community with others.
My large extended family is one form of intimate capacity building.
Returning from Oman and talking through my feelings with my Human Resource
director she commented how my approach to anti-racism had changed from one
of resistance as an outsider/insider to one of resistance as
insider/outsider. My HR colleague, Jean, shows her multicultural
sensibilities in acknowledging that, for me, my journey has been from
holding myself in distrust as an outside-insider, to resituating myself as
insider-outsider. What I like about her respect is that she doesn't
patronize me by saying 'you are one of us'. She is suggesting I feel more
like I am one 'with us' in your difference. This feels more like Modood's
idea of a politics of equality of respect. I feel valued by my colleague's
recognition in this way. Though I suspect this may feel a bit strange and
unfamiliar for some liberal white 'colour blind' people. What has happened
with my HR manager is that she is now 'colour sighted'. I feel much more
included within her white gaze now: I experience her whiteness as inclusion,
as respect. This is a lovely antidote for whiteness as privilege and as hate
that very whiteness I've been more accustomed to talking and writing about
in my research wandering and walkabout down the years.
So what am I saying here? I'm suggesting that my standard of resistance
judgement, an important standard for people of colour trying to find their
own space for self-designation in whiteness centred societies, has served me
well. But like the Aeolian harp I need the breeze, and to shoot the breeze,
in ways that ripple through different strings to reach a new register. I
don't feel the need for resistance as direct action in the political
dimensions of my work life and interpersonal relationships. I am now
beginning to feel what its like to embrace resistance for Adl (personal,
social and spiritual justice), while moving beyond resistance and into the
Adab of interpersonal compassion held in a generous humanity in order to get
new things done with other's, in order to sustain the new influences I'm
bringing into the social formation of my university college. Adab (i.e. the
interpersonal compassion of availability for the other) is also a vital
standard of judgement in my practice and integral to my living educational
theory. The basis for my practice of Adab is depicted in that photograph:
and of course, if you look at the video clip jack has mentioned I think you
will se the visual representation of what I've been lumbering towards
explicating in this posting. But for Namrata's posting I'm not so sure I'd
have written this out of me.
What I'm proposing from the grounds of my own journey really is that
resistance in pursuit of adl (justice) is crucial for human dignity. I love
the way the Dalai Lama expresses this idea. Yet resistance, like a
threadbare epithet or metaphor, sometimes has to be released from one's
imaginal grasp in order for different standards of judgement to emerge and
be recognised for their importance. In my life I'm beginning to feel the joy
of transforming my influence in social spaces through the practice of my
influence as an interpersonally compassionate person (Adab) as it is being
recognised and appreciated by others. I'm no longer a one-trick hustler
'hooked' in my thinking on 'resistance' as the one and only way.
My standard of judgement of adab is held in a realization that my life
skills I am bringing (and have brought for many years) to sustaining loving
and unselfish relationships in my immediate family - within our extended
family - seems to me to be vital for supporting the quality and valence of
capacity building that Namrata could be referring to, and I welcome Pip's
suggestion to publish as coming from this standard of judgement of Adab (so
similar to Indigenous relational accountability) that fires my passion,
enthusiasm and sense of inclusional belonging.
No, I haven't relinquished resistance as a standard of judgement. In fact
resistance is epistemologically essential for explaining and framing the
growth of my educational knowledge. Though I believe my 'standard of family
intimacy judgement' is integral to my developing, and properly valuing, a
rounded practice of trusting acceptance in my life. The 'family intimacy'
standard of judgement (by this I mean the acceptance of me for being me as
I'm drawn into a 'we' of accepting., loving equity as depicted in my family
photograph) seems to me to be ontologically vital for the quality of
capacity building required for me as teacher to practice effectively (and to
effectively understand my practice and make it accessible for others) as a
'warrior of non-violent resistance' to oppression of all/any kind that
constricts human rights and civil liberties. As 'warrior of family intimacy'
I strive in hope to bring a living kindling to the flames of compassionate
care for capacity building projects in psycho-social contexts. Big thank you
Namrata.
In my last posting I made a slip up: I meant to write I don't 'do'
gratuitous fuzzies. But I strive (this is my living jihad) to make clear my
loving appreciation of a colleague when I'm moved to do so. Just as I do
with those in the family settings of my life, immediate and extended.
To summarize the above because it is very rich like an Eid biryani.
The standard of judgement of resistance that I have brought, time and again,
to the quality of my educational knowledge/research as a practitioner
researcher has served me well.
What is the evidence for making this huge claim?
Well, it has enabled me to fire myself up to peel away the veil of what
Engels referred to as 'false consciousness'. The epistemological field of
resistance to oppression bestowed on my self-knowing a form of legitimacy:
look at the work of Fanon, Lumumba, Cleaver, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky and
Edward Said. Resistance discourse is crucial for power relations because
truth is spoken to power only from resistance. For me this has been, and
continues to be an inspirational standard of judgement by which I would like
the 'political' dimension of my educational knowledge to be evaluated. Jack
works with the artistry of his students (1993), a postmodern claim indeed,
and with me this is how he works. I work with the consciousness of my
students and commit myself to the issues of justice (Adl) Namrata mentioned,
to issues of interpersonal compassion (Adab), and to issues of critical
inquiry with disciplined reason (Ijtihad). These three ancient Islamic
(indeed Abrahamic) virtues are translated from the imperial heights of
Godliness to the mere lowlands of my existence in British higher education
through my will to resistance as an enduring standard of judgement in my
practice.
From this taproot I began the decolonization and reformation of my
exclusivist 'white identity' that was foisted on me by my adoptive parents
with a most loving intent to be sure. Cleaving to resistance helped me to
attract students of calibre to work with who recognised in my personal
resistance a duo-core space of safety and strength from which to explore
their consciousness of their own needs for resistance: queer theory with gay
students, race theory with black students, feminist epistemology with female
students, and so many conversations about resistance to bullying homogeneity
with all of my supervised students. As I was working with those students so
I was working these ideas around resistance out for my self. I haven't been
a vampire but I have enjoyed knowing as an educator what it is to be a
symbiotic bird on the back of the hippo! I'm enjoying the ride.
And this standard of judgement of resistance has stood me in great stead in
terms of getting the trade union into my college, in achieving my MSc
Management Studies programme, and in fighting off attempts to terminate my
contract on the grounds of my complex difference, a complexity of difference
that irritated and mobilized 'whiteness as hate' into powerful action
against me. I hate that kind of whiteness: feel the resistance.
From a standard of judgement of resistance that I have only come to
understand through its practice over many years in higher education I now
have a better sense of who I am, how I live, and who I am becoming within my
teaching practice.
Having worked with Nceku from undergraduate supervision to the loving
mutuality of 'postcolonial compadre' I have seen how a standard of
resistance judgement has immense potential for building capacity. This
relational growth from within a standard of judgement of resistance is clear
evidence of the effectiveness of my resistance as a standard of judgement
expressed and lived in my educational practice. In this account I'm showing
the importance of resistance as a standard of judgement for an honestly
gritty narrative knowing. Resistance as helped me to honour my independence
and personal decolonization. With it I have sustained and deepened certain
postcolonial relationships, and provided a certain type of evidence of my
joy of sustaining relationship. I imagine you could feel warmed by this
account of resistance. Intellectually I owe a debt to Dr Rob Beckford at
Birmingham who gave me time (with Nceku and my son Adam) to explore the
importance of resistance for people of colour, and Patricia Hill Collins now
canonical black feminist text, 'Fighting Words'.
This is the evidence to support the claim that the standard of judgement of
resistance that I have brought, time and again, to the quality of my
educational knowledge/research as a practitioner researcher has served me
well.
However, it also seems to me the qualities and life skills associated with
sustaining intimate - extended and extending family relationships - are very
similar to the skills required for capacity building. What do you think,
Namrata? Is there something in my connection here, or do you believe I'm
mistaken? What might I not be considering as I make my suggestion?
In the video clip with Jack I think what you see is the living evidence of
my capacity to let go of my attachment to resistance as if it is a 'standard
of practitioner judgement for all seasons'. By reframing my standards of
judgement to recognise when resistance of the other is no longer required I
can collapse my boundary of self (figuratively speaking)letting my dear
friend, Jack, feel that getting closer to me is something he wants to do.
What a crucial knowing for a teacher, educator: to be able to see the living
evidence of one's passion in the reflective hindsight of studying the video
clip and making epistemological whoopee afterwards. Making myself more
available for Jack through living the standard of judgement of family
intimacy in which I treat Jack like my brother seems to be a living
fulfillment of Marcel Gabriel's inspirational awareness that was needed to
achieve an accepting mode of encounter is to presence 'a mutual availability
for what the future holds in store.' According to Van Deurzen (1998)this
indicates very clearly how, in true dialogue, I place the emphasis neither
on you nor on me, but rather on what binds us together, on the space that we
have created between us.' I reckon Jack's video clip takes us into this
space in a living sense. Well, in the video clip Jack is trying hard - and I
don't give him too much opportunity - to get past my words but amazingly,
and this is the mystery of the clip, this does not seem to stop us from
merging in the frame into 'we~i'.
At this point I'd like to show how my insight has deepened through my
nomadic epistemological walkabout. The video clip resonates in three ways -
and this shows you how my head works too - first in reminding me of my
'resistance' to Martin Buber I am drawn back to his words, "The most eager
speaking at one another does not make a dialogue - for dialogue no sound is
necessary, not even a gesture (Buber, 1929, p.3).
Secondly, I'm drawn to the idea that Jack and I draw heavily on our quality
of adab; a living expression of the values that characterize Ubuntu; the
invitational quality of the Griqua people, the open handedness of Mutse Atsi
that led to their demise as a nation, and almost as a culture, because of
whiteness as hate(Part of my mixed heritage is Griqua from the umbilical of
my Grandmother - please go to www.griwuas.com click on Griqua Reminiscences
on Scott Balson's web page, and you will get a feel for my umbilical thread
to Griqua).
And thirdly, I can sense what Shawn Wilson refers to as the Indigenous way
of knowing that is 'relational accountability' and my interpretation of this
is the presence of the other is crucial for ecology of 'self with other' in
relationship for sustaining the realities of both. This is my standard of
critical judgement at play.
What an amazing moment as the appearance of my muscularity in speaking and
reasoning, not allowing Jack into the frame in words, also holds something
of the greatest value for the future for pluralism in the world as nascent
Islam engages Secular Humanist and both respond reflexively and in such a
Western way to the enjoining energies of the moment.
There seem to be very different standards of judgement coming alive in the
video clip with Jack. This is not the standard of judgement of resistance
that is present: this is a merging, a getting 'alongside', quite bodily, and
quite literally, and it is an exquisite moment of loving friendship in
pursuit of mutual understanding in which I let go resistance and embrace the
other. This is how it can be with my students and when it is I know my
purpose as an educator: I know what is meaningful for me. This is how it can
be when I share ideas about management education with my brother in law,
Ridha Ahmed.
I remember the evening of this video clip very well. I was at Bath with a
student I was supervising, James Staples, who kindly filmed this piece and
used it in his undergraduate thesis. I can see in the video clip different
standards of practitioner judgement at play. Playfully I can see the
exuberance, the passion, the excitement of two people achieving Habermas's
propositional idea of communicative action or communicative rationality: two
people bringing their lives and energies and mutual love in a voluntary
agreement for the sake of cooperation. But more yet: a living capacity for
sustaining loving relationship in which both present are mutually available
to the enquiry of the other, and the valuing of the others judgements
emerging through that enquiry, as two identities, black and white with black
(Murray and Whitehead, 2000) are giving performative expression to their
'teacherly' identities. In this video clip Jack is my brother because I let
go my standard of resistance judgement and extend, through my standard of
family intimacy judgement, without resistance into my brotherhood with Jack.
Maybe this exuberance will feel like I'm over egging: but it grabs me as
true, as real as how it is. If our narratives, or stories are who we are,
then my research narrative tells me (and you) about those deepest, most
intimate standards of judgement I bring to my educational practitioner
research, and into my living theory accounts of the growth of my educational
knowledge. Thank you Alon's for your wise request - to write it, to tell it,
and to wait patiently in the public gaze.
Wa-salaam
Yaakub
-----Original Message-----
From: BERA Practitioner-Researcher
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Namrata
Sharma
Sent: 28 October 2006 05:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: What kind of lifeworld are we creating for each other here?
Dear BN Sarkar,
As a person involved in a lot of capacity building activities i will indeed
be interested to read your attached paper. Capacity building both in thought
and action is indeed very much essential especially if you are working on
issues related to rights, gender and oppression of the underprivilaged. If
there is no change in attitude of mind there will be no effect in real life
no matter how much training people go to or degrees they acquire. I will be
reading your article and responding later, but in short i wanted to mention
here that when one is involved in trying to improve situations, living
conditions a committment from within is important but it is difficult to
pass this on to others as one needs to realise that every individual has
her/his own needs and reasons and including all that to better the future
needs far more than what text books prescribe.
best regards
Namrata
----- Original Message ----
From: Jack Whitehead <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2006 9:59:34 PM
Subject: Re: What kind of lifeworld are we creating for each other here?
Respected Scholars,
25 Oct 2006
I take this privilage to share my views with all
concerned. While trying to understand our lifeworld, I have gone
to seek our past. This, in a way is to shake us up and influence
us to harmonise ourselves to strive for a capacity building
programme both in thought and in action, which is very important
for all scholars, pursuing the cause of education with a
humanitarian purpose, here, in this conference.
Thus, I have attached my paper which complements
the above.
I believe it would help all of us clear some of
our valid doubts.
With sincere regards,
B.N. SARKAR, JAMMU, INDIA.
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