Mundane White Supremacy, Pedagogical Belonging, and the Phenomenology of Classroom Space

• In Event: Against Mundane White Supremacy: Revealing the Affective, Relational, and Spatial Dynamics of Everyday Racism

Abstract

Overview and Significance
This paper explores the dynamics between classroom space, pedagogical relationships, and mundane modes of white supremacy. Drawing upon a qualitative phenomenological study of a 9th grade classroom, this paper illustrates how classrooms can be spatially oriented to whiteness (Ahmed, 2006), and, in turn, impact the relational possibilities in the classroom. In particular, this paper analyzes the collateral e/affects of white sociality--the racist consequences to seemingly well-intentioned or neutral actions that nevertheless reinforce white social norms. Collateral e/affects are fundamentally linked to a racialized classroom spatial orientation in which white students are by default afforded a privileged access to space, engagement, and learning. The result of this racialized space is that white students are given pathways to feel a sense of belonging while those pathways are restricted to students of color. The study illustrates that for teachers committed to an antiracist pedagogy there must be consideration of how the classroom space is oriented. This ultimately helps expand tools for antiracist pedagogy beyond “cognitive centric” models rooted in reflective planning moments into the real-time of teaching (Seawright, 2018). With this in mind, it is a challenge to know what to do in real-time when faced with the many possible manifestations indicating a racist spatial orientation. In response, following Van Manen’s (2015) reflections on pedagogical tact and “knowing what to do when you don't know what to do,” I discuss the real-time possibilities of an antiracist pedagogical tact as a practice to bring about the “break down” of relational habits of white supremacy (Yancy, 2014). Antiracist pedagogical tact is about incorporating a real-time awareness of spatial-relational dynamics into everyday teaching, but also about directly engaging these dynamics with students as a way to relationally empower the class to collectively identify, name and reorient the classroom when confronted with mundane moments of white supremacy.

Theoretical Framework and Methodology
Drawing upon phenomenologies of racial embodiment (PRE) (Alcoff, 2006; Fanon, 2008; Seawright, 2018), and relational philosophy (Bingham & Sidorkin, 2004; Mayo, 2004; Margonis, 2015), this study approaches white supremacy as contingent upon an active and intersubjective social world. Meaning, the violence and inequality of white supremacy is, in part, maintained through normative and intersubjective habits, interactions, and spatial expectations. PRE facilitated the study of whiteness in classroom relationships as it is connected to this always-already unfolding social world.

Methods and Data
Audio-visual data was collected over a 6 month period (the full duration of the participant class). Along with field notes and memos, audio-visual data was compiled and coded in Atlas.ti using a constant comparison approach (Charmaz, 2014). Based on emergent trends, a thematically representative classroom interaction was selected to be presented as a phenomenological narrative (Van Manen, 2014). While the narrative is representative of trends within the larger data set, the goal of the narrative is not to represent an objective interpretation, but rather serve as critical foil through which the reader can reflect on the racialized relational and spatial variables of classroom interactions. In this way, the phenomenological narrative functions as a case study (Stake, 2013).

Author

• Gardner R Seawright, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater
  Presenting Author