Forming Habits for Freedom: A Sensorial, Relational Curriculum

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Subversion, Emancipation, and the Heart: Resistance in Curriculum and Pedagogy (Table 31)

Abstract

The coronavirus pandemic created a wormhole of sorts – what Berlant might call “crisis time” – and such a seismic shake in temporal rhythms generates an opportunity for habits to fracture. This paper draws primarily on queer and affective discussions of habit, brought together with the significance of habit in the reproduction of whiteness and racism, through scholars whose work shares an inheritance in the phenomenology Merleau-Ponty and Bourdieu. Habits are an accumulation of sensations, through which the body orients itself in the world, finding modes for surviving and making do, and doing what has always worked for some. This paper outlines the significance of the relational, sensorial curriculum of habit, and how individuals, communities, and institutions might take responsibility for change.

Author

• Sarah M. Gerth van den Berg, Teachers College, Columbia University