Genres of Being Human & Governmentality (Poster 4)

• In Event: Theory-Stories and Social Studies Education

Abstract

Genres of Being Human

In asking, what made Columbus possible, Sylvia Wynter reveals a transdisciplinary approach to understanding how history unfolds and how history is constructed. In her searing commentary on the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) acronym NHI (No Humans Involved), Wynter shows how the consequences of uncritical narratives, such as we often see with Columbus, continued into the late 20th century and on into our current context. In her examination of NHI, she also exposes a narrative of the unrest that has been either silenced or twisted to reify white supremacy. Instead she asks us to learn from how a marginalized, or liminal, community attempted to shift an entire order “by the only means it had available.” Ultimately, this chapter explores how Sylvia Wynter’s analyses of Columbus and L.A.’s urban unrest require us to consider that at its roots, social studies education is about who is considered fully human and who is not.

Governmentality

In contrast to the Machiavellian (1532/2017) definition of governmental power in which subjects are overtly subjugated by an authoritarian figure, Foucault (1978/1991) argued that power appears to emanate naturally throughout society and occurs in the day-to-day interactions among people and institutions. Governmentality can be described as “the effort to create governable subjects through various techniques developed to control, normalize and shape people’s conduct” (Fimyar, 2008, p. 5). Central to this regulation of population are what Foucault (1978/1991) termed “apparatuses of security” for the state (p. 102). These apparatuses consist of “institutions, procedures, analyses, and reflections” (p. 102) that are designed to mobilize individuals in ways that encourage them to become acculturated to societal norms. Formal education acts as a vital institution within this system given that the vast majority of citizens matriculate through public schooling, and its central mission is to train students to become productive members of society who can contribute to the economic prosperity and social fabric of the state. This paper argues that governmentality offers a more comprehensive explanation for inequities in schools and curricula that takes into consideration race, class, geography, and a host of other intersecting characteristics that place people into certain segments of society.

Authors

• Esther June Kim, College of William & Mary

• Wayne Journell, University of North Carolina - Greensboro