Decolonial tensions and the rise of nationalist ideologies: a feminist exploration of educational equity and access

• In Event: Decolonial and Feminist Resistance

Proposal

Over the past decade, the rise of authoritarian governments and/or authoritarian leaning leaders steadily grown (Freedom House, 2022). Much of the acceptance and/or allegiance to such forms of governance and leadership stems from a rightward recognition and mounting control of education, seen as a fulcrum around which these ideologies can thrive. Increasingly, control of education, the creation of artificial educational crises and questioning the economic and social returns on education have led to a public who is more willing to question the value of education in personal, professional and civic lives. This paper will utilize theory and three years of data from the US and India to compare how the world’s oldest and the world’s largest democracies are following a comparable path on 1) weaponizing educational access through the demonization of affirmative action programs in education, 2) reshaping policies on parental power and voice in school decisions, and finally, 3) reviling those who see education as an equalizing opportunity as a way to bridge social, cultural, religious, ethnic and gendered divisions.

The paper will seek to frame the political battles in education to highlight the emergence, journey and outcomes that have led to the successful rise of right-wing ideologies in education. In addition, the paper will offer a critique on the ambiguity inherent in decolonial theories that hinder current decolonizing ways of knowing. These ambiguities exacerbate the emergence of a neo-decolonial perspective. This exploration of a neo-decolonial narrative is predicated on the evolution and co-option of the public space, or argued by Habermas, the “bourgeois public sphere.” This shift is beginning to leave the liberal, progressive, and human rights-orientated individuals out of the dialogue on the future of education. This has led, in part, to the readying of a public willing to engage in new forms of decolonial thinking, resulting in more sophisticated right-wing intersections in policy and practice that directly affect educational equity and access.

The paper draws from data collected through interviews with women in India, analytical examinations of public actions in the political sphere across a span of eight years, and systematic review of dialogue in the public space through document analysis of news and opinion articles. Taking an ethnographic and phenomenological approach, the paper is a theoretical argument that is grounded in feminist and female perspectives, in part due to the fact that nationalism, as constructed, depends on two oppressive structures to thrive, namely those of colonization and patriarchy (Thapar-Björkert, 2013). Further, Thapar-Björkert (2013) argues that factors such as the development of national bureaucracies, the ways in which citizenship is bestowed upon people and the market-driven growth of the middle class has allowed for nationalistic processes to primarily engage men. She cites three specific reasons for this phenomenon: first, that the collective process of nationalism was assumed to be the same for men and women; second, women’s contributions to the development of the nation are seen oftentimes as unimportant or secondary to men’s contributions; and third, the foundations around which nationalism developed emerged out of writings in the 17th and 18th centuries, where the division of labor and the “natural characteristics of the sexes” (p. 5) were codified. In addition, recent literature shows increasingly alarming global patterns of nationalism and misogyny. Chris Wilson, a scholar at the University of Auckland, pointedly argues that:
Misogyny…and the notion of white genocide are mutually escalatory. The two ideologies are not merely complementary and overlapping, but interact to create a more volatile worldview, one which makes its proponents more prone to the use of violence. Misogyny and white genocide are synergistic, their effect greater than the sum of their parts.

He argues that declining birthrates (of the group that feels victimized, and in his work he cites the perspectives of white men, but this would apply to most groups of nationalists, including yet not limited to Hindu fundamentalists), intermarriage between groups, or miscegenation, and traditional notions of masculinity as it relates to the protection of women, foster a sense of anger at women who do not follow expected forms of behavior. These ontological and epistemological theories undergird this paper as both a philosophical and theoretical exploration towards reshaping our understanding of the impact of these forces in education and in relation to the rise of authoritarian governments.

The significance of this paper to a CIES audience and those attending the conference is the focus on the challenges that are inherent within our traditional practices of operating in a more siloed approach to education as a development priority to bring attention to the historical subversive and currently increasingly popular narratives that are shaping the rise of authoritarian governments. Through the three main findings, namely, weaponizing educational access, reshaping policies on parental power and reviling those who see education as an equalizing opportunity, the paper’s main contribution is the analysis of how decoloniality has shifted and how the notion of neo-decoloniality can potentially hinder our ability to truly provide equitable access and opportunity to our most marginalized learners.

Author

• Supriya Baily, George Mason University