Self-Pedagogy of Internal and External Solidarities: Definition, Foundations, and Directions for Discourse Development

• In Event: Teacher Activism As Resistance

Proposal

Various pedagogies of solidarity were developed since Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Pedagogy for Liberation (1987), and Pedagogy of Solidarity (first published as a book in 2014). The 20th-century notion of the pedagogy of solidarity, in part, was inspired by Karl Marx’s idea of international solidarity of economic classes, namely, the oppressed working classes worldwide, whereas more recent theoretical frameworks of the pedagogy of solidarity have been constructed in postmodernist, decolonization realms (Gaztambide-Fernandez, 2012).
While academic explorations of the pedagogy of solidarity focus on the discussions of subjectivity, power imbalances, colonial legacies, and efforts of cosmopolitanism in the classroom and society (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2012; Gaztambide-Fernández, Brant, & Desai, 2022), currently proposed pedagogy aims to re-direct the focus from one’s classroom and surrounding society back to the self.
In the current proposal, self-pedagogy is defined as a self-educating, self-exploratory practice prioritizing one’s retainment of the sense of being the Subject while dwelling within the neoliberal discourse that advances the objectification of one’s sense of self. The internal/external dualism in the proposed discussion of solidarities has the goal of pointing out the divide between one’s public demonstration of solidarity and a possible inner adherence to the competing, oppositional narratives (Greene, 1978).
The proposed theory views solidarity as a form of “metaphysical determination” (Bayertz, 1999, p. 2, as cited in Gaztambide-Fernández, 2012) – inclusive of notions of what societal interactions could or should morally entail. Though it is important to understand the differences (in the realities and starting points) of various subjects in the process of constructing solidarities, the current proposal approaches one’s own realization of the concept of Finality as the most crucial element in the process of nurturing solidarities. One’s internal considerations of the temporal nature of the system(s) and self as part of them have the potential to redirect one’s mental resources toward the creation and use of alternative discourses as opposed to dominating neoliberal ones which hail materialistic individualism, class-, gender-, geography-based supremacies, and consumption-driven hegemonies. The self’s realization of Finality provides the understanding of sameness of the endpoints regardless of historic and present-day differences between oneself and the oppressed.
The self-pedagogy of internal and external solidarities can be a way for the individual to construct a differential consciousness with the reconfiguration of ideas and restructuration of discourses (Sandoval, 2000). One of the starting steps in discourse development can be revisiting the concept of Fairness. The current proposal views reframing the concept of Fairness as fundamental in achieving just societal changes. Fairness is not only about the redistribution of goods and resources among the ones most in need, rather, it is ontological. The given proposal views Fairness as the acknowledgment of the state of Being of another Subject, the equality of the Subjects in their states of existence as well as their ends. The section of the proposal on directions for discourse creation is being developed at the moment of submission.
The proposed self-pedagogy can be viewed as a path for the individual's protest against various hegemonies of the outside world. The use of an alternative discourse based on reimagining of the concept of Fairness can become one's foundation for resistance, thus serving as an exit route from the influence of dominating neoliberal ideologies of the states and systems.

Author

• Fatikha Ilgizovna Khasanova, International Education Policy Department, University of Maryland, College Park