Race, after culture and nation: Public pedagogy as public activism

• In Event: 46.023 - Becoming Public: A Symposium on Research on Public Pedagogy, Representation, and the Public Sphere

Abstract

Public pedagogy as public activism is a useful consideration for understanding curriculum work beyond the formal classroom. Over the last decade, educators have broadened and deepened their interest in public museums, which have become increasingly important vehicles and targets of analyze of what object selection, displays, and overarching narratives tell us about ourselves and others (Mayo, 2013). Although some educators seem to remain more interested in how such sites serve as ‘authentic learning experiences’ (Marcus et al, 2012), I consider their authority to define racial, ethnic, and cultural identities as one to be questioned not only by the youth who often attend such institutions as a formal educational experience but by the institution personnel themselves. To understand their pedagogy as a mode of cultural criticism is essential for questioning the conditions under which knowledge is produced and subject positions are put into play, negotiated, or refused.
I consider public pedagogy, in following Giroux (2000), as cultural politics to draw critical attention to how authority may be used to undermine social and cultural practices that reproduce and advance a dominant way of thinking. While research utilizing a critical public pedagogy often is caught in focusing on “the slippery, ever-proliferating meanings of the term” (Burdick & Sandlin, 2013, p. 144), the focus of this paper is to consider how culture is often a struggle over meaning, identity, and power and the ways in which understanding such a relationship may promote a public pedagogy of activism (Sandlin, Schultz, & Burdick, 2010). In presenting the results of an 18-month case study involving 13 middle school students enrolled in a public school in Vancouver, BC, Canada as they work with a local indigenous/First Nations group, I show how the youth came to understand the politics of culture in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). The youth followed the negotiations between the museum administration and Indigenous elders in the latter’s repatriation request of a culturally significant war canoe in the AMNH’s collections. They realized how the AMNH utilized various arguments to dissuade the Indigenous elders to pursue their claim. The youth worked with members of the First Nations in British Columbia, attended virtual meetings held between the AMNH curators and administrators and the indigenous elders, and completed gallery visits and analysis. The data gather included transcripts of meetings, interviews with AMNH curators and administration , interviews with indigenous elders and students, document analysis of indigenous materials, museum documents, archival documents, and media.
The notion of public pedagogy of activism as understood by the students offered them a way forward in understanding Indigenous identity formation through the AMNH’s institutional authority. The students realized the limits of indigenous self-determination and sovereignty specific to object ownership and display. The students also came to understand how changing conceptions of identity (from race to culture to nation specific to this Indigenous group) through community action (Stovall, 2010). Moreover, public pedagogy in this instance prompted the youth to realize their own personal and social transformation.

Author

• Brenda M. Trofanenko, University of Illinois