EDITORIAL

 

Posthumanist curriculum studies and post-schooling: contemplations from the South

 

 

P. du Preez^I; S. Maistry^II; S. Simmonds^III

^IDepartment of Curriculum Studies, Faculty of Education, Stellenbosch University. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9100-6461
^IIDepartment: Social Sciences Education, School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9623-0078
^IIIEducation and Human Rights Education (Edu-HRight) Research Unit, Faculty of Education, North-West University. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5005-9906

 

 

Posthumanism has occupied the humanities and social sciences, but it is yet to have its presence felt in education and curriculum studies (Snaza et al. 2014). Although posthumanism have since this assertion received much more attention in scholarly circles (e.g., Bozalek and Zembylas 2016; Du Preez 2018; Bozalek et al. 2021; Du Preez, Le Grange, and Simmonds 2022); more could be said about its possibilities while thinking it along with curriculum studies in the post-schooling context. Human and the-more-than-human currently face unprecedented change because of societal and natural disasters and concurrent rapid technological advancements. Posthumanism has as one of its central quests, to "figure[e] out how we can learn to think and act together in ways that might disrupt the neo-imperialist and biopolitical control that has emerged with globalised capitalism" (Snaza 2014, 171). Posthumanist curriculum studies is a direct response to enlightenment humanism and challenges us to question our assumptions about hegemonic knowledge systems, and the ontology of humans and non-humans alike. In so doing, posthumanism suggests a re/configuration of traditional notions of ontology, epistemology and ethics in favour of an ethico-onto-epistemology (Barad 2007), that considers a complex connection between them.

The post-schooling sector remains a schizophrenic space, reacting to social inclusion imperatives, curriculum validity pressures, neoliberal circumscription (and performative prescription) as well as renewed conscientisation of the need to decentre the human as the primary object of all intellectual endeavour. This makes the work of posthumanist curriculum scholars particularly complex, yet at the same time immensely appealing and potentially powerful. Posthumanism challenges anthropocentric assumptions about education such as: "only humans have education", "education has the purpose of producing good citizens", and "one only becomes fully human when one is educated" (Snaza and Weaver 2016). For Snaza et al. (2014, 40) posthumanism presents three related insights for transforming educational thought, practice, and research. First, is its ability to explicitly debunk humanism that dominates educational space and theory. Second, it unlocks existing assemblages between animals, machines and things within education that are needed to reframe it. Third, it draws on the first two insights to explore new, posthumanist directions in research, curriculum studies and pedagogical practice. As such, this special issue raises questions as to what, where and how curriculum scholars might "burrow" differently and in so doing, invigorate South-inspired contemplations as scholars contest humanist Western Eurocentrism.

In their article on posthumanist learning in a higher education programme, Lin et al. lament the disharmony reflected in the capitalist-driven multiple crises that face the planet. They suggest an eco-centric, love-based posthumanist education; one that embraces whole being's interconnectedness to elements of the natural world. Through an experiential curriculum, that emphasises affective, student emotional and spiritual associations with nature, become possible. Also focusing on the affective, Müller et al. consider curriculum inquiry in relation to intra-actions induced by education memory, using tactility offered by arts-based methodologies. Bozalek offers four inflection points as heuristics that have potential for envisioning an ethological curriculum, one that departs from the narcissistic trappings of the contemporary humanist higher education curriculum. In tracing the effects of the ghosts that haunt curriculum studies, Le Grange and Du Preez reimagine posthuman curriculum as concept that might enable an ethico-onto-epistemological delinking from curriculum studies as field and engage with selected emerging posthumanist concepts that could be invoked by posthuman curriculum scholars. In attempting a reimagining of the higher education "classroom", Maistry et al. invoke wild pedagogies as theoretical metaphor in their contemplative exploration of a (re)wilding of higher education curricula. Appadoo-Ramsamy's self-declared novice excursion into posthumanist curriculum scholarship has been particularly instructive, as it induced a reciprocity, generosity and (posthuman) care that that this special edition was keen to nurture. Her article has generated a response piece that reflects the tensions (and ghosts) that threaten to shackle but when revealed, draw attention to imagining an unshackling.

Appadoo-Ramsamy's article, and the subsequent response article and rejoinder, reveals the potential of exploring open reviewing in future editing work, a disposition that aligns with the tenets of posthumanism. Open-reviewing reveals multiple possibilities to turn traditional peer-reviewing - which is mostly individualist, competitive and shaped by normative Eurocentric practices that relies on the critique of an authoritative expert, into a more transparent, accountable and inclusive practice (Bozalek, Zembylas, and Shefer 2019). Open-reviewing is an affirmative practice that challenges epistemological harm done as a result of essentialisation, objectification and moralisation of phenomena critiqued from a distance (Bozalek, Zembylas, and Shefer 2019). It requires fine-tuning the general ethics of review and its wider implications, and suggests productive engagements between reviewers and authors of texts and academic communities engaging with these authors, texts and reviewers (Bozalek, Zembylas, and Shefer 2019). Such an approach is useful for the development of frontier materialdiscursive practices. Its transparent and affirmative nature might perhaps also be more inviting for authors new to posthumanism, to contribute and to think-and-do-with/together.

 

REFERENCES

Barad, Karen. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.         [ Links ]

Bozalek, V. and M. Zembylas. 2016. "Critical posthumanism, new materialisms and the affective turn for socially just pedagogies in higher education." South African Journal ofHigher Education 30(3): 193-200.         [ Links ]

Bozalek, Vivienne, Michalinos Zembylas, and Tamara Shefer. 2019. "Response-able (peer) reviewing matters in higher education: A manifesto." In Posthumanism and higher education: Reimagining pedagogy, practice and research, ed. Carol A. Taylor and Annouchka Bayley, 349-357. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.         [ Links ]

Bozalek, V., M. Zembylas, S. Motala, and D. Hölscher. 2021. Higher Education Hauntologies: Living with ghosts for a justice-to-come. London & New York: Routledge.         [ Links ]

Du Preez, P. 2018. "On decolonisation and internationalisation of university curricula: What can we learn from Rosi Braidotti?" Journal of Education 74: 19-31.         [ Links ]

Du Preez, P., L. Le Grange, and S. Simmonds. 2022. "Rethinking curriculum inquiry in the posthuman condition: A critical posthumanist stance." Education as Change 26: 1-20. https://doi.org/10.25159/1947-9417/11460.         [ Links ]

Snaza, N. and J. Weaver. 2016. Posthumanism and educational research. New York & London: Routledge.         [ Links ]

Snaza, N. 2014. "The death of curriculum studies and its ghosts." Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 11(2): 54-173.         [ Links ]

Snaza, N., P. Appelbaum, S. Bayne, D. Carlson, M. Morris, N. Rotas, J. Sanlin, J. Wallin, and J. Weaver. 2014. "Towards a posthumanist education." Journal of Curriculum Theorizing 30(2): 39-55.         [ Links ]