Curriculum Scholars of Color “rewriting Knowledge”: The (Im)possibilities of Breaking Through and Moving Beyond in Curriculum Studies

Document Type

Presentation

Presentation Date

4-9-2016

Abstract or Description

Presentation given at American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting.

In “Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom: Towards the Human, After Man, Its Overrepresentation--An Argument,” Sylvia Wynter (2003) argues that the currently dominant understanding of what it means to be human (i.e., in a strictly biological sense) is based on hierarchical conceptualized divisions between human and Other. This specific understanding of humanness, she argues, is an overrepresentation that, through the maintenance of academic disciplines, operates as the power of truth to regulates our lives and propagate struggles over race, gender, the environment, unequal distributions of resources, etc. Wynter (1992) calls on intellectuals to participate in a “rewriting of knowledge” (p. 68) to interrogate and de-stabilize disciplinary boundaries and the hierarchical ways of understanding and acting in the world that they uphold. She argues that through a convergence of such deliberate and goal-oriented scholarship, possibilities for breaking through and moving beyond current hierarchical and oppressive conceptualizations of humanness can be realized that move us all “…toward a new, correlated human species, and eco-systemic ethic” (Wynter, 1992, p. 69).

Inspired by the work of Wynter (2003, 1992), this paper examines work by curriculum scholars of color that seeks to challenge and rewrite knowledge within the field of curriculum studies. Engaging critical geography and a curriculum study of the significance of place (Kincheloe & Pinar, 1991; Ng-A-Fook, 2007; Reynolds, 2013), the paper explores the symbolic location of these works within the field and the potential they hold for breaking through and moving beyond existing curriculum hierarchies. Through an exploration of the emancipatory potential works by curriculum scholars of color hold for curriculum studies, this paper addresses the im(possibilities) of accepting Wynter’s call within the field of curriculum studies.

Sponsorship/Conference/Institution

American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting

Location

Washington, D.C.

Source

http://tinyurl.com/zb8o9hu

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