Join us for a talk with Gustavo Hessman Dalaqua from the University of São Paulo and Randall Everett Allsup from Teachers College who will talk about Democratic Freedom as Resistance against Self-hatred, Epistemic Injustice and Oppression in Freire’s Critical Theory.
This talk is part of the Brazil Research Seminar Series.
Though the topic of oppression has received considerable attention from scholars, most of democratic and critical theory today neglects to mention the ways in which self-hatred and epistemic injustice curtail freedom. To avoid such neglect, we build upon Paulo Freire’s critical theory and advance a concept of democratic freedom as resistance against self-hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression. Paying special attention to the psychological effects of oppression, Freire poignantly describes the processes through which the oppressed internalize their oppression and become perpetrators of their own domination. Whereas self-hatred makes the oppressed despise themselves as inferior beings, epistemic injustice is experienced when the oppressed are taken in by the supposed superiority of the oppressor’s cognitive abilities. Mutually reinforcing, self-hatred and epistemic injustice both work to ensure that resistance is kept at bay. As long as they believe in their worthlessness and cognitive inferiority, the oppressed will never challenge the discourses that subjugate them.
When oppression is internalized due to self-hatred and epistemic injustice, how can people struggle for freedom? A juxtaposed reading of Freire’s Education: The Practice of Freedom, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage reveals that democratic participation is the means by which the oppressed can resist self-hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression – and thus achieve freedom. In addition, it reveals that freedom and democracy pertain not only to institutional politics but also to what Freire calls “democratic mentality.” Democracy and freedom for Freire are inextricably bound up with one another because only by participating in the former can citizens acquire an ability that safeguards the latter, viz. the capacity to cultivate a “permeable consciousness” that allows citizens to judge the guiding norms of their life from the standpoint of others and to develop themselves autonomously.
Freire’s conceptualization of democratic freedom qua resistance against self-hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression elucidates that democratic participation shatters the self-enclosed, atomistic individual and calls forth a porous self, who is always willing to review the norms and beliefs that guide her conduct and who is capable of inhabiting the perspective of others.
The talk will be held on October 4th, 2018 from 1-2 PM in room 802 at the International Affairs Building (420 West 118th Street).
Food will be served.
