Critical Human Rights Education: Advancing Social-Justice-Oriented Educational Praxes

158 Pages·2019·1.966 MB·English

by  Michalinos Zembylas, André Keet

Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education 13
Michalinos Zembylas
André Keet
Critical
Human Rights
Education
Advancing Social-Justice-Oriented
Educational Praxes
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories
in Education
Volume 13
Series Editors
Jan Masschelein, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Lynda Stone, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
Editorial Board
Gert Biesta, Brunel University London, College of Business, Uxbridge, UK
David Hansen, Columbia University, New York, USA
Jorge Larrosa, Barcelona University, Barcelona, Spain
Nel Noddings, Stanford University, Ocean Grove, USA
Roland Reichenbach, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Naoko Saito, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Japan
Paul Smeyers, Ghent University and KU Leuven, Ghent, Belgium
Paul Standish, University of London, London, UK
Sharon Todd, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland
Scope of the Series
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education signifies new directions and
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exciting scholarship that breaks down and reformulates traditions in the humanities
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dynamic and experimental qualities that characterize today’s academy.
The series associates philosophy and theory not exclusively with a cognitive
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Authors for the series come not only from philosophy of education but also from
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The audience for the series includes academics, professionals and students in the
fields of educational thought and theory, philosophy and social theory, and critical
scholarship.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/8638
Michalinos Zembylas • André Keet
Critical Human Rights
Education
Advancing Social-Justice-Oriented
Educational Praxes
Michalinos Zembylas André Keet
Open University of Cyprus Nelson Mandela University
Latsia, Cyprus Port Elizabeth, South Africa
ISSN 2214-9759 ISSN 2214-9767 (electronic)
Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education
ISBN 978-3-030-27197-8 ISBN 978-3-030-27198-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27198-5
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Acknowledgments
We have written this book while the two of us live and work in two different conti-
nents—Europe and Africa—something that could not be more symbolic of our
longtime struggle to define a critical decolonial knowledge project in human rights
education that extends beyond the epistemological form of European imperialism.
Each of these continents has contributed something unique to our experiences of
thinking, feeling, being, and writing. Each of these continents and beyond has given
us the gift of many colleagues, friends, and students, who have helped us formulate
our ideas and pushed us to be more bold and critical of our own taken-for-granted
ideas. We are especially grateful for the support and intellectual stimulation we
received from Shirley Anne Tate, Felisa Tibbitts, Monisha Bajaj, Willy Nel, Ronelle
Carolissen, J.C de Merwe, Jonathan Jansen, Lis Lange, Vivienne Bozalek, and
Tammy Shefer. We also thank Marisa Botha and Jenny du Preez for their enormous
investment of time in offering editorial help. Finally, our deep appreciation goes to
our families whose encouragement and love enable us to do what we do.
v
Permissions
Keet, A. (2012). Discourse, betrayal, critique. In C. Roux (Ed.), Safe Spaces: Human
rights education in diverse contexts (pp. 7–28). Rotterdam, The Netherlands:
Sense Publishers.
Keet, A. (2014). Plasticity, hope and the regeneration of human rights education. In
V. Bozalek, B. Leibowitz, B. Carolissen, & M. Boler (Eds.), Discerning critical
hope in educational practices (pp. 69–81). London/New York: Routledge.
Keet, A. (2015). It is time: Critical human rights education in an age of counter-
Hegemonic Distrust. Education as Change, 19(3), 46–64.
Keet, A. (2017). Does human rights education exist? International Journal of
Human Rights Education, 1(1), 1–18.
Keet, A., & Zembylas, M. (2018). Introduction. In M. Zembylas & A. Keet (Eds.),
Critical human rights, citizenship, and democracy education: Entanglements
and regenerations (pp. 1–16). London: Bloomsbury.
Zembylas, M. (2016). Foucault’s engagement with human rights: Seeking the
renewal of human rights education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 50(3),
384–397.
Zembylas, M. (2017). Re-contextualising human rights education: Some decolonial
strategies and pedagogical/curricular possibilities. Pedagogy, Culture & Society,
25(4), 487–499.
Zembylas, M. (2017). Re-envisioning human rights in the light of Arendt and
Rancière: Towards an agonistic account of human rights education. Journal of
Philosophy of Education, 51(4), 709–724.
Zembylas, M. (2018). Affect and counter-conduct: Cultivating action for social
change in human rights education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of
Education, 39(4), 629–641.
Zembylas, M. (2018). Political depression, cruel optimism and pedagogies of repa-
ration: Questions of criticality and affect in human rights education. Critical
Studies in Education, 59(1), 1–17.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction: Does Human Rights Education Exist? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Prelude . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
[Incessant] Critique as Fidelity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Critical Human Rights Studies and Human Rights Critiques . . . . . . . . . . 5
An Order of Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
HRE, Inc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Purpose and Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 It Is Time: Critical Human Rights Education in an Age
of Counter- Hegemonic Distrust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Historical Development of HRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
An Age of Counter-Hegemonic Distrust: The Emergence of Critical
Human Rights Education (from 2011) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Critical Human Rights Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3 The Political and Pedagogical Renewal of Human
Rights Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Overview of Critiques to the Conventional Approach to Human
Rights Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Foucault’s Approach to Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Implications of Foucault’s Approach for the Renewal of HRE . . . . . . . . 40
Concluding Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
ix
x Contents
4 Towards an Agonistic Account of Human Rights Education . . . . . . . 47
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
The Need for the Renewal of HRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Arendt’s Aporetic Inquiry on Human Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Rancière’s Criticisms of Arendt’s Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
An Agonistic Account of HRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5 Capital Rights: Human Rights Education and Neoliberal
Pedagogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Transformative Constitutionalism and Human Rights as Idolatry . . . . . . 64
From Human Rights to Capital Rights, to Neoliberal Pedagogies . . . . . . 66
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
6 Political Depression, Cruel Optimism and Pedagogies
of Reparation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
‘Political Depression’ and Its Affective Implications
for Understanding Human Rights Violations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
The Affective Politics of ‘Cruel Optimism’ and the Consequences
for HRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
The Promise of Human Rights Education and Its Critiques . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Reparative Pedagogies in CHRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7 Plasticity, Critical Hope and the Regeneration of Human Rights
Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Plasticity and the ‘Left Over’ Forms of Human Rights Education . . . . . . 95
Critical Hope and the Regeneration of Human Rights Education . . . . . . 99
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
8 Affect and Counter-Conduct: Cultivating Action
for Social Change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Counter-Conduct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Affect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
The Entanglement of Affect and Counter-Conduct in Critical
Human Rights Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Contents xi
9 Crisis and Critique: Critical Theories and the Renewal
of Citizenship-, Democracy-, and Human Rights Education . . . . . . . 117
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Citizenship-, Democracy-, and Human Rights Education . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Crisis and Critique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Critical Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Shifts in Critical Theories and Implications of CDHRE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
10 Decolonial Strategies and Pedagogical/Curricular Possibilities . . . . . 131
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
The Eurocentric Horizon of Understanding Human Rights
and Its Critiques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
The Global Discourse of HRE and the Struggles
for Decolonisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Decolonial Strategies for Human Rights and HRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
Decolonising Pedagogy and Curriculum in CHRE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
11 Conclusion: An Unfinished Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153