{"id":570,"date":"2019-11-07T10:54:44","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T15:54:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/?p=570"},"modified":"2019-11-07T10:56:43","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T15:56:43","slug":"nikita-lamba-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/nikita-lamba-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed\/","title":{"rendered":"Nikita Lamba | Pedagogy of the Oppressed"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nikita Lamba*<\/strong><\/p>\n

For seminar 4\/13, we turned to Pedagogy of the Oppressed <\/em>by Paulo Freire, which was published in his native Brazil in 1968, and translated from Portuguese into English in 1970.<\/p>\n

The conversation, featuring four panelists and moderated by Professor Bernard Harcourt, orbited around two figures\u2014Freire himself and Augusto Boal, founder of the Theatre of the Oppressed\u2014and in a long and fruitful discussion about the continued relevance of the text, we learned that Boal\u2019s theatrical adaptation of Freire\u2019s teaching provides a brilliant and concrete answer to a central question of this seminar, namely, \u201cWhat are we to do<\/em> with these texts?<\/p>\n

The seminar took place in one of the finest universities in the world, and one of the more expensive ones in Brazil, which made it a fitting place to discuss this revolutionary text on education and a somewhat uncomfortable forum for discussions of class and education\u2014although this was attenuated by a live-stream and the ability to submit questions online. If, as one audience member put it, \u201ceducation is not a method only, but a place<\/em>,\u201d then the university itself provided an opportunity for a dialectical reading.<\/p>\n

Professor Maria In\u00eas Marcondes de Souza started us off by recounting the history of the text, the significant events of Freire\u2019s life that led to it, and the international recognition that followed. If we were struggling to understand how Freire\u2019s work remains relevant, Professor de Souza led the way, showing how Pedagogy of the Oppressed\u2014<\/em>a text<\/span><\/i> deeply rooted in<\/span><\/i>the specificities of his region\u2014gainedinternational significance. De Souza pointed out that during a visit to New York, Freire himself noted the significant parallels between the oppressed in Brazil and discriminated groups in the United States, specifically communities of color.<\/p>\n

Although Freire\u2019s international success attests to his work\u2019s wide geographic relevance, Professor Harcourt pointed out that Freire\u2019s binary of \u201coppressor\/oppressed\u201d might no longer be adequate for the present, and that\u00a0an intersectional approach might require Freire\u2019s hierarchies to be reconfigured to account for nuances of race, sexuality, and gender. A student responded that perhaps the oppressor\/oppressed binary could be transposed from class relations to relations between and within individuals, and that we might need to \u201crecognize the oppressor in oneself before trying to liberate anyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not the oppressed\/oppressor binary remains pertinent, other elements in Pedagogy of the Oppressed <\/em>immediately resonate with the contemporary reader. In the preface, Freire asserts that conscientiza\u00e7\u00e3o <\/em>(the perception of and action against oppression) must replace the patronizing sentiment that \u201cit is better for the victims of injustice not to recognize themselves as such.\u201d\u00a0 (20)\u00a0Or, in more contemporary terms, we must commit ourselves to improving the lot of the oppressed, rather than placating the disenfranchised and ourselves with the idea that things can be changed within<\/em><\/span> the status quo<\/em><\/span>, that America already was great and merely needs some tweaking.<\/p>\n

Freire\u2019s \u201cfear of freedom\u201d resonates in a country where some are reluctant to part with their expensive private healthcare in favor of Medicare-For-All, and others argue that forgiving student debt for the next generation would somehow harm previous generations who paid off their debts.\u00a0Encouraged by the op-ed departments of the major newspapers, they \u201cconfuse freedom with the maintenance of the status quo,\u201d as Freire put it. (<\/i>21<\/span><\/i>)<\/p>\n

His observations on the oppressors\u2019 use of science and technology for their own ends, and on their need to subjugate humanity, also seem suited to an era where the richest man on the planet, whose fortune rests upon superior logistical organization, lets his warehouse workers die for lack of an air conditioner.<\/p>\n

Above all, Freire\u2019s model of education\u2014where hierarchies of all kinds are replaced by dialogical relationships, and leaders emerge not from above but from below\u2014underlines the importance of diverse representation in our institutions. As Freire would have recognized, we demand diverse representation because oppression cannot be lifted when good-hearted members of the historically privileged (straight, white, cis, male) lead the charge, but only when marginalized communities lead for themselves, thereby fulfilling their \u201cgreat humanistic and historical task of\u2026 [liberating] themselves and their oppressors as well.\u201d (28)<\/p>\n

When leftists claim that allies from the oppressor class must be willing to cede leadership, must be willing to sacrifice their own wealth for radical redistribution, they are not far from Freire, who wrote that \u201csolidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture.\u201d (34)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

From Thought to Action<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Another central question of 13\/13 is how we can be compelled to action: in a state of political despondency, how can we feel empowered to make change? As Professor Pele emphasized, what is at stake in Freire\u2019s text is the \u201cmaking of critical subjects\u201d\u2014a linguistic turn that changes the individual from an object<\/em> being acted upon to a subject <\/em>capable of \u201creflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.\u201d (36) How, then, to translate that shift from the merely linguistic to the corporeal?<\/p>\n

Freire\u2019s method rests upon the identification of \u201cgenerative themes\u201d that lead oppressed communities to identify and overcome \u201climit situations\u201d through \u201climit-acts,\u201d the success of which will lead the oppressed to discover their \u201cuntested feasibility.\u201d\u00a0 (86; 89; 92)<\/p>\n

But rather than unpacking these terms, Professor Alessandra Vannucci\u00a0focused on Augusto Boal, a contemporary of Freire\u2019s, who transposed his method from the classroom to the stage, and illuminated a concrete way forward with the Theatre of the Oppressed.<\/p>\n

Boal applied Freire\u2019s teachings, using experimental theatrical modes to transform passive audience members into thoughtful and empowered \u201cspect-actors.\u201d\u00a0 By dramatically recreating their limit-situations and allowing viewers to test out their limit-acts, Boal gave viewers a glimpse of their own untested potentialities, which they could then apply outside the theatrical context. By holding these performances outside rarefied performance spaces, the Theatre of the Oppressed reached diverse audiences and guided them to become spect-actors within the play, and then subjective actors in their own contexts and communities.<\/p>\n

The Theatre of the Oppressed tradition continues throughout the world\u2014Professor Vannucci is a theatre director herself, and her fellow panelist Cecilia Boal is the current director of the Theatre of the Oppressed. In considering the varied applications of Freire and Boal, wondering how their ideas about listening and receiving could inform more traditional plays, I suddenly saw Jeremy O\u2019Harris\u2019s commercially successful and critically acclaimed Slave Play<\/em> in a new light.<\/p>\n

As Professor Pele noted, \u201ceven silence [is] fundamental to inform free and non-oppressive behavior in the education\/political process.\u201d\u00a0 The importance of silence as an act<\/em> underscores much of Freire\u2019s text, and he repeatedly stresses the importance of the educator \u201clistening\u201d to the communities she wishes to engage with, in order to identify their generative themes.<\/p>\n

Listening is no less powerful today, when marginalized voices have been silenced and denied platforms for decades. And thus, although not a work in the Theatre of the Oppressed tradition, Slave Play<\/em> can be seen as a contemporary application of many of Freire\u2019s and Boal\u2019s principles, as it forces the oppressors to listen to the oppressed, and encourages viewers to recognize the oppressed and<\/u> the oppressor in each of us.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Harris, a black gay man, deftly forces his presumably privileged\u2014given the upscale theatre and expensive tickets\u2014audience to reckon with race, gender, and class.\u00a0 While Boal\u2019s theater encouraged the oppressed to recognize their situation and the power they had to affect it by turning them into spect-actors, O\u2019Harris reinforces the audience\u2019s important role as silent, receptive listeners<\/em>, paying witness to the inner lives of black, queer, historically subjugated characters.<\/p>\n

It not only gives voice to the historically oppressed, but also underlines that oppressors who wish to shed their mantles and stand in solidarity with the oppressed must be willing to sit down and listen<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Thus while Freire\u2019s radical reimagining of education has not yet overthrown the systems and institutions of oppression that have taken root throughout the world, the enduring resonance of \u00a0Pedagogy of the Oppressed\u2014<\/em>the ways in which it still applies to and articulates our current situation, and the ways in which we can see Freire\u2019s influence applied in different and wildly creative modes\u2014gives hope that his radical text can still serve as a roadmap for action in the shadowy terrain ahead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All pages cited from:<\/p>\n

Freire, Paulo.\u00a0 Pedagogy of the Oppressed<\/em>.\u00a0 Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos, The Seabury Press, 1970.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* J.D. Candidate, Columbia Law School; B.A. Critical Studies, USC School of Cinematic Arts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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