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Beyond alterity: creating my post-critical living
theory of transformational identity
Jean McNiff
Context of the
domain of enquiry
The context of the domain of this enquiry is my
practice of supervising higher degree studies, specifically
in a South African township and in British and Irish universities.
Focus of enquiry
The focus of the enquiry is how I can contribute to new forms of theory that move beyond Otherness to develop a post-critical philosophy of personal and social evolution. This involves transforming critical perspectives of Otherness, whose focus is deconstructing colonizing discourses of Difference, into transformational perspectives, whose focus is transforming Otherness into transformational identity that is grounded in a commitment to the sharing of unique singularities (Kristeva 2002) as the basis for communicative action. My understanding of critical perspectives such as post-colonialism or post-feminism is that they are stuck in monologues of deconstructing normative assumptions, and therefore present as constructs that contradictorily perpetuate the normative assumptions of ‘Otherness’; for example, a focus on interrogating ‘Whiteness’ as a colonizing norm does not require a reciprocal interrogation of ‘Blackness’ as a norm of colonization. Perpetuating such normative assumptions requires the collusive participation of both colonizer and colonized (Memmi 1991), with scant hope of transcendence. From the South African social contexts of racialised hegemonies and from the western higher education contexts of epistemological hegemonies, I have come to understand the need to transform the structures of abstract critical theories into generative transformational living theories of practice that enable people to move beyond alterity, and create their identities as the living realizations of their underpinning inclusive and relational logics and values (Whitehead and McNiff 2006).
Data collection
methods or mapping of literature
Data for the study can be found in the written accounts and multimedia narratives of myself and those I support as we work together, first to develop critical perspectives that enable us to understand our current socio-political positioning, and then systematically to transform our understandings and practices to develop transformative communities of culturally diverse practices that are united in their commitments to creating personal living forms of theory (Whitehead 1989) to account for their educational practices. The core literatures for the study are to do with which forms of theory are appropriate for transforming theoretical perspectives themselves, and I explore the implications of moving beyond critical theory as a norm for understanding social change to adopting generative transformational approaches for the realization of sustainable social change (McNiff 2000).
Theoretical
framework
The theoretical frameworks considered range from the
critical theoretic perspectives of Habermas (1987) and Carr and Kemmis (1986),
through the post-critical philosophies of Polanyi (1958), Chomsky (2002) and
Said (1997), to the generative transformational perspectives of McNiff (2000)
in the creation of living educational theories (Whitehead 2004). These
frameworks address which forms of theories of conceptual and social change (Losee 2004) are most appropriate for promoting
sustainable social evolution.
Contribution to
educational knowledge
The main contribution of this study lies in its reconceptualisation of personal and social evolution as a living generative process that is grounded in a capacity to move beyond critique and deconstructing alterity, to engage with new perspectives of identity as the realization of one’s values in relation with others. The compilation of practitioners’ accounts already comprises the kind of knowledge base that Snow (2001) calls for. Establishing the validity of such approaches involves engaging with issues of how values can be transformed into living critical standards of judgement (Whitehead and McNiff 2006) for the assessment of personal and social practices. These approaches are already contributing to policy formation in my professional contexts in higher education, with potential for cross-disciplinary transfer.
Carr, W. and Kemmis, S. (1986) Becoming Critical.
Chomsky, N. (2002) (eds P.
Mitchell and J. Schoeffel) Understanding
Power.
Habermas (1987) The Theory of
Communicative Action, Volume Two: The Critique of Functionalist Reason.
Kristeva, J. (2002) ‘Interview’ in J. Lechte and M.
Margaroni (2004) Julia Kristeva: Live
Theory.
Losee, J. (2004) Theories of Scientific Progress.
McNiff, J. with J. Whitehead (2000) Action Research in Organisations.
McNiff and Whitehead (2005) All You Need to Know about Action Research.
Memmi, A.
(1991) The Colonizer and the Colonized.
Polanyi, M. (1958) Personal Knowledge.
Said, E. (1997) Beginnings: Intention and Method.
Snow, C. (2001) ‘Knowing what we know: children,
teachers, researchers’, Educational
Researcher 30 (7): 3–9.
Whitehead (1989) ‘Creating a living educational theory
from questions of the kind, “How do I improve my practice?”’, Cambridge Journal of Education 19 (1); 137–153.
Whitehead, J. (2004) Action Research
Expeditions: Do action researchers’ expeditions carry hope for the future of
humanity? How do we know? An enquiry into reconstructing
educational theory and educating social formations. Retrieved
26 November 2005 from http://www.arexpeditions.montana.edu/articleviewer.php?AID-80.
Whitehead, J. and McNiff, J. (2006) Action Research Living Theory.