Praxis of the undercommons: rupturing university conviviality and coded formations of diversity

In this paper, I offer an account of the 2014 dystopian-fiction film Divergent, based on the novel by Veronica Roth. The film tells the story of Beatrice, a young woman living in a post-apocalyptic Chicago, and her process of enrolment into the higher education system. I argue that Beatrice’s troubled story can help us to uncover the high tension between today’s university’s self-alienating mechanisms and the thirst for Bildung. I suggest that the notion of ‘divergence’ can help to develop an account of Bildung in an innovative direction. ‘Divergence’ is a term used in the film to define individuals – like Beatrice – who cannot fit into the categories established by the government to sort students into appropriate educational pathways. I link the notion of ‘divergence’ to an interpretation of Gadamer’s account of Bildung. First, I draw on Gadamer’s thinking to suggest the metaphor of the university as a ‘crossroads’ and outline the idea of the risks and possibilities that are attached to authentic learning experience. Then I explore the self-alienating mechanisms that Gadamer saw at work within the post-industrial structure of the university. In conclusion, I develop Gadamer’s notion of self-education along the lines of the idea of divergence. Whilst some argue that the university can still be a place for human encounter and gathering (Fulford and Mahon 2023), I aim to show that, without divergence, it remains a site of displacement, or a dystopia.

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Towards black methods in research with refugees

Rashid

2024

Journal of Refugee Studies

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Critical approaches to forced displacement and migration studies gesture towards methodologies and theoretical orientations that are contextualized within the complex socialities of refuge lifeworlds and ways of being. This article offers methodological approaches that account for the forces of displacement as well as the layered and textured experiences of forcibly displaced people. Turning to black studies and black feminist thought, the article examines how forcibly displaced people navigate and contest resettlement processes in the USA. Thinking with empirical material from a research study engaging with forcibly displaced interlocutors from East and Central Africa and refugee resettlement personnel, the article illuminates critical methods of interpreting the experiences of refugees and forms of resettlement through the lenses of black studies and black feminist thought.

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Praxis of the undercommons: rupturing university conviviality and coded formations of diversity

Cited by 3 publications

References 25 publications

Considering refusal in the study of international education and development

Considering refusal in the study of international education and development

Bildung, hermeneutics, divergence: learning in the dystopian university

Towards black methods in research with refugees

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