Theuncannycharacter of race: an exploration of UK preparedness through youth performance

Emergency preparedness as public pedagogy: the absent–presence of race in ‘Preparing for Emergencies’

“…These are both lifelong (aimed at all ages, from young people to older citizens) and life-wide pedagogies (aimed at communities, businesses and the public sector) which can be conceived to be part of lifelong learning (being socio-culturally embedded) rather than lifelong education (Billett 2010). Public and emergency planning exercises are frequently employed (Chakrabarty 2010a(Chakrabarty , 2010b(Chakrabarty , 2010c(Chakrabarty , 2010d(Chakrabarty , 2011a(Chakrabarty , 2011b and the witnessing of these acts as a dramaturgical form of pedagogy (Davis 2007) but also a public pedagogy where the 'social' is itself a form of pedagogy (Giroux 2004a, 2004b, Mohab and Dobson 2008Preston 2009b). 'Airport security' is a prime example of where the security processes are themselves pedagogical, where the visibility of others is employed to effect 'secure' forms of behaviour including the marking of some bodies as 'security risks' (Ahmed 2007: 141).…”

“…So the basis of security rather than protecting 'people' or 'the population', or defending seemingly abstract and universal concepts (for example 'Britishness' or 'our way of life') is in terms of protecting 'whiteness' whether this means so-called white people or (more abstractly) white interests. Recent work on UK preparedness pedagogies (Preston 2008, 2009a, 2009b, Chakrabarty 2010a, 2010c, 2011a, 2011b and work on Hurricane Katrina (Ladson-Billings 2006, Ducre 2008) has foregrounded white interests and violence and the centrality of 'race' in (seemingly colour-blind) disaster situations and disaster education materials. In doing so, the ways in which 'race' is not just incidental, but fundamental, to the ways in which societies are structured is considered.…”