Zones of Nonbeing: Abjection, White Accumulation, and Neoliberal School Reform

Abstract

Background/Context: Jean Anyon’s work provides a powerful intervention in the study of education with her attention to political economy and the social contexts of education. Mainstream neoliberal charter reform arguments often counter Anyon’s work by suggesting a “no excuse” ideology, which often ignores structural realities facing youth. Over the decades, charter schools have garnered bipartisan interest and expanded significantly. Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans was one such site where the expansion and experimentation with charter schools has taken place. Utilizing the restructuring of New Orleans after Katrina as a site for examination, this article builds from a larger yearlong qualitative critical race case study on the reproduction of White dominance via the charter school authorization and application process. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Utilizing the educational restructuring of New Orleans post-Katrina, this article aims to illustrate the interconnectedness of political economy and race. Extending Anyon’s analysis of political economy, the article focuses on the neoliberal restructuring of New Orleans education after Hurricane Katrina to illustrate how the notions of abjection and zones of nonbeing form a guiding constellation for the accumulation and solidification of White power and capital. Research Design/Data Collection and Analysis: This article builds off a larger yearlong qualitative critical race case study on the reproduction of White racial educational dominance in post-Katrina New Orleans. Interviews and student artifacts are the central data. Conclusion/Recommendations: The author recommends the grounding of youth voice in educational policy analysis, conceptualization, and implementation; the consideration of how race impacts education; and continued research on the inter-imbrication of race and political economy.

Historicizing Black Educational “Choice”: Toward Black Educational Self-Determination

“…Au’s work, more explicit in critique, suggests that such measures re-inscribe the existing racial social order and leads to curricula and pedagogies that are culturally irrelevant and cater to “no-excuse” practices. White (2015), Sondal (2013), Henry and Warren’s (2017), and Henry’s (2021) work illustrates that within these “no-excuse” charter schools, punitive pedagogies of compliance locate teaching on grids of rules, regulations, punishments, reordering of student cultures, and colonizing curriculum. Moreover, research is illuminating how students with disabilities are under severed and under enrolled in charter schools (Barnard-Brak et al, 2018).…”

“…Charter schools because of their link with market approaches that often dispossess communities of color, pose a deep problem for addressing inequity in education (Henry, 2021; Lipman, 2011). However, if charter schools remain as a policy instrument, how might they be utilized to create the type of education committed to social justice that progressive educators have long worked toward?…”

“…It is a process of redistribution and more precisely the compounding of power to overwhelmingly elite, white actors and entities. It is categorized by a deep reverence for the private sphere, primacy of the individual over the community, as well as the reorganization of the subject and state toward economic ideals (e.g., consumerism, entrepreneurism, and choice and competition” (Henry, 2021, p. 243). This often translates to a racial project that advances resegregation in and out of schools, the loss of Black educators, as well as constraints on justice-orientated teaching, the siphoning of public resources, constrained choices for Black parents, and the erasure of analysis of structural racism in favor of meritocracy (Au & Ferrare, 2015; Dixson et al, 2015; Jeffers & Dixson, 2023; Posey-Maddox et al, 2021; White, 2018).…”

History and Education of the Sacred: Black Girls and Curricular Violence in Literacy Learning

“…This dehumanization is still relevant. As explained by Henry Jr (2021), this act of dehumanization of Blackness is referred to as abjection. The closer one is to Blackness, the more they are degraded.…”

“…One can harm those who are not fully human, and it is acceptable to look beyond the harm or make excuses for performing such harm and violence (such as linking it to policy, classroom/school rules, etc.). This violence can be looked over because the “abject” are not viewed as equals (Henry Jr, 2021). This is how society has been conditioned toward Black people (hooks, 1992), particularly Black women and girls.…”