Resistance, resilience and re-marginalization: a case study of a visual arts teacher in Macao

Abstract

This case study employs a narrative approach to uncover the voice of a visual arts teacher who has been marginalized in a Macao private school where its teaching subjects have been structurally classified by means of (market) value. The teacher in this study adopted various forms of resistance under pervasive neoliberalism. Yet, with the inherent critical capacity and possibilities being dissolved and disarmed, these acts have largely ended up facilitating the expansion of her resilience. While she has paid efforts and successively ‘survived’ adapting to the challenging and threatening circumstance, and thereby has obtained a feeling of de-marginalization at school, these everyday forms of resistance have inadvertently reinforced and reproduced the very oppressive structure they aimed to transgress, which suggests the potential of this teacher being further re-marginalized.

Keywords:

• Visual arts teacher
• resistance
• neoliberalism
• resilience
• narrative
• Macao/Macau