Teaching Political Science through Memory Work

Abstract

In this article, we present the results of a research project where we have tried to elaborate more socially inclusive ways of teaching and learning political science by making use of a specific feminist method of analyzing social relations—memory work. As a method, memory work involves writing and interpreting stories of personal experience, written in relation to a specific theme. The theme we worked with was gender and nation. The article compares memory work to more conventional educational approaches to this specific theme.

By focusing on experience and everyday life, we claim that memory work can challenge conventional and gendered understandings of how academic knowledge is produced and what is deemed to be part of the political sphere. We discuss how memory work can open up different forms of knowledge and new ways of learning. At the same time, we put forth the problems encountered and the resistance among the students we worked with. By analyzing the reactions and processes that were initiated by the memory work, we discuss both how gender and nationalism are reproduced and incorporated into understandings of what counts as proper political science and point out under what circumstances these conventional notions can be challenged.

Keywords:

• gender
• memory work
• nationalism
• political science education

We would like to thank the students who participated in the project, and our colleague Ulrika Thomsson, who together with us took part in teaching and collection of the material. The project was funded by the Swedish Research Council and was headed by Professor Gunilla Härnsten. We would like to thank the members of the project for useful comments.

Notes

Inspired by the work of Haug (1987) we have for a number of years used memory work as a method in our research as well as in educational contexts. The groups we have worked with include students, colleagues, and friends, and while some of the memory projects have been short others have been going on for several years. The interpretative stance has consistently been a focus on the interaction between social and power structures such as gender, nation/ethnicity, and knowledge/truth; although the themes in focus have ranged from the academy to food/cooking, gender, milk, and “Swedishness.”

On different ways of conducting memory work see, for example, Davies et al. 2001; Ewing et al. 1999; Haug 1987; Jansson, Wendt, and Åse 2008; Livholts 2001; Widerberg 1998.

The course is divided into two parts where the first focuses on the structure and functioning of the Swedish political system (on local, national, and European Union level) and the second part deals with political theory and history of ideas. In this latter part questions of gender and social diversity as well as environmental and labor market issues are to be addressed.

For an overview of the by now rich and varied feminist literature on gender and nation, see also, for instance, Ahmed-Ghosh 2003; Herr 2003; Jansson, Wendt, and Åse 2007; Mayer 2000; McClintock 1995; Pettman 1996; Yuval-Davies 1997.

Here, we also would like to point out that many of the productive results of memory work—a more inclusive form of learning, and an opening for new perspectives in the classroom—can be reached in most courses with quite small means and without a lot of time. It is not necessary to adjust a whole course to memory work; for instance we have been working with students’ memories on “politics” as a way to present courses in political theory and memories on “feeling like a woman/man in the university” in introducing courses that problematize issues on gender, knowledge, and power. Sometimes the students have written their stories in advance before reading them in class, sometimes students were asked to write a short story in only 10 minutes at the seminar, and thereafter the memories were read and analyzed by all participants. On some occasions, this mini memory work took less than an hour.

The handout consisted of a drawing of the symbol of Finland (a young girl), a picture of crown-princess Victoria delivering a speech on her 18th birthday, an extract from a parliamentary debate on the question of making the Swedish national day a national holiday, and an extract from a text discussing the work of Swedish UN-soldiers in Bosnia.

All of the students were informed both in writing and verbally about the research project and asked for written confirmation of their willingness to participate. Three students declined participation and have, consequently, not been included the material.