Migrating narratives: pedagogical possibilities for relating difference

Abstract

The use of narratives in making oneself known to others has various political and ethical aims. Narrative is considered to be effective in revealing the particular knowledge of differently positioned persons that have been subjugated. It is hoped that through these subjects' representations of their differently situated lives and selves, dominant others can be moved: to open, diversify and enlarge their thoughts. Without disavowing the conscientising effect and the political usefulness of narratives, one has to take note of the times readers or listeners remain indifferent to stories of subjugation and oppression. In such cases, the expected movement towards an enhanced understanding of the different other does not happen. This paper presents a reading in class of a narrative about a migrant, to bring out the various ethical and political aspects of relating narratives and the pedagogical experiment of imagining oneself as other. It refers to the thought of Paul Ricoeur and Iris Marion Young, reflecting on pedagogies that seek to enhance relations between self and other through reading and listening to narratives. The paper proposes the idea of migrating narratives in thinking about the possibilities and impossibilities for readers in moving towards the other without negating their difference.

Keywords:

• narratives
• pedagogy
• reading
• understanding difference
• imagining oneself as other
• ethical and political implications
• migration