Global economies of fear: affect, politics and pedagogical implications

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the importance of the affective politics of fear in education and to discuss the implications for educational policy, theory and practice. The aim is to explore how discourses of fear work in some educational contexts and draw significant boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ through the structuring of curriculum and pedagogy. This analysis is done through argumentation and research evidence from the author's ethnographic work in the United States and Cyprus. Based on this analysis, the author draws out pedagogical openings that emerge from such efforts, and extends the space in which pedagogues might move to induce a critical interrogation of the affective politics of fear. It is argued that if educators are committed to inspire individual and social change – a change that would eventually problematise the symbolic violence exerted by the affective politics of fear – then much work needs to be done at the affective level.

Keywords:

• politics of fear
• affect
• pedagogy

Notes

1. I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting that I consider this idea in my discussion.

2. I thank both of the anonymous reviewers for providing extremely valuable comments that encouraged an analysis on ‘legitimate fear’.

3. This ethnographic work included participant observation, official and unofficial discussions with undergraduate students, and document analysis in the context of a teacher education program at a large university located in the East coast of the United States; this research took place in the fall of 2001. Most of these undergraduate students were white, middle-class, women, who lived in suburban areas.

4. Part of this ethnographic work included participant observation, interviews with undergraduate students, classroom observations, and document analysis in the context of a teacher educational program at a private university in Cyprus; this research took place for three consecutive years (fall 2004–spring 2006). Most of these pre-service teachers were white, middle-class, women of homogeneous ethnic origin (Greek-Cypriots) and they mostly lived in suburban areas.

5. ‘Emotional capital’ is understood in general as ‘emotional resources’. The use of emotional capital here is situated in Bourdieu's work and describes how emotions-as-resources are circulated, accumulated and exchanged for other forms of capital. The concept of emotional capital offers a tool for thinking about the ways in which emotion practices are regulated within an educational context, based on emotion norms that may change but are also reproduced. In these terms, emotional capital is both generated by and contributes to the generation of the habitus of a particular educational context. The notion of emotional capital can also help educators understand the importance of teachers’ and students’ emotion practices as forms of resistance to prevalent emotion norms (for a discussion of the notion of ‘emotional capital’ and its implications in educational policy, research and practice see Zembylas, 2007d).

6. Currently, the schools that have a mixed population are very few.

A clarification is needed here. This argument does not automatically position such events (e.g. commemoration of nation anniversaries) as problematic. All depends from how these events are contacted. Thus, the recommendation to completely remove such events from the curriculum might be in itself problematic for establishing another form of exclusion.