Political depression, cruel optimism and pedagogies of reparation: questions of criticality and affect in human rights education

ABSTRACT

This article argues that there is an urgent need to engage with a deeper analysis of the contemporary culture of ‘political depression’ and its affective implications in human rights education (HRE). In particular, the article focuses on the following questions: How might a theorization of political depression be relevant to efforts that aim to renew criticality in HRE? In which ways can a ‘critical’ HRE turn our attention to important ethical, political and affective questions on human rights? Can the negativity of political depression become a site for HRE pedagogies that are ‘reparative’? The article makes an attempt to articulate some of the content and strategies of pedagogies of reparation and their significance in what is currently being formulated in the literature as ‘critical human rights education’. Reparative pedagogies invite in the classroom the challenge of how students can learn from unimaginable traumatic histories, while acknowledging the affective politics of histories of violence, oppression and social injustice, without falling into the trap of sentimentality, but rather engaging in social justice-oriented action and activism.

KEYWORDS:

• Affect
• cruel optimism
• human rights education
• political depression
• reparative pedagogies

Notes

1. Given the multiplicity of theorizations of ‘neoliberalism’ and its emerging definitions over time, this term is deployed here in a broad manner to denote emphases on productivity, economic liberalization policies and the significance of the individual. (For a summary of different arguments on the relationship between human rights and neoliberalism, see Moyn, 2014.) In education, these neoliberal policies are exemplified, for example, through high-stakes testing, accountability, standards and audit regimes (see, e.g. Taubman, 2009).

2. See Farley (2014) for a psychoanalytic understanding of depression in curriculum and pedagogy.

3. By ‘packaged’ programs, I refer to sets of guidelines and practices that are packed together as a collection of activities for human rights teaching and learning. Although these packages offer valuable ideas for promoting human rights, the danger is to utilize these activities in a decontextualized and unsystematic manner that overlooks the social injustices associated with ongoing human rights violations in particular settings (Keet, 2015). Examples of such ‘packaged’ programs are: Compasito (Council of Europe, 2009a), and Human Rights Education in the School Systems of Europe, Central Asia and North America: A Compendium of Good Practice (Council of Europe, 2009b).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michalinos Zembylas

Michalinos Zembylas is an associate professor of Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies at the Open University of Cyprus. He is also Visiting Professor and Research Fellow at the Institute for Reconciliation and Social Justice, University of the Free State, South Africa. He has written extensively on emotion and affect in relation to social justice pedagogies, intercultural and peace education, human rights education and citizenship education. Recent books include Teaching Contested Narratives: Identity, Memory and Reconciliation in Peace Education and Beyond (with Zvi Bekerman, Cambridge University Press) and Integrated education in conflicted societies (with C. McGlynn and Z. Bekerman, Palgrave). His latest book is titled Emotion and Traumatic Conflict: Re-claiming Healing in Education (Oxford).