Challenging sentimental narratives of ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ in postcolonial settings: thinking with and through affective justice in comparative education

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to contemporary theorising in comparative education by exploring how narratives of ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ in postcolonial settings are understood in terms of affective justice. Affective justice is introduced as a framework for understanding justice as an affective practice. Through the analysis of two examples of girls’ education in the Global South – Malala’s shooting in Pakistan and the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria – the paper shows how these stories are circulated through sentimental narratives that fail to recognise long-standing colonial conceptualisations of education and schoolchildren. It is suggested that the notion of affective justice helps reorient understandings of education in postcolonial settings by turning educators’ attention to three domains – pedagogical practices, embodied affects, and emotional regimes. It is argued that a nuanced conceptualisation of affective justice offers insights into how educators and students can move beyond sentimental narratives to acknowledge coloniality and structural injustice.

KEYWORDS:

• Affective justice
• comparative education
• postcolony
• sentimentality
• pedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. ‘Postcolonialism’ is used here to mark the historical period in the aftermath of Western colonialism. Also, the use of the term ‘coloniality’ (Grosfoguel 2007; Maldonado-Torres 2007; Mignolo 2007) denotes that although colonial administrations have ended, colonial forms of domination, produced by colonial cultures and structures are still present – e.g. in the modern capitalist/patriarchal world-system.

2. The terms ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’ are used to describe countries on the basis of socio-economic and political characteristics, implying that richer countries are often located in the so-called Global North, whereas poorer countries are located in the Global South. Although these terms have been heavily criticised in the literature (e.g. as being overly simplistic), they are used here to highlight that many of the entrenched inequalities and injustices that prevail in the Global South are part of the legacy of colonialism driven by countries in the Global North.

3. In her analysis over the years, Lynch has paid more attention to theorising the notion of ‘affective equality’ rather than ‘affective justice.’ The notion of affective equality emphasises two major issues: securing equality in the distribution of the nurturing provided through love, care and solidarity relationships and securing equality in the doing of emotional and other work involved in creating these relationships (Lynch, Baker, and Lyons 2009). The underlying argument and eventual contribution of the notion of affective equality is that the affective domain is fundamental in conceptualising the mandates of equality and justice.

4. For example, Michelle Obama, writes Clark (2019), delivered a talk about the Chibok girls that emphasised the themes of resilience, bravery and hope for the future of the world; yet, these themes highlighted agency, autonomy and individual power (liberal values of western education as a gold standard), whereas the colonial legacies of the West were not addressed.

5. Decolonial and postcolonial scholars have offered several ideas as to how these structural issues may be tackled – from empowering indigenous communities and their knowledge perspectives; ensuring more equitable resource (re)distribution in consideration of systemic, historical and ongoing marginalisation/dispossession/subjugation/occupation; to returning the land that was stolen as a result of settler colonialism and paying reparations for colonial era atrocities and harms (see Andreotti et al. 2015).