Business as un-usual through dislocatory moments – change for sustainability and scope for subjectivity in classroom practice

Abstract

This paper makes a contribution to the debate that has been described as a tension between instrumental and emancipatory educational objectives in environment and sustainability education. The contribution involves a methodological approach (introd-) using the concept ‘dislocatory moments’, to identify and analyse moments in classroom practice that address educational objectives relating to ‘change for sustainability’ and ‘thinking and acting independently’. A case of business education, when ‘sustainable development’ is integrated in a series of lessons, is used to exemplify the approach involving analysis of the emergence and closure of a dislocatory moment and the change of logics that occur. The illustrative case shows how room for subjectivity and change can be intertwined in educational practice. It is suggested that the methodological approach could be used in empirical research of classroom practice to further knowledge about the kind of situations that contribute to ‘business as un-usual’ without compromising emancipatory education ideals.

Keywords:

• Discourse analysis
• dislocation
• logics
• subjectification
• environment and sustainability education
• classroom observations
• Practical Epistemology Analysis

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank the teacher and students who so generously allowed me to observe and record the classroom practice and shared their written assignments. I also wish to thank Magnus Boström, Johan Öhman, Jenny Gunnarsson Payne and the five anonymous reviewers for the constructive feedback that has been so helpful in the making of this paper.

Notes

1. In this example, it can be argued that the teacher’s question challenged the hegemonic free trade discourse that is based on the assumption that all trade leads to socially optimal outcomes through a ‘trickle down-mechanism’. Asking a question about whether or not trade is sustainable does not make sense in relation to this assumption.

2. In this paper used both in a metaphorical and literal sense.

3. Discourse is here understood as a shared way of apprehending and talking about the world. In this paper, discourses and logics are regarded as similar but operating at different levels. One discourse consists of several logics, which implies that a change of logic does not necessarily imply a change of discourse, but a change of discourse requires a change of logic.

4. This is referred to as the ‘beatific dimension of fantasy’. The beatific dimension of the market liberal fantasy is reflected in systems, like the emissions trading scheme within the European Union, aiming to address the deficiencies of market economy in addressing climate change. When emission rights are distributed correctly and are in line with scientists’ recommendations, there is fullness. The fantasmatic dimension of a logic can also foretell of disaster if not fulfilled, referred to as the horrific dimension of fantasy (Glynos and Howarth 2007). The horrific dimension of the market liberal fantasy comes to the fore in references to horror scenarios that would occur if market liberalism is not secured. For instance, ‘unless free trade agreements are signed we will end up in starvation, like in former Soviet Union and current North Korea’.

5. For instance, a KGB agent (such as Phillip Jennings in the The Americans) encounters the benefits of the capitalist society he is fighting. A free trade advocate faces the downside social and environmental effects and data that challenges the belief that wealth will trickle down as a result from free trade (Piketty 2014).

6. Laclau talked about ‘social structure’ and ‘a failed structural identity’ in a similar way.

7. However, it should be noted that Laclau himself did not use the concept of ‘dislocation’ or ‘dislocatory moments’ for the kind of seemingly insignificant moments that I do here. He also did not use the concept in empirical analysis. Howarth talks about ‘moments of dislocation’ although, to the best of my knowledge, has not used the concept in empirical analysis.

8. In PEA terms, a ‘void’ can be described as a kind of ‘gap’.

9. Shouse (2005) describes feelings as sensations ‘that have been checked against previous experiences and labelled’ and are linked to identity through our previous experiences.

10. This could be the case for the student in the introductory example.

11. A dislocatory moment could in PEA terms be described as a kind of ‘encounter’ that precedes a ‘gap’. There also appears to be a similarity between a ‘dislocatory moment’ and what Garrison, Östman, and Håkansson (2015) has described as an ‘educative moment’, in that these are moments where ‘passion is necessary’ in order to be able to choose from different alternatives. They are also moments when ‘new values can emerge or evolve’.

12. The concepts myth, social imaginaries (Laclau 1990) and fantasy (Zizek 1990) fill a similar function in that they close or push dislocations away.

13. Although it could be argued that the form of subjectification described in this section operates on another level when compared with what Håkansson, Östman, and Van Poeck (2017) described as ‘subjectification as dismantling’, they are similar in that this form involves loss of something: a common ground on which the discourse practice is built or, in this case, ‘a guiding principle’ to follow when doing business sustainably.

14. Expressions of self-confidence imply not being dislocated and could be compared with the PEA term ‘standing fast’.

15. In PEA terms this can be described as a way of establishing a ‘relation’.

16. The empirical material (video and audio-recordings of lessons, field notes, students’ written assignments and group interviews) was collected two years after a curriculum reform that included integrating the concept ‘sustainable development’ in syllabuses and examination goals. I was present at all the lessons as a passive observer. The teacher and students were informed, both orally and in writing, that the research was about ‘sustainable development within business education’. The three students highlighted in this paper all gave their informed consent to being part of the study. Any names, products and details that could identify the students, the school and the teacher have been changed. For further details about the collection of the empirical material see Andersson (2016).

17. Based on my previous experience of working as a teacher and with schools and teachers in Sweden, it can be described as a mundane classroom practice (in Sweden). Similar company or entrepreneurship programmes can be found worldwide, see: https://www.jaworldwide.org/aboutja/ [accessed 2016–05-17].

18. Some expressions of frustration (1.15–19, 2.1, 2.3) may have more to do with how the students should design the exhibition stand rather than how to do business sustainably. These expressions are not identified here or regarded as expressions of dislocation in terms of the role of a business person, but have more to do with the task of preparing the exhibition. However, they are expressions of frustration that also could be connected to the dislocatory moment, i.e. the loss of a logic previously invested in.

19. Although ‘traumatic’ could be argued as being too strong a word to use here, the comparison is relevant and useful since it captures the kind of moments that easily go unnoticed but are important in order to identify small but potentially important movements between logics in classroom practice.

20. In combination with what should be communicated on the exhibition stand.

21. Here, ‘politicising’ means the act of turning attention to the conflictual character of the issue where different interests are at stake and that can be debated, in contrast to what is taken for granted. Through analysis of the empirical material it is not possible to determine whether this was the teacher’s intention, but in this and the following five lessons I observed, no action by the teacher implied ‘de-politicised’ global trade, i.e. made global trade into something that could not be questioned in relation to concerns about the social and environmental dimension of sustainability.

22. In a subsequent interview, it became clear that student 3 was deeply passionate about animal rights and proposed that everyone should be vegetarian.

23. Even though it could also be argued that students might see ‘new logics’ as ‘new matters of fact’, the experience of being dislocated and the experience of a failing logic will always remain. The group interview indicated that the students had acquired a more complex understanding of the issues that a business (person) taking responsibility for sustainability needed to consider, rather than that they had found the ultimate ‘true’ logic.

24. A change of logic does not necessarily imply a change of discourse. Since the analytical concept of ‘a logic’ and the theoretical concept of ‘a discourse’ relate to different levels, a discourse can encompass several logics. Accordingly, a change of logic could also be a matter of change within a discourse. This also means that different logics and discourses are not necessarily in conflict. A conflict (antagonism) only arises when the logics or discourses imply conflicting expectations for a subject/individual in a specific situation. For instance, conflicting expectations on the subject position business person can occur between a market liberal discourse, relying on the assumption that trade always leads to socially and environmentally optimal outcomes (Dryzek 2013, 123), and ‘a sustainability discourse’, based on the conviction that a business person must make a personal judgement that takes environmental and social aspects into account when making business decisions (as suggested by the teacher in the introduction to the lesson). This is because a person cannot be passive and active at the same time, i.e. put personal feelings aside and involve personal feelings at the same time (see also Andersson and Öhman 2016). Although there are potential conflicts in the above case (for instance, actions cannot be limited to following the law and take steps that implies doing more than the law requires at the same time) between the different logics taken up by the students, these kinds of conflicting expectations are not explicitly visible in the empirical material.