Spirituality in the academy: reclaiming from the margins and evoking a transformative way of knowing the world

Abstract

In this paper, the author's first and foremost objective is to render the answer to the following question: Why is spirituality marginalized in the academy? The author searches for the answer to this question in the terrain of knowledge production and worldviews that permeate the Western academy. The author examines the landscape of the neo‐colonial academy and delineates the conditions that restrict the spaces for spirituality. The author's second objective is to explore possible answers to the following question: How would centering spirituality transform our ways of knowing? The author attempts to answer this question by providing some preliminary ideas on the question of epistemology, methodology and methods in a spiritually based inquiry. The author concludes that this journey is endless and this paper is just a stepping stone to the discussion revolving around the integration and centering of spirituality within the academy.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Linda Muzzin, Njoki Wane, Begna Dugassa, Anne Wagner, Kimine Mayuzumi, Mary Patton and Sonia Ho for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. He is also grateful to the anonymous readers of the journal for their constructive comments. Finally, he would like to express his deepest gratitude and prayer to the spirit of his Dhon Dada Bhai, who recently passed away while he was at the final stages of completing this manuscript.

Notes

1. Refers to the view of reality which is a product of the ‘negotiation between consciousness and undifferentiated matter’ (Rowland, 1999, p. 59) as opposed to reality contained in the objective world of matter and motion.

2. I would like to acknowledge here that whenever I use the word ‘Western’ to label worldviews, thought, knowledges and knowledge systems, throughout this paper, I am acknowledging that some of these bodies of thought include appropriated ideas that were stolen or incorporated as a result of dialectical exchange with ‘Other’ knowledges, cultures and civilization. In addition, I also want to acknowledge that this body of thought is not uniform, but rather it consists of multiple discourses.

3. Here I refer to the fact that when I was going through my undergraduate and graduate studies there was hardly ever any mention of the spiritual realm of things in the world. All the discourses permeating the academy are predominantly secular and any mention of the divine or spiritual realms is considered to be irrelevant and inappropriate (see Tacey, 2002; Shahjahan, 2004). For instance, in my undergraduate program in human biology, the theory of evolution, on which most of the biological theories are premised, was continually taught and assumed to be the universal truth. This was contrary to my spiritual worldviews where I saw a creator and things around me as divine creations and thus sacred. In my graduate studies in the social sciences, all the social theories that I studied were Western secular ideas that analyzed the social world without acknowledging the spiritual and continually focused on the world of humans rather than that of all creation. My upbringing and history was threatened, as the question of spirituality and the spiritual realm was an integral part of my upbringing and the history of my people but it was completely ignored and silenced throughout my studies in the academy. For further discussion on this problem and issue, please refer to Shahjahan (2004) and Tacey (2002).

4. It is common among Muslims when they utter or write the Prophet Muhammad's name it is followed by the phrase ‘peace be upon him’, which is usually abbreviated as ‘pbuh’ in the written form (Zine, 2000, p. 314).

5. It is important to emphasize that the ‘academy is not devoid of spirituality but, rather, privileges certain forms of spirituality and defines them as neutral or normal experiences/standpoints’ (anonymous reviewer). While there is a rhetoric of the separation between Church and state in order to prevent spirituality in the academy, the Christian‐based spiritual worldview still permeates the academy in terms of scheduling holidays, personal values (personal responsibility, work ethic, honesty), the interpretation of the divine and so on (Seljak, 2003). For instance, let us take the example of holidays that are allocated during the school year. How many of us have received a holiday during Islamic Eid, Hindu Diwali or Hanukkah and so on? But how many of us have received holidays during Christmas? Some may argue that this is a secular holiday, which is quite true, but those who derive their spirituality from Christianity have the privilege to practice and express their spirituality with their community, while those who are not Christians cannot. Instead their expression of spirituality is regulated by these public institutions. Another problem I see is that institutions of higher education have become so secular that naming your spirituality from any religious tradition is considered to be ‘uncool’ or ‘backward’. The ‘hidden curriculum’ in higher education is so secular ‘(an ideological commitment itself)’, that it ‘serves to suppress religion in all its forms’ (Seljak, 2003, p. 66). I observe this phenomenon a lot in my own personal experiences as a Muslim. Some people are puzzled or shocked that I derive my spirituality from Islam. It seems to me that in the academy it is more popular to be spiritual by having no connection to any religion, and if you are, then you are labeled as not being spiritual but rather religious (see Shahjahan, 2004). I disagree with such interpretations. This kind of interpretation has silenced many of my colleagues who derive their spirituality from Catholicism, Islam and other so‐called ‘organized religions’. Conversely, it is problematic when authors, if they discuss spirituality, do so in the context of major religions such as Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism but ignore many of the indigenous religions prevalent all over the world. These forms of indigenous religions are silenced and negated through many institutions of higher education, as they are not considered to be relevant forms of spirituality, which are just examples of remnants of colonial mentality that permeate the academy still. In addition, those who see spirituality in the context of religions completely ignore secular expressions of spirituality. I am not prescribing any of these extremes. In short, the academy's silencing of spirituality is really an insistence that subaltern or ‘other’ spiritualities should not be disrupting the invisible/hegemonic forms of spirituality that are already prevalent (anonymous reviewer). I would like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewer who raised some of these insightful points.

6. ‘Colonial’ in this sense is theorized as foreign or alien, in addition to imposing and dominating (Dei, 2000). The goal of this discursive framework is to question the power configurations embedded in knowledge production, validation and use (Dei & Asgharzadesh, 2001, p. 300). It also emphasizes the power held by local/social practice to survive the colonial and colonized encounters and recognizes that discursive agency and power of resistance resides among the colonized and marginalized groups (Fanon, 1963; Thiongo, 1986; Memmi, 1991; Gandhi, 2002). The anti‐colonial discursive framework recognizes that there are multiple ways of knowing the world (Smith, 2001). Anti‐colonial theorizing rises out of alternative, oppositional paradigms, which are in turn based on indigenous concepts and analytical systems and cultural frames of reference (Dei, 2000). It argues that hegemonic knowledges have allowed colonizers to secure their dominance through the creation of ‘monocultures of the mind’ at the expense of difference and heterogenity (Shiva, 1995; Dei, 2000).

7. By ‘positivistic’ and ‘positivist’ I am referring to the traditional application of the scientific method within the social sciences and the academy in general (Scheurich & Young, 2002, p. 69).

8. ‘Academic capitalism’, coined by Slaughter and Leslie (1997), refers to the globalizing trend at the end of the twentieth century in which traditional patterns of university professional work were destabilized. This globalizing trend ‘emphasizes the utility of higher education to national economic activity and preference for market and market like activity on the part of faculty and institutions’ (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997, p. 24). Universities since then have moved ‘closer to the market ideologically, financially and in terms of policy and practice’ by ‘creating more links with industry, establishing commercial arms … and restructuring campuses’ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 178).

9. ‘Control of their own lives’ refers to the fact that academics need to pretend that everything in their personal life (in terms of family, their body, their emotions and so on) is under control and therefore they can pursue their research efficiently and productively and meet their deadlines effectively. For further discussion on this topic please refer to Astin and Astin (1999) and Manning (2001).

10. With academic capitalism, the university as an institution shifts ‘to a cost effective business operation’ model ‘in which producing and disseminating knowledge is efficiently targeted to specific markets and clienteles’ (Buchbinder & Newson, 1992, p. 15). For instance, ‘spin‐off companies, research parks, centers of excellence and offices for technology are increasingly important in the allocation of the university resources’ (Buchbinder & Newson, 1992, p.14). Research findings are translated into ‘intellectual property, a marketable commodity, and economic development’ (Etzkowitz et al., cited in Mohanty, 2003, p. 173). Moreover, ‘[p]rivatization recasts the principles of democratic governance into the principles of the capitalist market place and turns citizens into consumers’ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 177). In short, the ‘commoditization of the educational process’, shifts attention from academics ‘to the products’ of academics ‘that can now be sold in discrete units’ (Mohanty, 2003, p. 178).

11. By the shift from social knowledge to market knowledge I am referring to the fact that knowledge which leads to empowerment, individual growth, social justice and equity is being increasingly cut down and, instead, the academy is shifting towards knowledge geared towards corporations and their products (Mohanty, 2003). The knowledge (market knowledge) that is created as a result cannot be shared with the public. For the corporations to maintain a competitive edge, academics are not permitted to share this information with other parties such as the community. For example in 1997 the University of Toronto signed over the rights to any drugs or therapies that emerged from research on Alzheimer's disease to Schering Canada (Muzzin et al., 1999). Therefore, the knowledge produced is not public/social knowledge but private/market knowledge.

12. Examples of non‐dominant ways of knowing the world that were displaced by such colonial discourses include oral traditions (Elabor‐Idemudia, 2000; Mayuzumi, 2004), indigenous healing methods (Ellerby, 2000; Shroff, 2000), traditional agriculture techniques (Shiva, 1995), knowledge of elders (Some, 1994; Smith, 2001), indigenous spirituality (Battiste & Henderson, 2000) and so on.

13. It is important to emphasize here that for some people these secular interpretations of life may explain how everything in life began, and life's purpose. However, here I argue that for many people who are spiritually minded these explanations are not sufficient and satisfactory. I would like to acknowledge the anonymous reviewer for raising this issue.

14. These radical discourses are oppressive in that they ‘overlook, ignore, or rule out the realm of the spirit’ (Tacey, 2002, p. 172). According to Tacey (2002) such authors advocate a style of liberation that is incomplete because there is no spiritual dimension to it. Here by ‘agency’ I am referring to spiritual agency. Many authors who are spiritual teachers, for instance, Krishnamurti (1975), Thich Nhat Hanh (1998) and Gandhi (2002) always focused on personal spiritual transformation (‘inside’) in order to bring about social transformation (‘outside’). For instance, Krishnamurti (1975) states: ‘before we can build, before we can transform, before we can condemn or destroy, we must know that which we are … because if you and I do not understand ourselves, how can we, in action, bring about a transformation in society, in relationship, in anything we do?’ (p. 31).

15. I would like to acknowledge Patricia Poulin for sharing this powerful metaphor with me.