Staging the future – potentializing the self

Abstract

This article frames a qualitative analysis of how a particular actualization of independent project work may be understood as a ‘pedagogy of potentialization’ that relies on schooling the desire to learn as creation and (self-)transgression. The framework for analyzing school as an affective space draws on conceptualizations of affect, intensity, and affective events by Brian Massumi, as well as on his readings of the Deleuzian concepts of the actual and the virtual in relation to affectivity. The article thereby suggests a strategy for inscribing affectivity and intensity into the analysis of particular pedagogical tendencies in the Nordic school.

Keywords:

• affect
• affectivity
• pedagogy
• potentiality
• desire
• Brian Massumi

Notes

1. In this section I draw heavily on the recent research into progressive pedagogy in a contemporary and historical perspective conducted by Øland (2011, 2012).

2. Øland documents this development in her history of the use of interdisciplinary project work in the Danish compulsory school system in the 1970s and 2000s. In a field analysis based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Øland shows how the forms of capital validated in the pupils’ project work in the 1970s are characterized by a focus on the unique ‘Bildung processes’ of the individual within the framework of a nation-state and based on cultural capital. In the 2000s, she observes how the dominating forms of capital to be validated in project work have obtained an economic orientation, in which individual development is mediated between adjustment to the shifting demands of the job market and the need for self-reflection and independent thinking.

3. See Bjerg and Rasmussen (2008/2012), Bjerg (2011a), and Rasmussen (2012) for the methodological aspects of producing and analyzing school memories as an empirical data set.

4. In Denmark children enter school the year when they turn 6. The historical explanation for the term ‘grade 0’ is that traditionally the first year in school was voluntary and a form of pre-school called ‘the kindergarten class’. Since 2009 however, ‘grade 0’ has become obligatory and integrated into the curriculum of compulsory schooling. Nevertheless, a framework of ‘pre-school’ has been preserved.

5. For further analysis of these tendencies within educational management, see also Blackmore (2010, 2011), Juelskjær et al. (2011), and Pors (2011).