Young people producing nation in Chilean schools

ABSTRACT

This article presents an analysis of those curricular practices that reproduce dominant ideas about nation, which in turn facilitate the circulation of exclusionary ways of knowing about subjects and their communities in schools. In this study we use ethnographic knowledge produced in two Chilean schools where we conducted ethnographic fieldwork, in-depth interviews, and curriculum document analysis. Our purpose was to trace essentialist discourses about the nation, as a homogeneous and predictable space, and give meaning to the problematic naturalised correspondence between subjects and spaces. We use Foucauldian discourse analysis to understand the production of rationalities that support the production of the ‘Chilean student’ as distinct from other students from other countries within the same school contexts. We conclude with some highlights on the productive force of performativity when reproducing power relations around nation discourses.

KEYWORDS:

• Scales
• processes of racialisation
• performativity
• curriculum
• nation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Vecinos Invasores is the title in Spanish (Invading Neighbours would be the direct translation). This is a US film produced by DreamWorks Animation in 2006.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Chilean Commission for Scientific and Technological Research under Grant [FONDECYT 1160732]; Chilean Commission for Scientific and Technological Research under Grant [PIA SOC 180023]; and Center for Educational Justice under Grant [CIE 160007].