Identity formation and affective spaces in conflict‐ridden societies: inventing heterotopic possibilities

Abstract

In this article, we present vignettes from two projects – one in Cyprus and the other in South Africa – to show how some classrooms enact heterotopic affective spaces that oppose normal/ized identities, that is, identities grounded in polarized trauma narratives. The notion of heterotopia is a spatial concept developed by Foucault to emphasize the importance of space in power relations, subjectivities and knowledge development. Our aim in this article, then, is to consider issues of identity formation in relation to educational discourses and practices in conflict‐ridden societies by focusing on the significance of affective spaces and to look more broadly on the relationship between identity formation and affective spaces in this context. Heterotopic pedagogies, we argue, can become affective cultures of social and political importance within schools in ways that may critically oppose the normalized conflicting ethos.

Keywords:

• affect
• heterotopia
• identity
• empathy
• storytelling

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Carolyn McKinney and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable insights on earlier versions of this manuscript.

Notes

1. This author would like to acknowledge the central involvement of Hilary Janks alongside whom she has worked in the research project from which the data for second vignette is drawn. She would also like to acknowledge the commitment and expertise of the school‐based teacher whose story is captured in this vignette.

2. In 1995, the year after South Africa’s first democratic elections, Nelson Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The purpose of the Commission was to investigate the gross human rights violations that had occurred under the apartheid regime. From 1996 to 1998, TRC hearings were held where victims came forward to tell their stories of loss and trauma and perpetrators were given amnesty in return for full disclosure of their politically motivated crimes.

3. The term ‘heterotopia’ is used by Foucault on three occasions (see Johnson 2006): first, in his preface to The order of things in 1966 (translated into English in 1970); second, within a radio broadcast in 1966 as part of a series on the theme of utopia and literature; and finally, in a lecture presented to a group of architects in 1967 (translated into English as ‘Of other spaces’ in 1986 and ‘Different spaces’ in 1998). As Johnson observes, the first refers to textual spaces, while the other two concern an analysis of particular social spaces.

4. Nowadays, both communities continue to live separated in ethnically divided Cyprus – Greek Cypriots in the south and Turkish Cypriots in the north – although they can visit each other’s ‘territories’ (since April 2003). Until recently, there has been an embargo in the trade between the two communities; Turkey is the only country that has economic and other ties with the northern part of Cyprus. As a result of the many years of isolation, the Turkish Cypriot community has suffered many financial troubles (the per capita income in the north has been on the rise after 2003, but is still below half of that in the south).

5. In 1996, the TRC heard about how in Gugulethu, in the Western Cape, seven ANC activists had been ambushed and shot by police in 1986.