Policy temporality and marked bodies: feminist praxis amongst the ruins

Abstract

This article introduces the challenges of temporality into policy studies utilizing US education policy and young mothers as a working example. Situating the need for attention to temporality amidst the ruins of inquiry and ruins of education outcomes for young mothers, the author builds on recent ‘spatial policy sociology’ and turns to queer theory/queer time as a way to infuse policy studies with embodied inquiry toward reimagined futurities. This move raises questions about doing policy studies and inquiry as a post-studies scholar. Pillow approaches these questions through her experiences thinking through data with a group of policy administrators, practitioners, and young mothers. Queer theory and queer time offer ways of looking at inquiry, data and policy subjects, not as a solution, but as re-imaginary methodology through a post-feminist queer praxis of working the ruins.

Keywords:

• educational policy
• inequality/social exclusion in education
• poststructural/postmodern/critical theory
• race
• sexuality

Acknowledgement

I am deeply appreciate of Amy Metcalfe and Kalervo Gulson’s invitation to participate in a workshop that provided space and time to think and dialogue with wonderful scholars about ‘poststructural policy analysis’ and to Peter Bansel, who encouraged me to explore temporality in this paper.

Notes

1. ‘Time is out of joint’ has many references dating to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, to a 1959 dystopian novel by Philip K. Dick, of which the Rolling Stone magazine wrote: ‘Marvelous, terrifying fun, especially if you’ve ever suspected that the world is an unreal construct built solely to keep you from knowing who you really are. Which it is, of course it is’, to the episode title of an animated Batman series, to the quote used here, the title of Laclau’s review of Derrida’s Specters of Marx, and of course Derrida’s own thinking about ‘time out of joint’.

2. The reader of CSE will likely note I am straddling a line between ‘research of’ and ‘research for’ policy (Lingard, 2013, p. 119). In a forthcoming paper, I argue that when the ‘feminist poststructuralist sits at the policy table’ there is an interruption of this distinction.

3. Wilton goes on to state: ‘the complexities of gender and of sexuality, especially in their mutual inflections, are no less awesome than those of wave/particle duality’ (p. ix–x), so why in the social sciences don’t we expect to have to tangle with and learn difficult terms and theories? Lather (1996) reminds us: ‘Clear speech is part of a discursive system, a network of power that has material effects’ (p. 528) and while I do not seek obtuseness in my theories, I do seek works and words that aid educational policy studies theorization, analysis and understanding of complex levels of human behavior and power. I encourage readers to work through what seems ‘difficult’ and to engage with endnotes and citations as pedagogical help and advice on where to read further.

4. I use the phrase ‘teen mother’ when referring to the social construction of the school-age female who is pregnant/mothering. In other contexts, I use ‘young mother’ as the phrasing preferred by advocacy groups (see Brooklyn Young Mother’s Collective, http://www.bymcinc.org/).

5. ‘Post-policy’ and ‘post-research’ are utilized to refer to policy and research after the impact of postmodern and poststructural thinking. See St. Pierre and Pillow (2000) for fuller discussion.

6. Thank you to Professor Patti Lather for the phrasing ‘putting the work to work’ and her continual interest in policy studies.

7. For further reading, see the special issue in International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education on feminist materialisms that Lather and St. Pierre (2013) pose their questions in.

8. For an exception, see Thompson and Cook’s (2014) article on ‘policy-making and time’ as they call for re-situating high stakes testing policy as ‘a step into an unknown future’.

9. My use of endarkened refers to processes through which some individuals become racialized (see Pillow, in press-a) and is indebted to Cynthia Dillard’s (2000) reconceptualization of ‘endarkened epistemology’, which I utilize as a form of queer futurity.

10. Gerald Vizenor (1999) describes survivance as dynamic, inventive, enduring processes of existence that are both survival and resistance.

11. Luce Irigaray, a Belgian born/French philosopher and cultural theorist, is best known for theorizing sexual difference (1977/1985), which links women’s embodied subjectivity to patriarchy and heteronormativity in Western discourse, philosophy, legal, and political theory.

12. For complete overview of works, see Pillow (2003, 2004, 2006, 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wanda S. Pillow

Dr Pillow’s research focuses on gender, race and sexuality studies with particular interest in methodology, policy and cultural studies.