The pedagogical challenges of teaching sexual politics in the context of ethnic division

Abstract

This article discusses the challenges of teaching sexual politics in the context of Northern Ireland. In this region, ethno-nationalism has been implicated in the constitution of sexual narratives that serve the respective ethno-nationalist struggles in the region. The interaction of sexuality with ethnicity reinforces the importance of reflecting on pedagogical practices around sensitive/controversial subjects. The article draws on a mixture of pedagogical perspectives and personal reflection to assess a set of pedagogical issues that face educators teaching in these complex contexts. While the reflections and discussions in this essay relate to a particular teaching context and subject matter, they have broader relevance in terms of the teaching of sensitive/controversial subjects.

Key words:

• sensitive subjects
• sexuality
• prejudice
• queer theory
• poststructuralism
• critical pedagogy

Introduction

The teaching of controversial or sensitive subjects is a challenging arena of pedagogical practice. Extant research has exposed the particular difficulties that arise when teachers explore emotive topics. Such difficulties characterise classroom explorations of subjugated identities such as race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. At the extreme, classroom discussions about identity groups can lead to hostile, emotional and hurtful exchanges between students. Regardless of the pedagogical challenges that teaching controversial subjects such as identity politics creates, these areas of social science curricula facilitate critical dialogue between students around issues that have democratic import. Moreover, these topic areas provide spaces for intense political, and often personal, exploration by students. The type and degree of the pedagogical challenges educators face when teaching identity politics will vary in relation to cohort, topic, teaching context and region.

Drawing on the author’s experience of teaching controversial subjects in the context of Northern Ireland, this article explores some of the pedagogical issues raised by the teaching of sexual politics in an undergraduate politics programme. In the Northern Ireland context, sexual identities are interlinked with ethno-nationalism, which influences to different degrees both students’ standpoints on sexuality and the type of classroom dynamics that may develop. Teaching sexual politics in this region is therefore complicated further by the historical and political environment within which the teacher works. The next section explores the issues that Northern Ireland’s historical past and contemporary political culture raise for educators involved in the teaching of sexual politics in that society.

Northern Ireland politics and sexual politics

Deep ethno-nationalist divisions characterise Northern Ireland society. A protracted struggle between two ethno-nationalist groups, Unionists and Irish Republicans, over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland created a society marked by sectarianism and political violence. The conflict in Northern Ireland has a long and complex history that cannot be detailed in this short article. However, the partition of Ireland was a key event. In 1920, the island of Ireland was divided into the Free State, later renamed the Republic of Ireland, which attained sovereign autonomy from Britain, and the smaller region of Northern Ireland which remained under British sovereignty. Since partition, Unionists in Northern Ireland have been determined to maintain the constitutional link with Britain, while Irish Republicans have sought to achieve the political reunification of Ireland. Heightened political antagonism between these ethno-nationalist groups from the late 1960s led to nearly 30 years of low-intensity paramilitary violence that caused the death and injury of thousands of people. The most important Irish Republican paramilitary group has been the Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA). The most active pro-Unionist paramilitary groups, usually termed Loyalists rather than Unionists, have been the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Against a background of changing political circumstances in Northern Ireland, including the paramilitary ceasefires in 1994, the Belfast Agreement (1998) inaugurated a political framework for transforming conflict in the region.

Since the signing of the Belfast Agreement ethno-nationalist antagonisms have remained strong, and there have been intermittent episodes of political violence. As Tonge (2008: 51) observes, the Belfast Agreement was ‘an elite deal constructed upon sectarian foundations of continuing communal distrust and division, which political accommodation offered only to manage rather than end’. Tonge (2008: 51) also highlights how, after the signing of the Agreement, it became evident that politics would be less about the collective building of the state and more about ‘an ongoing struggle for the ethno-nationalist bloc represented by a particular party, amid electoral appeals to the ethnic gallery’. However, the Agreement did set in motion a number of political developments that have significantly reduced overt political violence in the region, and political progress has been accompanied by an equality agenda that has attempted to reduce ethnic and religious inequality and has also extended the rights of other identity categories such as gender, race and sexuality (see Northern Ireland Equality Commission (2008), Feenan (2001) and Osborne (2003) for overview and analysis).

While progress has been made in terms of sexual equality in Northern Ireland, ethno-nationalist discourses continue to influence societal values around sexuality. Studies of nationalist societies have illustrated how gender and sexuality are central aspects of nationalist discourses (see Ashe, 2007, 2008; Peterson, 1999). Traditionally, ethno-nationalist discourses in both ethno-nationalist communities in Northern Ireland have tended to constitute normative models of gender and sexuality that serve their respective political struggles (see Ashe, 2008). As most Unionists identify as Protestant and most Irish Republicans identify as Catholic, the intertwining of ethnic and religious identity in Northern Ireland led to both Churches playing important roles in the strict regulation of gender roles and sexuality. Both Catholic and Protestant churches in the region have regulated sexual behaviour in heterosexist ways (see Conrad, 2004).

Moreover, ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland generated a ‘body politics’ that structured gender roles in a fashion that supported the political agendas of both ethnic groups. Women’s roles, while often subverted by individual women, were structured around conservative ideals of motherhood, domesticity and chastity. The heterosexual family was an important institution for nationalist politics, as the traditional family structure provides a mechanism for the biological reproduction, maintenance and socialisation of new members of the ethnic group (see Ashe, 2008; Conrad, 2004).

Moreover, the militaristic and fraternal organisations that mark ethno-nationalist politics in Northern Ireland have tended to foster hypermasculine identities for men (see Ashe, 2008). These identities have included the ‘warrior identity’ that defends the nationalist group from the ‘enemy’. This identity is based around the valorisation of heteronormative identities for men and associates masculinity with a set of manly virtues that includes bravery, toughness and honour (see Ashe, 2008). In this context, alternative sexualities have been constructed as polluting influences that undermine the strict heteronormative codes of both ethnic groups. As noted by Kitchin and Lysaght (2004: 100), religion and nationalism has created ‘a highly regulated sexual landscape characterised by limited sexual rights’.

These conservative attitudes persist in Northern Ireland despite the strengthening of equality legislation around sexuality. Homophobia remains prevalent in sections of Northern Ireland society. Indeed, after the signing of the Belfast Agreement, homophobic attacks increased significantly (Jarman and Tennant, 2003). In addition, the Belfast Agreement supported the electoral advantage of the DUP and Sinn Fein. While Sinn Fein has incorporated sexual rights into its agenda, some members of the DUP have adopted conservative standpoints on sexual politics (Sinn Fein, 1996). This standpoint has implications for the future strengthening of sexual equality in the region and raises questions about the commitment of some politicians to the extension of sexual rights. Conrad (2004: 121) also notes that even parties that align with gay rights in Northern Ireland have ‘resisted actively pursuing rights for queer people — perhaps out of fear of alienating the more conservative members of their constituencies, but also because queers are not seen to reproduce the sectarian cause, literally or ideologically’.

The teaching of sexual politics in general raises a set of issues for educators. However, the contours of Northern Ireland politics and the intersection of ethnicity and religion produce a further set of concerns for those teaching sexual politics in that society. Drawing on pedagogical literature and personal experience, the rest of this article explores some of the more general issues that relate to the teaching of sexual politics and also some of the particular issues that emerge when teaching sexual politics in a deeply ethno-nationalist society. It also assesses a range of pedagogical strategies to address these issues.

Locating sexuality in the curriculum

Giroux (1988) has argued that educational contexts are characterised by ‘structured silences’ around certain forms of power and identity. Traditionally, radical pedagogy concentrated on developing pedagogical strategies around the concept of class identity. In more recent times, feminists and queer theorists have noted the absence of issues relating to sexuality in university curricula (see Keating, 2007 for discussion). Radical pedagogies such as poststructuralism, women’s studies, gender studies and queer theory have made sexual politics more visible in social science undergraduate courses, but the topic remains a marginal area of study. Moreover, sexual politics is sometimes viewed as a ‘soft subject’ area. This categorisation is even more likely to develop in the context of a deeply divided society wherein academic agendas tend to pursue issues relating to the constitution and management/resolution of ethnic conflict. In these kinds of academic environments, sexual politics is marginalised, and in the case of Northern Ireland ‘the mainstream’ has paid very little attention to sexual equality.

The exclusion of sexual politics from mainstream research agendas, combined with its often residual positioning in university courses, has implications for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) students and reinforces a largely heterosexist curriculum. While she recognises that there may be risks for educators who teach sexual politics, particularly those teaching in conservative social contexts, Keating (2007: 105) argues that social justice educators have a responsibility to start breaking silences around issues such as gender, race and sexuality. Certainly in relation to social science courses, there are various points where sexual politics can be integrated into the curriculum and various teaching strategies that support educators in dealing with the issues these kinds of sensitive subjects engender.

In my case, teaching an undergraduate class in contemporary social theory provided the critical theoretical space to interrogate sexual politics and heteronormativity. Contemporary social theories such as feminism, poststructuralism, queer theory and critical theory frame the private arenas of life as political, and provide a range of conceptual tools that expose and can be utilised to explore the power relationships surrounding sexuality. However, locating the study of sexual politics within a critical intellectual space does not automatically engender a judicial analysis of sexuality by students (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). Moreover, issues of power, injury and safety may be even more pressing concerns within the context of critical pedagogical approaches to sexuality (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). Integrating sexual politics into established modules is, therefore, not just a matter of ‘add and stir’ (see, for example, Bird, 2004). It requires educators to work through a range of pedagogical issues.

Identity, power and knowledge

From the outset, the positionality (Haraway, 1988) of the lecturer/tutor may have implications for classrooms dealing with sexual politics. Issues relating to the positionality of the lecturer involved in teaching in the area of subjugated sexual identities revolve around whether or not those teaching about subjugated identities must share that identity. According to Keating:

This debate — which extends far beyond sexuality — revolves around issues concerning personal identity, experience, authenticity, and authority, and leads to a number interrelated questions: Can we — as educators — teach about our sexual/ethnic/gender/class/national others or do all attempts to do so inevitably appropriate, stereotype, or in other ways silence these others? To what extent is authority in the classroom dependent on personal identity and experience? Must we be gay … to teach material by and about gays?

Keating, 2007:104

Put simply, in contrast to some of her students, the heterosexual tutor will not have direct experiential knowledge of sexual subjugation. Moreover, she may not be able to represent the standpoint of the subjugated groups because she is not a member of that group. Further problems may arise when a heterosexual tutor is teaching sexual politics in a classroom composed of mainly heterosexual students, as is the case in my social theory class. In this situation the teaching environment may become coded as heterosexual. Clearly, this coding may affect the lecturer’s authority in the classroom, and the type of knowledge she uses to develop the tutorial discussion. A predominantly heterosexual classroom may also have implications for the kind of dialogue that emerges in student discussions (Bryson and de Castell, 1993).

Keating (2007: 111) has argued that one possible strategy for educators is ‘tactical (non) naming’. She deployed this tactic with a particular cohort and then discussed her decision with students to open critical discussions about sexuality. While other educators may find this a useful strategy, I have tended to deploy the opposite strategy of disclosing my identity as heterosexual. However, this disclosure does not mean that the lecturer has to retreat to merely presenting the perspectives of LGBT scholars and activists, which she examines from a standpoint that is immersed in the language of radical democracy, or some alternative academic framework that may sidestep the personal aspects of sexual politics. This teaching format may lead to the lecturer drawing solely on the authority of high theory and ignoring her own social positioning as a privileged sexual identity (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). This approach to teaching sexual politics may mean that the complexity of identity politics across the terrain of sexuality becomes reduced to an object of study within the classroom situation. It can also mean that the lecturer circumvents locating her identity within the arena of heteronormativity. Just as Keating (2007) found that nondisclosure of identity provided a basis for critical debate, I have found the disclosure of my heterosexual identity can generate critical dialogues around sexual identities that avoid an anodyne retreat to theory that excludes the personal and immediate levels of identity politics.

As already outlined, it has been suggested that real engagement with subjugated identities requires an experiential knowledge of oppression (see Haraway, 1988 for further analysis). However, this outcome may depend on the approach teachers adopt in the classroom and their angle of engagement with sexual politics. One strategy open to dominant identities involved in developing critical pedagogies around sexuality at the level of the classroom is to disclose their dominant position and harness their contradictory position as an authority to deconstruct the notion of the ‘teacher as expert’. Fenimore-Smith (2004: 230) reminds us that ‘this construction [of teacher as expert] serves to negate consideration of the values and interests inherent in the construction of knowledge and relegates pedagogical considerations to methodological formulae’. Moreover, research on the teaching of sensitive subjects indicates that students respond more effectively when teachers are open about their own positioning within both subjugated and dominant groups, and discuss their experiential and political investments in particular identities (McCully, 2006).

Indicating one’s identity focuses students on considering the organisation of knowledge, issues of standpoint and epistemology. I have found this strategy particularly useful in the context of teaching a module on social theory as it enables students to explore experience, social positioning and social identifications as constituted categories, as opposed to stable, fixed or self-referential categories. So, while there may be a range of issues surrounding the positionality of the tutor, those contradictions can be harnessed to support students to think critically about the links between their identifications and their social, historical and cultural contexts (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). It may also enable students to assess the complexity of their identities.

Pedagogical framings and tools

Critically exploring the positioning of the lecturer is connected theoretically to the analytical framework of post-critical pedagogies such as feminism and queer theory, as both suggest that part of the project of critical enquiry is to enable individuals to locate themselves within social, economic and historical conditions. These pedagogies frame identities as shifting, multiple, fluid and contradictory (Gore, 1993). The interrogative space they open around identities reflects the ideals of critical democratic practices that interrogate power relations across the terrain of identity with a view to deconstructing them. Rather than starting from the position that specific identities exist and that identity groups have a shared set of experiences, standpoints and political interests, I employ a strategy that resonates with Foucault’s (1978) genealogical approach that focuses on how particular identities emerge through a whole range of discourses, practices and struggles. Moreover, this approach allows engagement with the relationships between power and the most intimate and personal aspects of our identities. It is not only ‘other’ identities that become framed as products of power, but dominant identities are also exposed as constituted products of power.

It is clear from the above discussion how critical pedagogies locate explorations of subjugated identities and sexual politics firmly within the field of political analysis rather than tradition or prejudice. However, it is naïve of educators to believe that providing a critical intellectual framework for classroom discussions of sexual politics will automatically lead to substantive critical interrogations of sexuality by students. Regardless of the sophistication of the pedagogical framings of the personal aspects of sexual politics employed in the classroom, or the sophistication of the theoretical resources employed, students, particularly in heterosexually coded classroom environments, can engage in homophobic dialogue, cause offence and hurt to others, and can become engulfed in emotionally charged dialogue with their peers. In these instances, lecturers have to negotiate the extent to which open and honest dialogue should be facilitated and the possibility of what might be termed discriminatory or ‘hate speech’ emerging against a broader background of equality legislation. In the context of Northern Ireland, wherein ethnicity and religious perspectives are often intertwined, these concerns can become amplified. Clearly then, risk assessment must be part of the seminar design, and a number of issues need to be taken into account when assessing the kind of pedagogical tools employed in seminar groups.

One issue is the possibility of classroom antagonisms developing within the seminar situation, not only in relation to sexuality but also to religious and ethnic identifications. Risk increases in new classes in which it is more difficult to assess the likely interactional style of students. To reduce this kind of risk, some practitioners have implemented fictional lenses such as books and advertisements through which students can interrogate heteronormativity (see Moi, 1985 for an outline of the theoretical basis of this approach). This teaching tool allows students to remain one step removed from the topic. These practices may create a safer environment for students as they locate students’ engagement with the issues outside their immediate social milieu. Much depends on the context and learning outcomes of the class, but these practices can be mixed with teaching tools that draw students closer to the subject material while also mediating and structuring class discussions.

One of the drawbacks of distancing students from the personal implications of controversial subjects is that they tend to produce formulaic essays that critique heteronormativity, and they tend to discuss practices of subversion in social contexts that are removed from their own context (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). In the most extreme scenario, studying sexual politics can again become a kind of ‘intellectual tourism’ that frames LGBT politics as an object of study (Bryson and de Castell, 1993).

The introduction of a case study closer to home may address the issues raised by distancing students from the lived reality of sexual politics and may also provide a framework for classroom discussions that reduce overt classroom antagonisms. In 2008, I conducted research that examined the homophobic comments of a member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Iris Robinson (Ashe, 2009). During a radio interview Robinson, wife of Northern Ireland’s First Minister and chair of the Assembly’s Health Committee, was asked to comment on a homophobic attack on a 23-year-old man in Belfast. Robinson condemned the attack but added that she believed ‘homosexuality’ to be an ‘abomination’ and argued that it was possible to treat ‘homosexuality’ through therapy. In a follow-up television interview, Robinson defended her views, stating that ‘just as murders can be redeemed by the blood of Christ so can homosexuals’ (see Ashe, 2008). The comments generated a degree of media coverage and provoked a broader debate on sexual politics by politicians, LGBT groups and sections of the press.

My research on this political event applied Judith Butler’s (1997) analysis of hate speech, which suggests that reducing injurious speech to the act of a particular speaker ignores the social and political conditions that created the speech act. As discourses of ethnicity intersect with the production of normative sexuality in Northern Ireland, Butler’s work supports a framing of Robinson’s speech as a product of ethno-nationalist relations of power. As Butler (1997) suggests that such speech acts create counter-discourses, this analysis exposed the subversive strategies of the LGBT community closer to home. The research provided a case study of sexual politics that was immediate and local while also enhancing the level of research-led teaching on the module. Moreover, it directly raised the issue of the relationship between ethnoreligious identifications and sexual politics.

Gore (1993: 65) argues that employing a local case study as a pedagogical tool reflects the ideals of critical pedagogical practice both within feminism and queer theory. A contextual case study focuses students’ interrogation on local spaces and sites wherein identities are reproduced and contested. The introduction of the case study in class therefore reduced the possibility of anodyne engagement with the topic. However, in the context of Northern Ireland, framing the critical analysis of sexual politics around the intersection of sexual and ethno-nationalist politics within that context means that classroom discussions can become highly emotive. Using this kind of case study demands that educators engage with working through how classroom debates and dialogues can be framed to reduce problematic forms of conflict between students.

Mediating dialogue

Clearly the case study involved a complex mix of sensitive identity issues that have immediate import for Northern Ireland students. Introducing these issues into a tutorial situation requires strategies to mediate and manage student dialogue and communication. McCully (2006) has suggested that teaching students to communicate involves providing them with the knowledge and skills necessary to participate in critical democratic conversations. Feminism’s experiential framework was designed to include gender and sexual politics in democratic debates. Moreover, feminism has exposed the importance of the private, experiential and bodily aspects of life for democratic theory. In this respect, feminism intersects with a range of other contemporary philosophies. Feminist pedagogy has attempted to create classrooms that can facilitate this kind of democratic dialogue between students (see Foss and Foss, 1994).

Second wave feminist pedagogy also attempted to create the conditions for activating multiple perspectives in the classroom through the instantiation of an ethical framework based around respect for differences and dialogue with ‘otherness’. Through these practices students engage with their own standpoints and experience and respond to the conflicting perspectives of others. Importantly for feminists, subjugated identities are able to articulate their experiences of subjugation and these articulations become part of the analytical material of the class. This kind of pedagogical approach suggests that the teacher can set up the conditions for democratic dialogue and then model those ideals through the organisation of tutorial sessions and their own participation in the dialogue (Sikes, 1997). Research suggests that the dynamics of classrooms dealing with issues of sexuality can create a further set of dynamics (Bryson and de Castell, 1993). Also, when using an immediate and local case study that integrates issues of ethnicity and sexuality in a context wherein social groups are deeply invested in political and communal identifications, there is a danger, despite the sophistication of the framework, that students reiterate everyday prejudices. Certainly the articulation of prejudices can become the material for intellectual analysis.

However, these pedagogical practices involve an element of risk in terms of the effect of prejudice on subjugated identities, and the intellectual worth of such articulations is context dependent and far from clear, particularly in mixed classrooms.

In my experience, the articulation of prejudicial statements in seminar discussions can be engaged with in ways that produce educational outcomes (see McCully, 2006 for development), but they can also be highly problematic. In a heterosexually coded classroom some students may be subjected to injurious words. As already suggested, there is the possibility that injurious words may provide deconstructive material in tutorials and give students experience of articulating perspectives and arguments in emotive contexts. However, deconstructive activities and debating skills can be generated through alternative pedagogical tools. One of the problems with providing dialogic spaces wherein injurious and prejudicial words can be articulated is that these ideas can dominate the tutorial to the exclusion of looking at the more subversive strategies of new social movements such as the LGBT movement and explorations of the matrices of privilege and subjugation that are reproduced at private, immediate and also public levels.

Moreover, in open debates between students that draw on experience, the expectation of self-disclosure in relation to sensitive subjects by students raises a number of concerns. Within the arena of identity politics there is the notion that power prevents the articulation of the experiences of subjugations and counter-discourses, and this belief informed some forms of feminist pedagogical practice that sought to support the articulation of experiences of subjugation in the feminist classroom (Foss and Foss, 1994). However, expecting self-disclosure in heterosexually coded contexts not only raises concerns about the teacher’s exercise of authority, but also has implications for student privacy and safety (Gore, 1993). Recognising these issues does not mean that in mixed classes thoughtful and important dialogue cannot be generated through personal testimony, but merely suggests that there are implications in terms of setting the expectation of self-disclosure by students. Poststructuralist frameworks support a shift in feminist and queer pedagogical practice from what Foucault (1978) has called the ‘confessional’ mode towards the constitutive exploration of identities and their complexities. Using the case study of Iris Robinson’s homophobic speech, students in my classroom engaged in four activities which embraced the theoretical, immediate, personal and subversive aspects of sexual politics. These oriented them towards deconstructive activities which included:

• Charting the constitution of sexual identity through ethno-nationalist discourses in Northern Ireland

• Deconstructing the stability of the terms ‘gay/straight’ through looking for expressions of identity that challenge this socially fixed dichotomy

• Examining the mechanisms through which sexual groups become subjugated in Northern Ireland

• Examining the effects of hate speech on practices of subversion in the arena of sexuality in Northern Ireland.

Structuring the students’ discussions around these issues demands a scholarly approach to sexuality informed by theory. However, it does not distance students from the issues or marginalise the immediate and personal aspects of identity. Rather, it structures analytical inquiry around an immediate and public event that has implications for democratic rights and identity politics in their own society, and interlinks with an exploration of the relevance of sexual discourses in relation to their ethnic identifications. Articulations of homophobic ideas by students are reduced because such ideas are already introduced through the case study, and students are not asked to assess their validity but to establish the historical, social and political conditions through which they emerged into public dialogue. Moreover, they are required to assess the multiplicity of subject positions and their complexities. In this situation, prejudice can be harnessed to inform pedagogical work in the classroom. Students are not asked to assess or comment on the normativity of sexual categories but are required to search for identities that challenge the rigid classifications of sexual identity and assess acts of subversion to heteronormativity in the context of conflict transformation.

Framing the teaching of sexuality through a local case study does not represent an ideal model of teaching sexual politics in a predominantly heterosexual classroom. Instead, it marks a point in the development of pedagogical practice during the teaching of a class on sexual politics. In this area of teaching, all pedagogical practices will carry risk and will have power implications, but the importance of addressing these issues within politics courses cannot be underestimated.

Biography

Fidelma Ashe teaches political theory in the School of Criminology, Politics and Social Policy at the University of Ulster. She is author of The new politics of masculinity (1997), published by Routledge, co-author of Contemporary social and political theory: an introduction (1999), published by Open University Press, and she has recently edited a special edition of Socialist History on Gender and Sexuality. Specialising in the field of gender and ethno-nationalist conflict, she has published various journal articles on the constitution of ethno-gendered identities. Her forthcoming book, Gender and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland, will be published by Routledge.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the autonomous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.