Abstract
In my reading of theorising decolonial change, I have often come across what a decolonised curriculum should look like, without necessarily any focus on what does undertaking such a complex transformation entail. The foundation of this inquiry goes to the core of exploring human-non human, and more than human relationality and advocates for a decolonial curriculum change through an arts-based participatory method of Photo~currere~voice.Photo~currere~voice follows a posthumanist and post qualitative approach and explores decolonial transformation within the curriculum. Drawing on Jackson and Mazzei’s working with theory (2012; 2022) and Barad’s diffractive thinking (2007) - I present photo~currere~voice as an assemblage of two theoretical conceptualisations - currere (Pinar, 1975) - an autobiographical understanding of the curriculum; and Photovoice (Wang & Burris, 1991, 1997).
By engaging with academic developers, the inquiry explores the Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and Academic Practice as the curriculum site. I acknowledge that academic development, as a field of practice in UK’s higher education, is often perceived to operate in the third space. Thus, the inquiry weaves together debates and contestations about academic development with decolonial scholarship such as Wynter’s notion of Man and Human (2003), and Santo’s Ecology of Knowledges (2007). It also explicitly draws on Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of assemblage, rhizome, and desire (1987).
Photo~currere~voice is conceived to make the concept of decoloniality within the curriculum approachable and accessible. Addressing colonial and dominant practices in the curriculum is usually met with resistance, denial, and avoidance. Despite the need to confront these legacies, knowing where to start can be seen as a deterrent. In this inquiry, curriculum is perceived as an active force, and disrupts the individualistic dominance of ‘I’, a human-centric (western) gaze. Drawing on vital materiality of nonhuman and more than human entities, photo~currere~voice uses images and photographs to broaden understanding of the curriculum as relationally emergent.
Key insights from this creative inquiry suggest that, first, working with the vitality of nonhuman and more than human entities helped to comprehend change to think with rather than think about the curriculum. Second, the autobiographical nature of photo~currere~voice revealed identity politics and politics of the curriculum, both of which offered an alternative form of becoming with this knowledge. Third, photo~currere~voice assemblages opened multiple opportunities to examine past experiences, current educational landscape, and future hopes for the curriculum. Finally, it stretched the conventional research practice by presenting an embodied performance event when assumed rigidity of boundaries of research were troubled.
| Date of Award | Aug 2024 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Katherine Wimpenny (Supervisor), Ken Fero (Supervisor) & Arinola Adefila (Supervisor) |