I’ve recently been reading work by Clare Land on decolonisation and it struck me that there are considerable similarities in the way in which she presents decolonisation and the ways in which I am thinking about “decolonising” neoliberalism.
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Under neoliberalism, there are clear differences between those who are privileged (in education these are those in management/leadership positions along with the policy makers and bureaucrats who are responsible for shaping the system that controls what can be taught) and those who are not (students who are limited in what they are allowed to learn and both academics and teachers who are told what is acceptable to teach, and often how to teach).
Neoliberalism operates so that privilege continues to be accumulated by those who are advantaged, while increasing the oppression operating on those who are not, so that the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” increasingly widens.
In which ways we are transmitting the oppression operating on us onto our students?
Clare argues that the path to decolonisation requires members of both groups to engage firstly in critical self-reflection. This she argues, is an essential first step and must precede taking action. Self-reflection helps us identify just how we are privileged and how we are oppressed (and I think we can be both simultaneously).
We can ask ourselves in which ways we are transmitting the oppression operating on us onto our students. How tightly do we specify assessments in order to meet the requirements of accreditation? How much important course material do we remove from our units (despite believing it is essential for our students) in order to enable us (and the students) cope with tighter and tighter timelines and shorter teaching periods?
How much really interesting material do we no longer provide because it does not map onto what bureaucrats have identified as essential learning outcomes? And how many of these changes do we passively accept in order to get along and survive?
When do we say “no more”?
At what point do we draw a line in the sand and say “no more: I cannot teach what I consider essential material within the boundaries imposed upon me”?
How long do we continue to walk away from the issues and at what point do we decide to resist?
We all know that individual resistance is not as effective as collective action and one way of building the collective is through ongoing, constant consultation. When I talk about consultation I don’t mean current practices where input is sought (with impossibly short timelines) with no evidence from subsequent actions that anything suggested has actually been taken into consideration in any way at all.
We no longer have true participation – those who are privileged make decisions for us and tell us how to behave to enact them.
I remember many years ago working with a senior colleague who decided that consultation was too hard, took too long, so that the best option was to become a (hopefully benevolent) dictator who made decisions for what was, in this person’s mind, the best interests of the staff and the university. We all know how benevolent dictatorships end.
Consultation means regular and ongoing discussions with staff, with a genuine attempt to ensure that all sides listen to each other, hear each other’s reality, and make fully informed decisions. One of the reasons consultations often do not work is that one side of the transaction does not have all the information so suggestions offered are not fit for purpose.
Democracy is founded on true participation. We no longer have true participation – those who are privileged make decisions for us and tell us how to behave to enact them. Isn’t it time that we began to work together to reclaim democracy and our agency?
