A Butlerian perspective on inclusion: the importance of embodied ethics, recognition and relationality in inclusive education

Abstract

ABSTRACTDrawing on Judith Butler’s recent writings on recognition, embodiment, ethics and relationality, this paper joins the efforts for more theoretically informed work towards inclusion and inclusive education. In particular, the paper argues that there is a need for rethinking inclusion through/as embodied ethics. It is suggested that this sort of thinking constitutes a conceptual shift from understanding inclusion as inherently ‘good’ to theorising it as practised, lived and experienced within school and classroom life. Furthermore, this theorisation enables us to address how a politics of inclusion within each context, premised upon an embodied ethics of recognition and relationality, might take inclusive education beyond an instrumental orientation of inclusion. Butler’s work keeps reminding us of the need to constantly reconsider the terms and conditions of inclusion beyond its current organisational forms in schools and other institutional settings.