An educator’s perspective on reflexive pedagogy: Identity undoing and issues of power

Abstract

This article looks at reflexive pedagogical practice and the ‘identity undoing’ that such practice demands from educators. Such identity undoing is found to have strong connections to the impact on identity of power relations, resistance and struggle. A dialogic ‘testimonio’ approach is adopted tracing two of the authors’ experiences of attempting to introduce a reflexive pedagogy within a structured, accredited learning intervention. This approach analyses educators’ own reflexive dialogue to make visible the assumptions and tensions that are provoked between educators and students in a reflexively oriented learning process. In undertaking this analysis, we problematise the pursuit of a reflexive pedagogical practice within executive and postgraduate education and offer a paradox: the desire to engage students in reflexive learning interventions – and in particular to disrupt the power asymmetries and hierarchical dependencies of more traditional educator–student relationships – can in practice have the effect of highlighting those very asymmetries and dependencies. Successful resolution of such a paradox becomes dependent on the capacity of educators to undo their own reliance on, and even desire for, authority underpinned by a sense of theory-based expertise.