Can Queer Pedagogy be Articulated from a Position of Radical Democracy? The Spatial Performance of Democracy in Cyberspace

Abstract

This paper poses the question: can queer pedagogy be articulated from within a framework of radical democracy? I explore the presence of radical democracy in the educational field so as to increase its usefulness to queer pedagogy. I also demonstrate that the concept and practice of radical democracy brings a number of advantages to queer pedagogy, such as the democratization of knowledge and desire, which will help to foment a new social movement by developing a democratic imagination. In other words, radical democracy is both an attempt to redefine the democratic agency of deliberation and reflection, as well as a modus operandi of social participation at large. Radical democracy is especially relevant to the critical prospects of queer pedagogy because deliberation and reflection in radical democracy are beneficial to the shape of collective identity and transformative agency in participatory societies. In addition, this paper considers how radical democracy fulfills the conditions of spatial performance on the Internet: in chat rooms and through websites, BBS's, MUD's, and so on. This notion of spatial performance is built on concepts of performance and tacit/strategy set out by Butler and de Certeau. Finally, this paper considers that queer pedagogy is a long revolution, indeed one without end, and that spatial performance in cyberspace is the initial revolutionary act. The democratic imagination is both a means by which the oppressed come to know their oppression, and the vehicle through which they struggle to find tactics for change.