Critical Literacy with (Freire) and for the Other (Levinas): Ethics/Social Justice as Enigmatic Becoming

Abstract

ABSTRACT One of the key features of critical literacy is the concern with the human and non-human collective other in vulnerable social condition. The obstruction for disenfranchised communities, local language policy goals, exacerbating social inequities and violence seems never-ending. Much before the pandemic times, one side of society had been forcing unprivileged and disempowered communities to struggle for alternative ways to go on playing the game of life. To this end, innovative, participative and ethical education which places the self as responsible for the radical other, frequently an enemy, (LEVINAS, 2007) might enhance learning, unlearning and relearning. I conclude that such a perspective might expand the exercise of critical literacy (FREIRE, 2005), a condition to minimize the impacts of the crises in contemporary society. This research is part of my ongoing project entitled Linguistic-Cultural Education, Language Teaching, Technologies and productive Social Justice in Dilemmatic Times and it is linked to the National Project of Teacher Education1 through the theories of Critical Literacies, Multilteracies, New Literacies, coordinated by Walkyria Monte Mór and Lynn Mario Trindade Menezes de Souza. Following a bibliographic interpretive research methodology, this work comprises two moments. In the first one, it presents a brief outline of the already one with and for the other in contemporary scenario of online/offline learning, intertwined with the current educational Brazilian situation, going beyond (post)pandemic times, as life-long learning (ALHEIT, 2018). The second moment seeks to theorize on the contributions of Freire (2005), Levinas (1991, 1994, 2000, 2007, 2008, 2014) and Braidotti (2006, 2018, 2019) with more details on the second, bearing in mind the Levinasian ethics is apparently less approached in the applied field of linguistics and also due to the scope of this article.