Interrogating spaces of otherness: Towards a postcritical pedagogy for applied drama and theatre

Abstract

ABSTRACT While a number of exponents of critical pedagogy argue that it is an appropriate framework for challenging dominant discourses that seek to perpetuate oppressive power relations and social inequalities, others have begun to counter-argue that it still remains a ‘pedagogy of the oppressed’. By continuing to construct the ‘world’ as divided between binary oppositions of race, class, gender and ethnicity, critical pedagogy tends to gloss over more complex relations of power in which these categories are fluid rather than fixed. This article argues that in post-conflict situations such as post-apartheid South Africa, where the dividing line between perpetrators and victims tends to be blurred, the dividing line between oppressor and oppressed becomes less clear and more slippery. The article proposes the adoption of an alternative post-critical pedagogy that can transcend such rigid boundaries.