PiE 32 (2) book.indb

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2) http://www.perspectives-in-education.com
ISSN 0258-2236
© 2014 University of the Free State

Corinne Knowles
Extended Studies Unit, Rhodes University
E-mail: c.knowles@ru.ac.za
Telephone: 046 603 8946

Vulnerability: Self-study’s
contribution to social justice
education
Corinne Knowles

Teaching, as a social justice project, seeks to undo and re-imagine oppressive
pedagogies in order to transform teachers, their students, and the knowledge with
which they work. In this article, I argue that self-study can contribute to social justice
in a number of ways by, for instance, making the sometimes limiting norms that
frame teaching and learning visible; inviting my own vulnerability through peer and
student reflections and feedback, and noticing the important relationship between
ontology and epistemology in teaching and learning. One means to avoid the narrow
way in which self-study might apply to only one person’s practice is to use theory to
legitimise it and make it more broadly applicable. In this study, I use Judith Butler’s
ideas relating to vulnerability in order to explain the way in which my teaching and
learning is framed and to show how normative frameworks that define teaching
can be expanded to be more inclusive. I use excerpts of peer and student feedback
in order to demonstrate how vulnerability, reconfigured, can lead to powerful new
knowledge.

Keywords: Vulnerability, social justice education, Judith Butler, self-study

Introduction
Post-apartheid universities are challenged by the opportunities and responsibilities
associated with the power they have to influence how people understand and perform
their humanity. How I experience and make sense of teaching is partly related to
how the university, the discipline and the departments, in which I work, facilitate
and frame teaching and learning, and how students, particularly first-year students,
come to know themselves is also related to these frames. I argue that how we work
with these frames is affected by how we think about vulnerability. I am interested
in conversations that disrupt and transform enduring legacies of oppression and

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

authority. To this end, this article works with some ideas and practices of social
justice education. Through a self-study of my teaching, and using a theoretical lens
adapted from the work of Judith Butler, I developed two themes that emerged
from this engagement: the connection between the ontology and epistemology of
teaching and learning in self-study as praxis, and vulnerability, and the violence and
possibilities of non-convergence. I conclude the article with examples that engage
these themes.

Context
I teach mainly in the humanities extended studies programme at Rhodes University,
and this shapes my imagination regarding the notions and practices of social justice,
inclusion and transformation. Part of the discourse concerning the students who
attend this programme is that they are at risk, and vulnerable, especially in the
small, elite, colonially conceived Rhodes University. Boughey (2010: 11) described
the programme as “a vital part of the university’s goal of widening access to include
learners with potential, from a more diverse range of educational, cultural and socio-
economic backgrounds, whose disadvantaged backgrounds may have hindered their
school leaving performance”. The recent important Council on Higher Education
(CHE) report of the Task Team on Undergraduate Curriculum Structure (2013)
claims that extended programmes are “the only intervention thus far that has been
designed to offer a systemic solution to the systemic problem of the articulation gap”
between schooling and university in South Africa, and “[t]heir purpose is thus similar
to that of the broader structural reform. Thus, experience gained from the extended
programmes is a key consideration in the case for modifying the curriculum structure”
(CHE, 2013: 71, 72). The programme in which I teach is specifically designed to expand
the frames of what it is to be a student in order to transform not only the student,
but also the university that houses them. I also base my claims on experiences in
teaching a module on feminism for Sociology I students.

As I claim to be working towards social justice education, then one possibility of
self-study is to liberate myself, the students I teach, and the knowledge with which
we work from norms that might limit and oppress, or ‘alienate’. As Mann (2001:
8) argues, “critical work must be done in order to examine the conditions which
might promote alienation; and that any changes towards eliminating the student’s
experience of alienation within higher education would be radical and not cosmetic”.
This resonates with bell hooks’s (1994: 11) famous proclamation that “[T]he class
room remains the most radical space of possibility” – not only for students, but for
teachers too. In South Africa, where assimilation or alienation continues to be framed
in ways that evoke previous systems of privilege (CHE, 2013: 39-53), a key aspect of
self-study as a contribution to social justice is to recognise norms and make them
visible in order to expand and transform them to be more inclusive.

Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education
Corinne Knowles

Why self-study and praxis? Relevance and tensions
Self-study has been described as a way to improve teaching practices and develop
professionally (Cardetti & Orgnero, 2013: 252). This study uses my own practice,
not only as descriptive data, but also as challenging normalised teaching practices,
“working toward greater congruence between intent and action” (Berry & Russell,
2013: 201). As a social justice educator, my self-study aligns my intentions for social
justice with my practice that “always exists in a space between the self and the others
engaged in our practice, between history and autobiography, between teaching and
research” (Pinnegar, Hamilton & Fitzgerald, 2010: 5). The complicated challenge is to
be present in the teaching encounter, while finding the distance from it in order to
reflect on it and transform it where necessary. Pinnegar et al. (2010: 5) explain that
the purpose of self-study “is to develop understanding of practice that then turns
back on itself to be useful to both the self-engaged in the practice and others who are
practitioners”. Self-study is an important tool for noticing and disrupting classroom
norms that render some students, lecturers, or knowledge invisible or marginal. It
informs how I should adapt or expand the norms to become more inclusive and, in
so doing, contribute to social justice pedagogy.

This engagement with my own practice is a way to connect the ontology and
epistemology of pedagogy, in that I scrutinise my own ‘being’ as a teacher in order to
transform what and how I know, and vice versa. I strive to access these perspectives
using qualitative methods of interviews, auto-ethnography, as well as peer and
student observations and feedback – to illuminate unvoiced individual experience
in order to recognise and clarify ways of being, doing, and acting (ontology) that
generate or inhibit knowing and knowledge (epistemology). As Pinnegar et al. (2010:
1) argue, self-study’s “claims for trustworthiness are based in ontology rather than
epistemology”, choosing dialogue [between teacher, peers, students and knowledge]
over scientific method as its empirical grounding. Not everyone agrees with the
validity of using these kinds of research methods. For instance, Alvesson (2003)
warns that users of these methods sometimes naively claim to capture experience,
while, in fact, they might merely allude to a reality which is constructed by the
researcher and researched, following guidelines established by research traditions.
He suggests a number of ways to overcome this, particularly where the researcher
is an insider (as I am in self-study research). Alvesson (2003: 189) emphasises that
“the researcher needs to engage in an ambitious struggle with his/her personal and
cultural framework”, and arguably this is part of my challenge as a teacher who was
educated under apartheid frames, and is also oriented towards social justice.

Louie, Drevdahl, Purdy and Stackman (2003: 165) claim that, when self-study
is undertaken to “advance theoretical knowledge, they [faculty members] connect
their work with existing knowledge and theory in the field, engaging in ‘praxis’ that is
the core of knowledge creation”. Furman (2012: 203) argues that praxis is central to
social justice leadership in education, and defines praxis as involving “the continual,
dynamic, interaction among knowledge acquisition, deep reflection, and action …

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

with the purpose of transformation and liberation”. Freire (cited in Furman, 2012:
202) aptly describes praxis as “learning to perceive social, political, and economic
contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality”. As
Alvesson (2003: 189) suggested though, the “ambitious struggle” that is necessary
in this endeavour includes noticing my own biases, and working with my own
vulnerability as I expose particular moments for particular ends. Knowledge creation
that is oriented towards new understandings and experiences of social justice, rather
than the reproduction of ‘unjust’, selective knowledge, involves shifts in how I think
and know, as a teacher, a learner and writer of this article. Applebaum (2004: 65)
argues that “change is possible because of the instability of symbolic and discursive
norms”, suggesting that the ideas and practices of both social justice and teaching
and learning can and should be expanding as we perform and think them. This
expansion is arguably a fraught process that involves the potential loss of sometimes
dearly held beliefs about me or my environment. However, I do research into my own
practice, because I want to learn from it in order to improve how I think and perform
my teaching.

Self-study as praxis, then, is where epistemology and ontology meet, unfold
and inform each other. An aspect of self-study that I use in this article is soliciting
feedback from peers and students in order to evaluate, affirm and transform my
ongoing practice. The methodology of using my own practice and of choosing which
aspects to emphasise for which ends makes me potentially vulnerable to both the
scrutiny of my peers and my own self-protection and bias – which is possibly a
‘melancholic’ response to vulnerability (as will be explained). The article demonstrates
how this potential vulnerability, and loss of self, can be a “resource for politics”
(Butler, 2004 a: 30).

Vulnerability in self-study
Self-study’s tools of peer and student feedback necessarily induce vulnerability. It
is a way of recognising the effects of the relationship between my ontology and
epistemology as a teacher, in relation to other teachers, students, structures and
theory and, in so doing, I expose myself in a process of theorising my practice and
practising my theory. How I relate to ‘vulnerability’ will determine what I choose
to expose for what ends. In the process of writing this article, I have grappled with
the defences I put up in order to protect my vulnerability. This has meant that I also
need to be aware of my power and how I use it. Mann (2001: 17) argues that “we
need to be alert to our own positional power, and the complex relations of power
that exist within the educational and teaching/learning processes”. In researching my
own practice, I am encouraged to explore how others are affected by my teaching in
order to understand it and change it, if necessary. I am also compelled to explore my
own reactions to vulnerability and to find its transformative value.

Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education
Corinne Knowles

Berry (2010: 23) insists that, for engaged pedagogy (through the practice of
critical race feminism), vulnerability must be mutually experienced by teachers and
students, and it needs to encourage “the integration of students’ lived experiences
in the curriculum”. Keet, Zinn and Porteus (2009: 110) agree, claiming that “[c]entral
to ‘mutual vulnerability’ is the pedagogical process that allows teachers and other
authority figures to open up and render their frames vulnerable for learners and
students to risk their full participation in the pedagogical transaction”. One way to
ensure that I and my students, and peers, continue to learn from each other is by
opening up my practice to the honest feedback of others. This is a risky process
that can not only destabilise how I know myself, but also disrupt the balance of
power inherent in how teaching and learning are framed, and how I relate to other
teachers and my students. This vulnerability, I argue, is a powerful possibility for
transformation and re-imagining a just pedagogy – not only to the teacher engaged in
self-study, but also for teachers and students as they navigate the knowledge project
of the university. Berry (2010: 19) speaks of ways in which students and teachers
are sometimes “smashed” by their educational contexts, in the clash between who
they are, and what is recognised as legitimate in the institution. Butler (2004 b: 224)
argues that our “established conventions” are not ever broad enough to nurture all
versions of individual within any one culture, let alone between cultures, and they
should be “expanded to become more inclusive and more responsive to the full
range of cultural populations”. Soliciting peer and student feedback is thus a way to
make myself vulnerable in order to expand how I think and act about teaching and
learning, and social justice.

Judith Butler: non-convergence, vulnerability, melancholy

and mourning
Being a teacher who uses self-study and praxis to further the aims of social justice,
part of my mission is to respond to where there is a clash of cultures, and the spaces
of ‘smashing’. Butler (Butler, Laclau & Žižek 2000: 37) argues that “the task of the
postcolonial translator … is precisely to bring into relief the non-convergence of
discourses so that one might know the very ruptures of narrativity, the founding
violence of an episteme”. This idea has become a kind of leitmotif or principle of my
teaching and thinking. When there is a clash of cultures, for instance when students
or teachers imagine themselves to be marginal to the prevailing norms, there is the
opportunity to create new knowledge as one carefully considers the reasons for the
clash. As I teach in a programme that aims to be more inclusive of students who were
previously excluded from university access, I need to be aware of ways in which the
legitimate intention of social justice in this sector is undermined by practices that
entrench the marginality of some. As a lecturer in this unit for extended studies, I
also navigate my own marginality: I teach only first years, in a university that seems
to value research and postgraduate supervision more highly than undergraduate
teaching. There is also a ‘non-convergence’, in that I am a late-entry academic, having

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

obtained my Masters and access to academic career as lecturer at the age of 50. I
have gaps in my theory, compared to the apparently seamless paths of colleagues
who have immersed themselves in their fields from an early stage. These aspects of
non-convergence make me feel vulnerable and marginal, and I seek to transform this
vulnerability into productive knowledge which will transform my sense of self and
legitimise my teaching practices.

Vulnerability is a lens through which to transform knowledge frames – for instance,
the frames, norms and knowledge concerning teaching and learning – by bringing
together ontology and epistemology. Dall’Alba and Barnacle (2007: 682) claim that
“knowing is inhabited; we cannot step outside it. But it is also transformative – it
can change who we are”. So, when I engage ontologically with my students and
peers – by opening up my practice for their honest feedback, and by engaging with
this feedback theoretically and in practice – we are able to transform how we relate
to each other, to the university, to theory, and how we understand vulnerability.
Where vulnerability is constructed as weak, where it is not valued and nurtured,
risking it requires a level of courage or abandon. Arguably though, when it happens,
vulnerability is that moment of recognition when transformation is possible, and it
provides access to powerful knowledge. As I open myself to the critique of peers and
students, I not only develop the capacity to employ vulnerability in order to learn
new things about myself and my students, but I also develop ways to facilitate this
kind of important learning to my students.

Butler’s engagement with vulnerability is particularly useful as an analytical tool in
self-study. It provides a way to reconfigure vulnerability into strength, by recognising
it differently. I consider the knowledge project of universities as one that inevitably
involves loss. In order to know new knowledge, we are sometimes required to let go
of knowledge we already have. This loss, which is part of an epistemological process,
has ontological effects – we experience the loss of who we were, or of who we might
have been without knowing – and it can be violent, especially when deeply held
and fundamental ideas about ourselves or the world are challenged. Melancholy,
as explained by Butler, is a refusal to face the vulnerability and loss and deal with it,
but instead this potential ‘loss’ is incorporated into the idea of self where it remains
unchanged, and infuses our lives with its presence as a fear of vulnerability. Butler
(2004 c: 159) describes this as “the suppressed alternative to mourning”. In this
scenario, I could experience my own marginality and vulnerability with fear. I would
be hesitant to open myself to the critique of students and peers, and unable to learn
new things about myself. I would retain my marginality defensively, and reproduce
it. Similarly, if my students were not encouraged to experience, own and work with
their vulnerability, they might also retain their sense of marginality and merely
reproduce what they think is expected of them. They would be unable to experience
transformation from being vulnerable students ‘at risk’, to emerging scholars with
important insights.

Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education
Corinne Knowles

Mourning, the other response to loss, is that destabilising process whereby we
acknowledge loss, and are not certain who we are because of it. The vulnerability
that comes with this knowledge is perhaps always with us; however, in mourning,
vulnerability is recognised, and arguably, in social justice education, this vulnerability
is protected and legitimised. Reflection is one way to mediate loss and vulnerability,
and in the instances illustrated below it can be viewed as a kind of mourning.
Mourning acknowledges loss, and it also acknowledges that we do not know who we
are without that which is lost; thus we proceed with a level of uncertainty.

Butler (2004 a: 30) asks us to consider the possibility of turning loss, vulnerability,
and grief into a “resource for politics”. In the mourning/melancholy matrix,
melancholy occurs when loss (or vulnerability) is ‘solved’ rapidly in order to restore
former order. But this entrenches a fear of, and a refusal to accept it, so that the power
which emerges from this configuration is always a melancholic fear of vulnerability.
If mourning takes place, it means the loss is given up, and vulnerability is recognised.
This, argues Butler (2004 a: 30), “is not to be resigned to inaction, but it may be
understood as the slow process by which we develop a point of identification with
suffering itself”, leading to that fruitful place where we “might critically evaluate and
oppose the conditions under which certain human lives are more vulnerable than
others … from where might a principle emerge by which we vow to protect others
from the kind of violence we have suffered”. A way forward through the colonial
and apartheid legacies, which continue to inform the statistics and demographics
concerning who is admitted and who succeeds at universities, and how success is
measured, is to consider those moments where those who suffer the violence of
non-recognition aspire to be recognised. These moments provide the opportunity to
destabilise the centricity of the norms which limit them, and legitimise vulnerability
as the possibility for new epistemology.

Practising vulnerability through peer and student feedback
Soliciting peer feedback for the purpose of self-study is a way to make oneself
vulnerable in relation to the other. With the theoretical orientation used earlier,
this vulnerability can be reconfigured to become a useful way to transform self. Self-
study is a way of engaging pedagogy and, as Berry (2010: 23) explains, it “provides
spaces for my vulnerability to be present and able in the context of curriculum. By
understanding this, I also understand that my students bring all of their experiences
and knowledge into the classroom”. If I am willing to open my practices to peers, with
a clear understanding of what I am seeking, I am also willing to risk vulnerability in
order to know myself and my students in new ways. To illustrate: I teach a feminism
course to Sociology I students, and I asked a peer (an academic colleague whose
Politics I classes I attend with my students) to observe my teaching and to provide
feedback on whether and how I worked with vulnerability in the class. Ironically, in
the light of this testament to working with my own vulnerability, I selected this peer,
because I know, like and respect her, and we share many pedagogic values. Thus, I

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

acknowledge the way in which I protect myself from critique and vulnerability by
selecting a peer with similar values. I seek aspects of non-convergence in order to
find the new knowledge that can transform my sense of marginality as a teacher.
I consider this peer to be smarter than me, more intellectually engaged than I am,
with a younger, stronger and more immersed political philosophy. I have attended
her course on International Relations with my extended studies students, and every
lecture she gives has the structure and engagement of an excellent journal article.
I solicited her feedback in order to work with aspects of my vulnerability, because I
trust her perspectives.

As the peer noted in the introduction to her feedback report, feminism, which
works with ways in which our lives are historically and systemically structured by
patriarchy and the ongoing oppression of women, is one of those knowledge spaces
where non-convergence is necessary and where transformation and social justice are
possible. She commented:

I was also glad to attend [these] classes because I’ve found that the one or two
lectures that I’m able to dedicate to feminist theory of International Relations to
be one of the most daunting as students appear more resistant towards feminist
theory than other theories I introduce them to (Siphokazi Magadla, 2013).

Because the peer was oriented towards what I was trying to achieve with my class,
her insights are valuable not only for what I already know, but also to facilitate the
process of mourning, and letting go of ideas that limit me. Pinnegar et al. (2010: 4)
argue that “[w]hen we are clear about our purpose it gives us strength in attending
to matters of trustworthiness and merit in conducting the research and writing it
up for publication”. In the first instance, the peer noticed a prevailing norm in our
classrooms, and articulated this in a way that resonated with my own sense:

I am often simply enraged at the thoughtlessness of some of my academic
colleagues in the classroom especially in terms of being aware that the examples
we use in class determine our own racial, sexual and class orientations. In this
university those examples often reflect a white, male, middle class, heterosexual
view of the world (Siphokazi Magadla, 2013).

Our shared ideas of gendered, classed and raced norms that operate in many
classrooms are thus made visible. She goes on to notice ways in which my teaching
circumvented this norm:

It was a positive experience to see that Corinne thought deeply about the
examples used in class, which were provocative moving from examining
the politics of the masculinities that shaped the Marikana massacre1, to the
slutwalk2 national debate of 2011 which shaped much of our student debate
here at Rhodes, to even examining the lack of women professors at Rhodes
which really helped students to recognise the workings of gender at our
university today (Siphokazi Magadla, 2013).

In this instance, Siphokazi notices the non-convergence of norms between what is
usually done and what was done in this particular class – disrupting the status quo
and challenging established comfort zones. I already knew this about my teaching,

Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education
Corinne Knowles

but she helped me understand the value of this method. This non-convergence,
using provocative examples which locate my own politics, can induce vulnerability,
in that it goes against the grain of what students are used to, and what colleagues
might legitimise. Siphokazi provides insight into how working in this way can be
transformative:

This level of engagement with students requires a high level of vulnerability
on the lecturer which is why I suspect most academics choose the easier less
involved examples, but Corinne’s ability to locate herself honestly as a feminist
at Rhodes was both a provocative and a vulnerable move I would argue. It was
provocative in the sense that often especially at the undergraduate level there
is pressure for lecturers not to put pressure on students to choose a particular
worldview meaning that our job then is simply to give our students the ‘menu’ of
knowledge making as shaped by different theories without making suggestions
on which ‘item’ in the menu we would actually prefer for ourselves. It was thus
provocative for Corinne to choose to challenge this order of business and locate
herself as a feminist theorist and activist. It was also a vulnerable move because
it allowed students to challenge her on how she makes the transition from
the theoretical to the empirical. For me it is exactly this provocativeness and
vulnerability that made this course most enjoyable for the students. Right in
front of them was a woman ‘doing’ the work of feminism while at once making
sense of the discourses that shape feminism today! (Siphokazi Magadla, 2013).

Siphokazi’s reflection on my teaching provides me with the means to notice my
own vulnerability in ways I had not considered, and to reconfigure vulnerability
as powerful. The opportunities presented to me to expand my frames of how I
think about my teaching, by the endorsement of someone, whose pedagogic and
political ideas I value and respect, are far greater than perpetuating ideas about my
marginality.

A further example of peer feedback was solicited to legitimate my teaching
methods and philosophy. This involved a process that began with student feedback.
Student feedback is not only an opportunity to critique a course or lecturing
style, but also a way to provide insight into who they are – which, I argue, is also
a contribution to social justice education. Student feedback highlights the tension
inherent in vulnerability, and encouraging students to make themselves vulnerable
is a task with enormous risk. If students do not feel sheltered, their feedback will
be self-protective. Arguably, every time a student writes a test or assignment, s/he
makes him-/herself vulnerable, but this vulnerability is not necessarily recognised,
leading to a melancholic fear which inhibits learning. Modelling vulnerability and
demonstrating to students that openness is one way to keep learning new things
can encourage students to take similar risks. I tend to regard student feedback
as a process of inverting the norms in the classroom, creating a scenario where
students have power over me as a teacher; this could increase my vulnerability. By
encouraging students to be honest in their critique of my teaching, I am inviting new
knowledge about who I am in a way that can disrupt the power I have. However,
when my own vulnerability has been demonstrated openly in class, feedback can
also demonstrate ways in which students could viably use the opportunity to make

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

themselves vulnerable too. Student feedback can reveal the struggles that students
are experiencing. For example, this student’s feedback to me revealed her aspirations
at the start of the year: “If only I could understand whatever is being taught to me
and the way things are done here and also adapt easily then things would be great”
(Student 1).

This articulation shows perhaps a desire to be assimilated into the epistemological
project of the university, and it was a clear indication to me to ensure that I make
learning visible in class. Spelling out the steps that are required in order to reveal
the hidden norms that frame teaching and learning in this institution would allow
students epistemological access, and it might also involve noticing where normative
frameworks (of the course or of the student) clash. I solicited student feedback at
least twice a term for exactly this purpose. However, I was concerned as to how
I could make sure that the methods I used in response to student feedback were
pedagogically sound. I could, melancholically, refuse to accept that my methods might
not align to my social justice intentions, always fearing that vulnerability. Or, I could
face my vulnerability, by inviting peers, who are immersed in the theory of teaching
and learning, to critique my teaching methods. I invited esteemed colleagues from
the Centre for Higher Education Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) to seek
ways in which I engaged students actively in class, and whether I was addressing their
learning needs. They provided the following generous feedback, affirming that I am
working towards accepting the challenge from the student above:

Your stance as a teacher is developmental as well as socially critical. You taught
in a way that not only made students aware of how to engage with the subject
matter, but also how what you were teaching related to the field of sociology.
We have not often sat in on a class where developing students’ metacognitive
abilities and their awareness of how their discipline ‘worked’, was taught so
deliberately and expertly (Prof. Lyn Quinn and Dr Jo Vorster).

Once again, I invited my own vulnerability and found that this was an affirming and
productive space for learning something new about myself. This opportunity to
let go of previous doubts about myself opened up a way to renegotiate my own
vulnerability and marginality.

Working in this way with vulnerability does not necessarily sit well with everybody.
I asked students in an extended studies class (which has between 25 and 40 students),
in which we were unpacking an aspect of their Sociology I module on socialisation,
to write an honest reflection on what had socialised them to be who they are at
present. The task had a twofold intention: to apply the theory of socialisation to
their own experiences, and for me to get to know them better. Student 2 concluded
her reflection as follows: “I have revealed enough – too much actually. Please don’t
remind me of this note. I am only telling you this because you and I have something
in common. I just wish I could be as brave as you about it”.

This very personal reflection was illuminating for me: it showed that my own
modelling of vulnerability (by perhaps over-sharing my own experiences, noticing

Vulnerability: Self-study’s contribution to social justice education
Corinne Knowles

and articulating my bias as well as demonstrating ways in which power can be shared
in the classroom) can become a tool for students’ self-reflection. However, not all
students are comfortable with, or ready for this experience. In a follow-up interview,
the student concerned was able to experience how I worked with her vulnerability –
by “identifying with suffering itself” (Butler, 2004 a: 30) – allowing her to adhere to
her story, but recognising that we all have stories, and that this knowledge can and
should affect the respectful and empathic way in which we relate to each other.

Another example helps to illustrate further the variety of student responses to a
teaching activity that induced vulnerability. I facilitated a class discussion/debate in
the extended studies class. It was an opportunity for me to reach those dearly held
beliefs that sometimes work against transformation (in me, and my students). It was
a way to engage with these in the more sheltered environment of a class that I see
daily and work with in different ways to the Sociology I class (which is a bigger group
of up to 500 students). After a particularly heated debate, in which students had
argued with each other about the role of women (triggered by the feminism lectures
in Sociology), I asked students to write a reflection on the class as a way to resolve
the volatility of the debate and to mediate the vulnerability which, I thought, they
had experienced during their heated discussions. I present selected aspects of three
of these reflections for discussion: “I was outraged, but because I didn’t want to be
emotional I chose not to be that involved” (Student 1). This response shows perhaps
a melancholic version of dealing with vulnerability: outrage, but disengagement. This
could be considered to be a lost opportunity. However, it taught me something: I
could be more careful when having these kinds of evocative discussions in class, that
some students might need more or different kinds of mediation during these debates
in future.

The two other reflections show that students risked their own vulnerability
in order to learn new things, to let go of loss or fear of loss, and to expand their
knowledge frameworks:

The discussion was tricky, heated and sticky. It made me understand different
aspects of the discussion and through that, it expanded my way of seeing things
(Student 2).

We have different backgrounds that influence our beliefs at some point we
are challenged by our personal thought and emotions that make it difficult to
accept other views. I’ve learnt that it is important to listen to what people have
to say and try reflect on it in our contemporary lives and in some way or another
decide what is best to base your life on. Learnt a lot thanks (Student 3).

The intense classroom debate provided me with the opportunity to deal not only
with the specific topic, but also with how we learn new things. Inviting students to
write reflections on the class was an important way for them to mediate their own
vulnerability, and for me to work with it in class in order to transform it.

Perspectives in Education 2014: 32(2)

100

Conclusion
When self-study works with vulnerability to one’s peers, to students, to new
knowledge, to loss of dearly held beliefs and to stories, it has the potential to
continuously inform teaching practice and expand the norms that frame them. When
social justice is the end to which we teach, feedback from students and peers on a
regular basis is an important and meaningful aspect of our practice. Achieving social
justice is about making the norms visible, and expanding the possibilities for teachers
and learners. As I have shown, this normative expansion is an ongoing possibility when
the relationship between a teacher, her peers and students encourages vulnerability,
and, “[It] is to solicit a becoming, to petition the future always in relation to the
other” (Butler, 2004 a: 44).

Endnotes
1. From 11 to 16 August 2012, a wild-cat strike at the Lonmin mine in

Marikana, South Africa, led to the deaths of 44 people, including 34
protesting miners shot by police on 16 August. The tragic event was
called the ‘Marikana massacre’ and led to a Commission of Inquiry which
is still in progress.

2. The ‘slutwalk’ became an international protest that started in Canada in
April 2011. The protest was provoked by an address by a policeman at a
York university, where women were told not to dress like sluts, to avoid
being raped. A ‘slutwalk’, attended by a number of Rhodes students, was
held in Grahamstown, South Africa, in November 2011.

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