One of the greatest things about co-authoring
...is the opportunity for an open, ever-evolving dialogue. The transcript below is an unedited excerpt of a recent written exchange between me and A. Haeusler - dear friend, PhD candidate and co-author.
A. Haeusler writes:
Raising consciousness of linguicism, native-speakerism and other manifold forms of social oppression may not be sufficient for engaging students in their own politicization.
P. Leal
What do you mean by "raising consciousness... may not be sufficient for engaging students in their own politicization"?
A. Haeusler
What I mean is that just because we become aware of various forms of social injustices does not mean we will act upon them. Mind and body need to be connected for action. There are also "instincts" at work, possibly developed subconsciously over time, that make a body go out an resist, act, engage, go between a fight, shelter someone from being yelled at, give comfort etc.
P. Leal
I see... if we're taking Freire's definition of "critical consciousness" (CC), then this would not be the case because CC IS acting upon. Sadly the word "consciousness" makes us consider only the mind, but for Freire, it was mind, body, emotions, and soul. A CC person is one that DOES ACT - again, under Freire's definition.
A. Haeusler
I agree with you that Freire's definition has this element, but I am concerned that practices/movements that deploy consciousness-raising strictly operate under this definition. There is a lot of "reflection without action" work out there, even when it claims to be inspired by Freire.
P. Leal
True. Then perhaps instead of using "consciousness" use another word, "reflection" maybe? Because the term inherently means reflect+action.
A. Haeusler
I recognize your concern. Critical consciousness though appears in other philosophical traditions before Freire though and from a practical perspective I remain "critical" of an automatic link between critical reflection and transformative action/sustaining politicization (also, are they same?). I do agree with you that Freire's work takes emotions/soul into account but it doesn't appear to be part of the dominant reading of his work in (American?) academia and he approaches it from a different ontological perspective. Sorry if this takes a little longer to tease apart.
P. Leal
Please, no apologies. Otherwise I'll feel like I need to apologize for every suggestion/comment. I'm truly enjoying this exchange! (Warning: nerdy side comment, but this is exactly what I dreamt academia would be :) I'll save it for us to discuss tomorrow, okay?
After meeting on the following day, we realized we were each drawing on a particular meaning of the word "consciousness". While A. Haeusler had referred to a more general understanding of the word, I had interpreted it within the conceptual framework of our paper.
After discussing the implications of using the term, "Raising consciousness" became "Drawing attention" which ultimately reflected A. Haeusler's original intention while at the same time respected Freire's conceptual notion which I was intent on preserving. Yay for dialogue.