Knowledge RevolutionThe performative turn towards social and environmental justice

Presentation given at Transformative Learning Symposium, Fielding Graduate University, 2005

Tiffany von Emmel, Ph.D.

Representational knowledge…

1. Disappears multiple ways of knowing

….When less of the body’s knowing is engaged, less of the collective’s knowing is engaged.

….Good for control, not so good for life….

2. The far senses keep things at a distance

Ocularcentrism and Verbocentrism

...Knowledge as ‘ownership’ makes commodification and control more possible

3. ‘Deforested perception’ • passivity (Alaine Touraine)

• shallow perception (Laura Sewell, David Abram)

• ‘impoverished imagination’ (David Orr, Maxine Greene)

• fragmentation and industrialization (Susan Griffin, Tulku)

...perpetuates consuming/producing ‘modes of desire’ (Peter Mclaren)

It’s a vicious cycle……

Controlling patterns of knowledge-creation

interfere with life’s dynamic balancing of relationship….

Linguistic turn Performative turn

• representation participation

• mind embodied

• subject/object action

• value subjective value-specific

• interpretation activism

• data-centered relationship

Tiffany von Emmel

http://vonemmel.com

@tiffanyvonemmel

facebook.com/tiffanyvonemmel