Search results

The frequent occurrence of stonethrowing by Palestinian boys presents a dilemma pulling activists in disparate directions, provoking contested interpretations of this tactic and forcing international human rights workers (HRWers) to weigh their relative commitments to nonviolence, noninterference, and solidarity with Palestinians. In tactical discussions, local activists and HRWers often frame stonethrowing by referencing historical nonviolent templates, sometimes to legitimize “limited violence” and sometimes to condemn it. Building from fieldwork and interviews, I argue that memory templates serve as master frames that aid in interpreting protest actions, perhaps especially in settings where heterogeneous teams of international activists seek common frames of reference as they negotiate a developing praxis in a new context. Nevertheless, these templates were sometimes constructed through highly selective readings of the multilayered discourse and complex biographies of such figures as Gandhi and King. While the “hermeneutic circle” anticipates such selective readings, I argue that even the multivocal, sometimes contradictory, Gandhi and King texts can be remembered and applied in patterns that appear co-optive to the opposing camps of principled and pragmatic nonviolent adherents. Grounded in HRWer deliberations in the field, the core theoretical contribution of this paper maps out discursive strategies activists employ as they leverage memory templates in tactical debates.

How might deeply embodied student experiences and nonhuman agency change the way we think about learning theory? Pushing the conceptual boundaries of practice-based learning and communities of practice, this chapter draws on student experiential fieldwork ‘on Country’ with Indigenous people in the Northern Territory (NT), Australia, to explore the peculiar silence when it comes to more-than-human ¹ features of situated learning models. As students engage with, and learn from, Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, they become open to the ways their learning is co-produced in and with place. The chapter builds a case for an inclusive conceptualisation of communities of practice, one that takes seriously the material performativity of nonhuman actors – rock art, animals, plants and emotions in the ‘situatedness’ of socio-cultural contexts. As a co-participant in the students’ community of practice, the more-than-human forms part of the process of identity formation and actively helps students learn. To shed light on the student experiences we employ Leximancer, a software tool that provides visual representations of the qualitative data drawn from focus groups with students and field diaries.