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1 – 10 of 46M. Jayne Fleener and Chrystal Coble
The purpose of this paper is to develop queer futuring strategies that take into consideration adult learners’ needs in support of transformational and sustainable change for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop queer futuring strategies that take into consideration adult learners’ needs in support of transformational and sustainable change for social justice and equity.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper develops the construct of queer futuring, which engages queer theory perspectives in a critical futures framework. Adult learning theory informs queer futuring strategies to support adults and inform education to sustain transformational changes for social justice and equity.
Findings
With social justice in mind, queer futuring opens spaces and supports opportunities for adults to engage in learning activities that address historical and layered forms of oppression. Building on learning needs of adults to create meaning and make a difference in the world around them, queer futuring strategies provide tools for activism, advocacy and building new relationships and ways of being-with.
Research limitations/implications
The sustainability of our current system of growth and financial well-being has already been called into question, and the current pandemic provides tangible evidence of values for contribution, connection and concern for others, even in the midst of political strife and conspiracy theories. These shifting values and values conflict of society point to the questions of equity and narrative inclusivity, challenging and disrupting dominant paradigms and structures that have perpetuated power and authority “over” rather than social participation “with” and harmony. Queer futuring is just the beginning of a bigger conversation about transforming society.
Practical implications
Queering spaces from the perspective of queer futuring keeps the adult learner and queering processes in mind with an emphasis on affiliation and belonging, identity and resistance and politics and change.
Social implications
The authors suggest queer futuring makes room for opening spaces of creativity and insight as traditional and reified rationality is problematized, further supporting development of emergentist relationships with the future as spaces of possibility and innovation.
Originality/value
Queer futuring connects ethical and pragmatic approaches to futuring for creating the kinds of futures needed to decolonize, delegitimize and disrupt hegemonic and categorical thinking and social structures. It builds on queer theory’s critical perspective, engaging critical futures strategies with adult learners at the forefront.
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Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst, Holly Thorpe and Megan Chawansky
This paper offers a critical discussion to contribute to sociological work by emphasizing deconstruction(s) of the markers of gendered and racialized borders and epistemological…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper offers a critical discussion to contribute to sociological work by emphasizing deconstruction(s) of the markers of gendered and racialized borders and epistemological injustice(s) in theory and practice of contemporary global frames of representation and women's intersectional identities and rights. Through a postcolonial, situated feminist approach, the theoretical framework aims to scope and review literature from the South and North.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs a mixed-methodology of a survey paper and media critical discourse analysis of media monitoring frames of Egyptian women's rights post–Arab spring. The content, layout and imageries produced by representations are assessed to explore whether there are lingering subtle and blatant hints of continued orientalism in knowledge canons.
Findings
The underlying causes for misconceptions and reductionist sociopolitical attitudes may be styled by patriarchal and orientalist imposition and are highly found to be somewhat maintained by persistent Western-centric epistemologies claiming to define or speak for the so-called other. The above-mentioned structures are evidently channelled through languages which essentialize and control women of the South, urging for further research in knowledge canons which calls oppressive frames into question.
Originality/value
More feminist contributions from non-Western gazes are needed to fill gaps in canons of knowledge and deconstruct patriarchal and colonial codes which impose inequalities on women as seen through the survey paper of theoretical representation and media politics.