Anne Harley, 2012
This thesis argues that
it is both necessary and possible to change the world. Changing the world
requires engaging with, to try to understand it from the basis of lived
reality, and then acting. Our ability to do this is, however, affected by
hegemony, which attempts to convince us that the way things are is either
normal and natural and the only possible way they could be, or that it is
impossible to change them. Nevertheless, there is always resistance to this and
I suggest that we might learn something useful by examining how this happens. The
thesis thus explores Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, and its applicability to our
current world; and also considers resistance to this. I argue that the nature of
capitalism has shifted, and discuss how this shift has impacted on hegemony,
identifying three current interlocking hegemonic ideologies. I consider current
resistance to this hegemony, including the role of social movements. Much
resistance, and many social movements, I argued, cannot properly be called
counter-hegemonic in that, although it/they may critique the dominant economic system,
it/they remain trapped within hegemonic logic. However, it is clear that there
is existing truly counter-hegemonic resistance, including some social
movements, and I argue that Abahlali baseMjondolo is one such counter-hegemonic
movement. Thus it is possible that those who join/align themselves with this
movement might be considered to have ‘unlearned’ hegemony and be useful
subjects for this study. I thus consider the life stories of seven people who
have aligned themselves to this movement, in order to determine whether they
have indeed ‘unlearned’ hegemony, and if so, how.
I discuss relevant and
appropriate theory for examining this phenomenon, including experiential
learning, transformative learning and Freirean emancipatory learning. I argue that
whilst these theories of learning are helpful, they cannot entirely account for
unlearning. I then turn to the theory of the event of Alain Badiou as a
possible complementary or alternative way into thinking about unlearning. I
apply both the learning theories and Badiou’s theory of the event to the
stories, all of which show strong evidence of unlearning, and consider how
useful the theories are in understanding this. I conclude that all of the
theories help to some extent in understanding the unlearning in stories. There
are, however, fundamental differences between the learning theories on the one hand
and Badiou’s theory on the other. I construct a model showing that the basis of
the difference between the adult learning theories and Badiou’s theory of the
event rests on the locus of the trigger for transformation. I argue that
Badiou’s theory provides a very useful additional perspective to adult learning
theory; but that it cannot be considered to have replaced existing theories in
understanding how people learn informally to think and act in counter-hegemonic
ways.
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