Abstract
This chapter focuses on the question of emancipatory knowledge and examines how populists and non-populists accounts use knowledge in their narratives. The chapter begins examining the way emancipation and knowledge are conceptualised within political education. It is argued that, in their appeal to emancipatory knowledge as a promise of dignity and prosperity, populists and aspirational democrats reinforce existing divisions and exclusions. The chapter makes a case for more plural and inclusive epistemologies and for more open understandings of emancipatory political education.
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Notes
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For instance, UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova argued in the same forum, “Populist leaders like to have ignorant people”, and [this is why] “they are not investing in education systems” (Global Education and Skills Forum, 2017).
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Daily Mail supported the Brexit campaign.
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British Broadcasting Corporation.
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http://www.cicea.eu/pdfs/CiCe_Conference_Programme_BRUGES_2017.pdf; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/14693518/homepage/berj_special_issues.htm; https://www.aera.net/Events-Meetings/Annual-Meeting/2019-Annual-Meeting-Theme; https://eera-ecer.de/networks/28-sociologies-of-education/ecer-2020-nw-28-special-call/nw-28-sociologies-of-education-return-of-the-nation-sociologies-of-education-in-an-era-of-rising-nationalism-and-populism/; http://www.ethnographyandeducation.org/?page_id=411
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From now on in this chapter, I will here discuss ‘populists’, but this should not be understood as a generalisation of populism. A range of populists from both the left and the right understand and refer to knowledge in very different ways. The use of ‘populists’ rather than ‘some populists’ is only stylistic.
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See Duncan (2018).
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See Bhambra (2017) for a discussion of this.
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See, for example, Mudde (2010).
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See, for instance, Giesinger (2018).
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See, for instance, Miller-Idriss and Pilkington (2017).
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Sant, E. (2021). The Trap of Emancipatory Knowledge. In: Political Education in Times of Populism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76299-5_6
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