The Future of Education
Leaning into the Tensions of ‘Lived’ and ‘Living Experience’: The Ethics of Representation in the Social Work Classroom
Maria Liegghio, York University, School of Social Work (Canada)
Abstract
Critical and feminist scholars contending with the ethics of representation in research have asked whether, or not, there is truly an ethical way of representing others (Hunter, 2020). The ethics of representation refers to the good and harm that can result from the ways in which we, as researchers, and I contend here, as educators represent others (Ellingson, 2011; Lester & Anders, 2018). As a social work educator, not unlike others, I bring into the classroom examples from the field of the lives and identities of the people, families or communities, disadvantaged along intersecting social dimensions of power, with whom I worked. I do so cognizant that I am representing ‘Others’ who are unable to represent themselves or have been [mis]represented, not only in the education system, but across systems: health and mental health, criminal justice, child welfare, or immigration. I am also cognizant that in the classroom are students with lived or living experiences of the very issues we are interrogating. Although I open classes with a qualifier about emotional triggers, self-care, and the importance of boundaries and of using the space for learning, rather than cathartic release, the acknowledgment of lived or living realities always produces awkward moments and unacknowledged tensions. Against the backdrop of these tensions, in this paper, I consider the implications of the ethics of representation for the classroom and conclude by suggesting decolonial practices of “multivocality” (Cisneros-Puebla, 2022), and feminist practices of “reflection-in-action” (Daley, 2010). I suggest that rather than engaging in voyeuristic learning practices of gazing at the ‘Other’, or passing over the tensions, we lean in, and that the ‘tensions’ become the ‘Other/case’ for learning with the classroom is the field we are aiming to change as social justice-oriented practitioners.
Keywords: ethics of representation, lived or living experiences, othering, reflection-in-action, social work
REFERENCES
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