A Pedagogy of Walking With Our Sisters

Authors

  • Laura Janeth McKinley York University

Keywords:

, Ethics, Affect, Visuality, Embodiment, Vulnerability, Pedagogy, Responsibility, Racial and Gendered Violence, Public Memory, Remembrance.

Abstract

This article examines the pedagogical and ethical implications of a white settler’s encounter with the Walking With Our Sisters commemorative art installation honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women. I argue that the installation offers a pedagogical intervention in official state memory and conventional approaches to teaching difficult knowledge. I offer an analysis of the centrality of embodiment, vulnerability, the visual, and affective force in the memorial in order make legible the pedagogy of affect and non-mastery at work in the exhibit and the ethical possibilities of such an approach to social justice education. I respond to the task of accountability and responsibility I felt summoned to address as a learner-participant in remembering the ongoing racial and gendered violence of white settler colonialism.

Author Biography

Laura Janeth McKinley, York University

Laura McKinley is a PhD student in Social and Political Thought program at York University.

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Published

2018-05-24

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2018)

Section

Research Study/Recherche

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