childhood and invisibility: towards a pedagogy of what is concealed

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2019.42877

Keywords:

childhood, conceal, heraclitus, school.

Abstract

In opposition to the most traditionally asked question in educational studies – what is revealed in school? – this research finds more obscure ways to think the potencies present in school times and spaces by asking, instead, what is hidden in school? From the attempt of creating philosophical concepts in the field of education, this text gropes blindly the possibilities of a school that, instead of bringing things to light, gives more attention to what is invisible, hidden, concealed. Through the readings of philosophers of difference, such as Deleuze and Foucault, it tries to situate school in an immanent dispute between chaos and order, where power structures operate through visibility and permission, on the one hand, and interdiction and concealment on the other. By understanding the institutional rigging inserted in the logic of visibility/concealment, this article explores the possibility that the resistance forces that inhabit school cannot be shown – because all that is apparent was somehow captured and therefore allowed. Through a genealogic, philosophical view of school and with the help of Heraclitus, this blind text tries to reclaim the revolutionary potency of these invisibilized forces and, in this way, assume childhood not as a phase to be overcome, but as one of these potencies that allow the world to keep being concealed, encrypted, and not forced into the logic of visible – that being, to affirm childhood as a revolutionary and subversive force, and to oppose the “visibility" discourses that expose childhood to the crystallization of discursive apparatuses. Thus, gropes with its fingertips school and childhood, to find, without need to see, that they, invisibly, have been and still are there.

Author Biography

daniel gaivota contage, Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro

Researcher in the field of Philosophy of Education, concerned with the public role of school and the defense of it as a time-space that allows people to experience movement and intensity. Author of Poetics of Displacement (2017) and currently pursuing a doctorate at UERJ.

References

Deleuze, G. (1990) ¿Qué es un dispositivo? In: Michel Foucault, filósofo. Barcelona: Gedisa, p. 155-161.

Deleuze, G., Guattari, F. (2012). Mil Platôs: Capitalismo e Esquizofrenia. Vol. 5. São Paulo: Editora 34.

Foucault, M. (1996). A ordem do discurso. São Paulo: Loyola.

______. (1984). Sobre a história da sexualidade. In: MACHADO, R. (Org.). Microfísica do poder. Rio de Janeiro: Graal.

Heidegger, M. (1998). Heráclito. Rio de Janeiro: Relume Dumará.

Kohan, W. (2007) Infância, estrangeiridade e ignorância: ensaios de filosofia e educação. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica.

Masschelein, J. Simons, M. (2013). Em defesa da escola: uma questão pública. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica.

Prado Filho, K; Teti, M. (2013). A cartografia como método para as ciências humanas e sociais. Barbarói, Santa Cruz do Sul, n.38, p. 45-59, jan./jun.

Published

2019-07-07

How to Cite

contage, daniel gaivota. (2019). childhood and invisibility: towards a pedagogy of what is concealed. Childhood & Philosophy, 15, 01–15. https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2019.42877

Issue

Section

dossier: philosophical inquiry with children: new voices