In this paper I ask what it means 'to feel for each other' and 'through each other' as a decolonial praxis within the classroom. In other words, what would such a haptical pedagogy look like? I will do this by looking at the concepts of political love and revolutionary love.
Paper long abstract:
In reflecting and thinking about the importance of emotions and decolonization of the classroom, one point of departure must be the realization that we, educators and students, are in this together. We must realize that study has been made impossible under the conditions in which we are being made to operate by and within the University, which is the realization that we are being put together, students and educators, in the classroom under similar conditions, in the words of Ann Laura Stoler, of (imperial) duress. This realization is what Harney and Moten would call a "terrible gift", precisely because we are grouped/coupled together in, by way of Deleuze and Guattari, a 'mechanospheric' way. This is a space in which we are not only able to feel each other('s pain), but also feel for each other. This is what Harney and Moten call hapticality, the "capacity to feel through others, for others to feel through you [and] for you to feel them feeling you". In this paper I would like to delve in to what this 'capacity to feel for each other' and 'to feel through each other' would mean for a decolonial praxis within the classroom. In other words, what would such a haptical pedagogy look like? What does it mean to feel each other and feel for each other? I will attempt to do this by looking at Lauren Berlant's concept of political love and Houria Bouteldja's concept of revolutionary love.