Transitioning Participant Fear: Oppressions and Symbolic Power

The fear of deciding to rebel independently from the staged rebellion that Bishop discusses in Chap. 9 could be considered similar to the same fear Paulo Freire discusses in Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1974) as a ‘fear of change or freedom’. This fear of change is something presented as a fear of responsibility that has been the successful outcome of centuries of dehumanisation. Chapter 10 will consider this work as identifying a critical condition that prevents the oppressed from truly believing they can make a difference. This outcome also prevents the oppressed from feeling that they have the freedom to resist, to decide to cross the imposed mythological boundaries between public and private—the boundaries between actor and audience or Us and Them. To combat this lack of what Freire calls conscientizaco, to be conscious of the language of oppression so as to resist it, is essential. This chapter pulls together the powerful reasons the author’s ‘bigger picture’ of social justice aims to achieve. In the context of museums perhaps the participant needs to be allowed to learn the language of museums to resist a kind of ‘culture of silence’ permeating participatory processes.