We Refugees

Displacement and encampment are considered as dimensions, in the contemporary world, of Elias’s idea of ‘figuration’ – always, now, occurring in relation to education. Questions of curriculum and pedagogy, as well as testing and assessment, are considered in the context of the postcolonial condition. This provides a critical entry point to the dangerous role proposed for education in defining what is essentially human. The political naivety of this celebrated position is accounted for in terms of political naivety and wishful thinking (theology) on the part of the advocates of pure education. Refugee ontology is considered in relation to the ontology of the camp re-examined through the lens of the tv series, Deadwood. Schooling the world describes a condition involving the intensification of biopower that addresses and judges, often negatively, the language of those it deems to be non-standard, variant or ‘restricted’.