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Democratic freedom as resistance against self‐hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression in Paulo Freire's critical theory
Author(s) -
Dalaqua Gustavo H.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
constellations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1467-8675
pISSN - 1351-0487
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8675.12395
Subject(s) - oppression , injustice , hatred , democracy , sociology , resistance (ecology) , social injustice , media studies , law , political science , politics , ecology , biology
This article elaborates a conception of democratic freedom as resistance against self-hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression by focusing on the critical theory of Paulo Freire. Among the central themes that come up in Freire's critical theory, the concern with emancipation and freedom is doubtless a major one.1 Paying special attention to the psychological effects of oppression, Freire poignantly describes the processes through which the oppressed internalize their oppression and become perpetrators of their own domination. Succumbing to self-hatred and epistemic injustice, the oppressed end up accepting the demeaning picture the oppressor has constructed of them. Therefore, instead of seeking to abolish domination, the oppressed desire at all costs to emulate the oppressor and participate in their own oppression. Confronted with such a dark diagnosis, what is the critical theorist to do? When oppression is internalized, how can people practice freedom and emancipate themselves? How can the demos achieve self-rule when their oppression is perpetuated by themselves? Those questions constitute the leitmotiv of Freire's Education: The Practice of Freedom (1976) Pedagogy of the Oppressed (2000), and Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage (1998).2 By juxtaposing these works I reveal that for Freire democratic participation is the means by which the oppressed can overcome self-hatred, epistemic injustice, and oppression, and thus achieve freedom.3 Moreover, a juxtaposed reading of these works reveals that freedom and democracy pertain not only to institutional politics but also to what Freire (2017a, p. 98) calls a “democratic mentality.” Democracy and freedom for Freire are inextricably bound up with one another, because only by participating in the former can citizens acquire an ability that safeguards the latter; namely, the capacity to cultivate a “permeable consciousness” that allows citizens to judge the guiding norms of their life from the standpoint of others and to develop themselves autonomously (Freire, 2017a, p. 98). Freire's conceptualization of democratic freedom