'Writing a History of the Present': Changing discourses of 'self' and 'other' in South African education policy

Abstract

The paper applies Foucault's idea of governmentality to an understanding of how subjectivity including notions of self and other have been defined in education policy in South Africa. An account is given of governmentality, understood as the rationality or art of government, as it has developed in relation to western industrialised countries and, in a more specialised literature, as it has been applied to illiberal states such as the apartheid state. The article develops an account of governmentality from the introduction of apartheid until the present day.

Citation

Paper presented at XIV World Congress, World Council of Comparative Education Societies (WCCES): ‘Bordering, re-bordering and new possibilities in education and society’. Istanbul, 14-18 June 2010. 25 pp.

‘Writing a History of the Present’: Changing discourses of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in South African education policy

Published 1 January 2010