Critical Pedagogy, Race, and Media: Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education Teaching [1 ed.] 1032120568, 9781032120560

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsement Page
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of contributors
Foreword
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Critical pedagogy, race, and media
Introduction: rationale and approach
The aims of equality in critical pedagogy
Critical Race Theory
Using popular media as a tool and a critical factor in theformation and circulation of ideologies
Intersectionality and sections
Contributors
Notes
References
Chapter 1: Teaching race in film: Exploring Birth of a Nation (1915) and Django Unchained (2012)
Introduction
Historical and academic context
Birth of a nation and the importance of positionality
Django Unchained and the modern spectator
Conclusion
Notes
References
Screenography
Chapter 2: Narratives of institutional racism and social critique in contemporary UK television drama
Critical Race Theory and critical pedagogy
Public service broadcasting and television drama
Small Axe : police and justice
Sitting in Limbo : the Windrush scandal and citizenship
I May Destroy You
References
Chapter 3: Digital and decolonial diffractions of race and materiality for (post)pandemic education
Entrance points
Do I dare to care?: The making of ‘race’ inside distributed intelligences
Margins, measures, and marking bodies
What to do when your atoms are colonial?
An incomplete alive-ness: a conversation for digital, decolonial pedagogies
Modes, practices, methodologies: artistic research
Call for participation: artist scholars, twenty-first century onto-epistemic practices and digital revolutions
References
Chapter 4: Teaching an inclusive English composition course: The vampire genre
Introduction: the course
Why the vampire?
Polidori: Where to start?
African American vampire stories
How to address Blacula with undergraduate students
Conclusion: futuristic vampires
References
Chapter 5: Refugee 2.0: (De)constructing race, ethnicity, and identity through digital practices in refugees in camp settings and in-between places
Introduction
Social media and migration
Social media and the discussion of race and ethnicity
The self-presentation and identity of refugees in online spaces
Social media and identity practices by refugees in Germany
Online identity practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp
The role of social media in Kakuma in talking about Black identity
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 6: Counter-visual analysis of migrants’ self-representational strategies: A pedagogical and psychological perspective
Introduction
Methodology and goals
Migration and necropolitics of conventions
Digital transparency
Pedagogy of the oppressed, psychology of the witness
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 7: Playing difference: Towards a games of colour pedagogy
Kishonna L. Gray on Hair Nah ( Momo Pixel 2017)
Ashlee Bird on Portal ( Valve, 2007) and Never Alone (Upper One Games, 2014)
Edmond Y. Chang on Yellow Face (Mike Ren 2019)
Teaching with games of colour philosophy
References
Chapter 8: Reading and writing to reclaim humanity: Centring the ongoing history of Asian exclusion in America in the (digital) age of COVID-19
Theorising the history of Asian exclusion in America
The reawakening of Sinophobia in the digital age
Online classroom ecology
In their own words
Pedagogy of hope in isolation
References
Chapter 9: Whose Bollywood is this anyway?: Exploring critical frameworks for studying popular Hindi cinema
Introduction
Reading Bollywood
Notes from the classroom
Deconstructing the over-representation of Punjab
Constructing the North East and its under-representation
Chak De! Diversity
Acknowledgements
References
Chapter 10: Tribal ways: How to teach Indigenous studies without textbooks
Introduction
Past is prologue
The medium is the massage
Conclusion: look forward in peace
References
Chapter 11: Colour-blindness and neoliberalism in Disney’s Pocahontas
Disney memes and themes
Hollywood's era of neoliberalism
The White saviour
The noble native
Cultural and moral alliances in Pocahontas
Othering and colour-blindness in Pocahontas
History rewritten
Pedagogical implications
References
Chapter 12: Beyond the burial ground: Reflecting on Indigenous representation in 1970s and 1980s American horror
Introduction
‘Indians’ in/and American cinema
Creating monsters and establishing heroes
Building on the burial ground
Conclusion: beyond the burial ground
References
Chapter 13: Gaming from the margins: Indigenous representation, critical gaming, and pedagogy
Introduction
Longhouses, spirit guides, and can(n)on fodder: the troubling state of mass market gaming
From critical pedagogy to Red Pedagogy
A holistic approach to teaching Indigenous representation in gaming
Age of Empires III
When Rivers Were Trails
Conclusion
Notes
References
Chapter 14: Questioning the drug war frame: Teaching Mexico’s violence through documentary representations of race
Introduction
Background on the US/Mexico drug trade
Race and the global drug war documentary gaze
Cartel Land (2015), dir. Matthew Heineman
The Business of Drugs ( 2020), dir. Jesse Sweet
The Siege of Culiacán (2019), dir. Andrea Schmidt
El velador ( 2011), dir. Natalia Almada 1
Conclusions
Note
References
Chapter 15: ‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory on the side
Teaching critical theory through pop culture: an educator’s perspective
Teaching critical theory through pop culture: a student’s sample essay
Acknowledgements
References
Index

Citation preview

Unlike previous periods in human history, as a result of unpresented technological advances in production and distribution, information is available in abundance. But there is a big distinction between ‘information’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘learning’ and if there ever was a need for a book that enables us to navigate the expansive landscape of media, specifically in relation to questions of ‘race’ and education, then this is the one. Dr Gurnam Singh, Associate Professor of Equity, Coventry University and Visiting Fellow in Race and Education, University of the Arts, London, UK.

Critical Pedagogy, Race, and Media

Critical Pedagogy, Race, and Media investigates how popular media offers the potential to radicalise what and how we teach for inclusivity. Bringing together established scholars in the areas of race and pedagogy, this collection offers a unique approach to critical pedagogy by analysing current and historical iterations of race onscreen. The book forms theoretical and methodological bridges between the disciplinary fields of pedagogy, equality studies, and screen studies to explore how we might engage in and critique screen culture for teaching about race. It employs Critical Race Theory and paradigmatic frameworks to address some of the social crises in Higher Education classrooms, forging new understandings of how notions of race are buttressed by popular media. The chapters draw on popular media as a tool to explore the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of racial injustice and are grouped by Black studies, migration studies, Indigenous studies, Latinx studies, and Asian studies. Each chapter addresses diversity and the necessity for teaching to include visual media which is reflective of a myriad of students’ experiences. Offering opportunities for using popular media to teach for inclusion in Higher Education, this critical and timely book will be highly relevant for academics, scholars, and students across interdisciplinary fields such as pedagogy, human geography, sociology, cultural studies, media studies, and equality studies. Susan Flynn is a Lecturer at Waterford Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on pedagogy, equality, diversity, inclusion, popular culture and digital technologies. Melanie A. Marotta is a Lecturer in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University, USA. Her research focuses on Science Fiction, Young Adult, the American West, American Literature (in particular African American literature), and Ecocriticism.

Routledge Research in Race and Ethnicity in Education

This series aims to enhance our understanding of key challenges and facilitate ongoing academic debate relating to race and ethnicity in education. It provides a forum for established and emerging scholars to discuss the latest debates, issues, research and theory across the field of education research that pertain to race and ethnicity. Books in the series include: Family Engagement in Black Students’ Academic Success Achievement and Resistance in an American Suburban School Vilma Seeberg The Under-Representation of Black and Minority Ethnic Educators in Education Chance, Coincidence or Design? Christopher G Vieler-Porter The Racialized Experiences of Asian American Teachers in the US Applications of Asian Critical Race Theory to Resist Marginalization Jung Kim and Betina Hsieh

Critical Pedagogy, Race, and Media

Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education Teaching

Edited by Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

First published 2022 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-032-12055-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-12056-0 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-22283-5 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835 Typeset in Bembo by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

Contents

List of contributors Foreword

ix xiv

JESSICA BERMAN

Acknowledgements

xvi

Introduction: Critical pedagogy, race, and media 1 SUSAN FLYNN AND MELANIE A. MAROTTA

1 Teaching race in film: Exploring Birth of a Nation and Django Unchained

13

JONATHAN WRIGHT

2 Narratives of institutional racism and social critique in contemporary UK television drama

28

TERESA FORDE

3 Digital and decolonial diffractions of race and materiality for (post)pandemic education

40

ANNOUCHKA BAYLEY

4 Teaching an inclusive English composition course: The vampire genre

57

MELANIE A. MAROTTA

5 Refugee 2.0: (De)constructing race, ethnicity, and identity through digital practices in refugees in camp settings and in-between places CLAUDIA BÖHME

69

viii Contents

  6 Counter-visual analysis of migrants’ self-representational strategies: A pedagogical and psychological perspective

91

BORIS RUŽIC ́

  7 Playing difference: Towards a games of colour pedagogy

111

EDMOND Y. CHANG, KISHONNA L. GRAY, AND ASHLEE BIRD

  8 Reading and writing to reclaim humanity: Centring the ongoing history of Asian exclusion in America in the (digital) age of COVID-19

129

KATHLEEN TAMAYO ALVES

  9 Whose Bollywood is this anyway?: Exploring critical frameworks for studying popular Hindi cinema

141

SHWETA RAO GARG

10 Tribal Ways: How to teach Indigenous studies without textbooks

155

BRIAN WRIGHT-MCLEOD

11 Colour-blindness and neoliberalism in Disney’s Pocahontas

168

BRENNAN THOMAS

12 Beyond the burial ground: Reflecting on Indigenous representation in 1970s and 1980s American horror

182

LISA ELLEN WILLIAMS

13 Gaming from the margins: Indigenous representation, critical gaming, and pedagogy

195

WENDI SIERRA

14 Questioning the drug war frame: Teaching Mexico’s violence through documentary representations of race

211

DAVID SHAMES

15 ‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory on the side

225

KRISTEN LILLVIS AND IVY SCOVILLE

Index

238

Contributors

Kathleen Tamayo Alves (PhD) is an Associate Professor of English at Queensborough Community College of The City University of New York where she teaches literature and composition. Her research centres on eighteenth-century literature and culture, medicine, and literary history, and she has recently published for Journal for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, EighteenthCentury Fiction, and The Rambling. Her book-in-progress, Body Language: Medicine and the Eighteenth-Century Comic Novel explores how medicine shaped and is shaped by comic language through fictional dramatisations of femalespecific medical phenomena, such as menstruation, hysteria, and pregnancy. Annouchka Bayley (PhD, SFHEA) is the Director of the Arts & Creativities Research Group and Director of the Arts, Creativities & Education Masters programme at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge University. She has published several works on posthumanism and new materialism for Higher Education contexts. She is also a practicing artist and has written, performed, and produced more than 20 one woman and ensemble shows in Europe, Asia, and the USA. She is an Emerging Director with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Jessica Berman (PhD) is a Professor of English at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, where she directs the Dresher Center for the Humanities. She is also the Director of the Inclusion Imperative Programs, funded by a major grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She is the author of Modernist Fiction, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Community and Modernist Commitments: Ethics, Politics and Transnational Modernism, editor of A Companion to Virginia Woolf and a reprint edition of Purdah and Polygamy by Iqbalunnisa Hussain. Berman was a co-editor of Futures, the ACLA’s Report on the State of the Discipline (2017) and co-edits the Modernist Latitudes book series at Columbia University Press. Her current project investigates global radio in relation to transnational modernism. Ashlee Bird is a PhD Candidate in the Native American Studies programme at UC Davis. Her work focuses on the history of representation of Native Americans in video games as well as the decolonisation of the video game industry. She also dabbles in game design in both digital and analog games. Her

x Contributors

previous education includes a dual BA in English and American Literature and American Studies from Middlebury College as well as a Master’s degree in American Studies from the University of Nottingham and a Master’s degree in Native American Studies from UC Davis. Claudia Böhme (PhD) is a postdoctoral Researcher at the Chair of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Trier, Germany. She received her PhD at the Johannes Gutenberg-University of Mainz with a dissertation on the negotiation of culture in the Tanzanian video film industry. Her main research interests are in the area of new media, migration, and refugee studies with a geographical focus in East Africa. She has undertaken long-term fieldwork and participant observation in the area of film and new media, migration, and refugee studies in East Africa and Germany. Her current research project deals with ‘Trust Building and Future Construction via Smartphones and Social Media at intermediate Locations of Transnational Migration with the Example of Refugees from East Africa’ (funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG). Edmond Y. Chang (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of English at Ohio University. His areas of research include technoculture, race/gender/sexuality, video games, RPGs, and LARP, feminist media studies, cultural studies, popular culture, and 20/21C American literature. He earned his PhD in English at the University of Washington. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on queer American literature, speculative literature of colour, virtual worlds, games, and writing. Recent publications include ‘Drawing the Oankali: Imagining Race, Gender, and the Posthuman in Octavia Butler’s Dawn’ in Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler, ‘Playing as Making’ in Disrupting Digital Humanities, and ‘Queergaming’ in Queer Game Studies. He is completing his first book on algorithmic queerness and digital games tentatively entitled Queerness Cannot Be Designed. Susan Flynn (PhD, FHEA) is a Lecturer at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at Waterford Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on equality, diversity, inclusion, popular culture and digital technologies, and how these come together in the teaching space. Her collections include Equality in the City: Imaginaries of the Smart Future (2022) Bristol: Intellect; Screening American Nostalgia (2021) USA: McFarland; The Body Onscreen in the Digital Age (2020) USA: McFarland; Surveillance,Architecture and Control: Discourses on Spatial Culture (2019) London: Palgrave Macmillan; Surveillance, Race, Culture (2018) London: Palgrave Macmillan; Spaces of Surveillance: States and Selves (2017) London: Palgrave Macmillan. Teresa Forde (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Derby in Film and Media. She is also currently the Equality Officer for the local University branch of the University College Union. In addition to working as a university lecturer, Teresa’s teaching and research has encompassed Further Education, Adult Education and the Worker’s Educational Association, community groups,

Contributors xi

independent cinemas, and museums. Teresa has published a range of research on film and television, including science fiction and contemporary drama, and addressed issues such as the depiction of memory, the representation of gender, race and class, and curation and fandom. Shweta Rao Garg (PhD) is an Associate Professor of English at DA-IICT, Gandhinagar in India. She was a recipient of Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) in 2010. She publishes in the areas of gender studies and popular culture in India. She has coedited The English Paradigm in India: Essays in Language, Literature and Culture published by Palgrave in 2017. Her papers have been published in journals like Postcolonial Text, Contemporary Literary Criticism (CLC), Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature, In- Between: Essays and Studies in Literary Criticism, Journal of School of Languages, etc. She is also a visual artist. Kishonna L. Gray (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois, Chicago. She is also a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. She is an interdisciplinary, intersectional, digital media scholar, and digital herstorian whose areas of research include identity, performance and online environments, embodied deviance, cultural production, video games, and Black Cyberfeminism. She is the author of Race, Gender, & Deviance in Xbox Live (Routledge, 2014) and the co-editor of two volumes on culture and gaming: Feminism in Play (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018) and Woke Gaming (University of Washington Press, 2018). Kristen Lillvis (PhD) is Muellerleile Endowed Chair and Professor of English at St. Catherine University. She is the author of Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination (University of Georgia Press, 2017) and co-editor of Community Boundaries and Border Crossings: Critical Essays on Ethnic Women Writers (Lexington, 2016). Melanie A. Marotta (PhD) is a Lecturer in the Department of English and Language Arts at Morgan State University (Baltimore, Maryland, USA). Her PhD, awarded from Morgan State University (an HBCU), is in American literature with a concentration on African American women’s writing. Marotta’s research focuses on SF, Young Adult, the American West, American Literature (in particular African American), and Ecocriticism. She is writing a monograph about YA literature featuring female characters of African descent. Her collection, Women’s Space: Essays on Female Characters in the 21st Century Science Fiction Western (2019), was published as part of McFarland’s Critical Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy Series. Marotta has a unique multinational experience as she is a dual citizen: Canada and the USA. She is originally from Ontario, Canada.

xii Contributors

Boris Ružić (PhD) is a postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Cultural Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia. He teaches four courses engaged with film studies and visual culture. His scientific interests lie at the intersection of politics of emancipation (amateur), video footage, and the relation of analogue and digital film image. He is a coordinator of the various EU-funded international projects. He has published various scientific articles in books and journals, as well as a book in co-authorship regarding film and media analysis. Ivy Scoville is a third-year undergraduate student at Marshall University majoring in English and Linguistic Anthropology. She was nominated for a Maier Award in 2019, and her poem ‘I moved away from the Country’ was published in the 2019–2020 edition of Marshall University’s literary magazine Et Cetera. David Shames (PhD) is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at Boston College. He holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies from Boston University. His research interests include theory, film studies, Latin American literature, and visual culture, and their relationship to the history and politics of globalisation in the Global South, translation studies, and issues surrounding the geopolitics of the Mexico/US border. Wendi Sierra (PhD) is an Assistant Professor of Game Studies in the Honors College at Texas Christian University. Her book, Todd Howard: Worldbuilding in Tamriel and Beyond, dives into the concept of worldbuilding, a cornerstone of Howard’s design perspective. While the book is driven by examples from Howard’s oeuvre, the principles discussed therein (including unrealities, micronarratives, and environmental design) are applicable to many contemporary games. Sierra is interested in how games, both educational and commercial, offer novel learning environments to players. Her own game, an NEH-funded Oneida language and culture game, demonstrates this perspective. The game, playable at www.astrongfire.com, fuses game design principles, best practices in pedagogy, and Oneida folklore, to create a playful environment for children and parents to come together around learning the Oneida language. Brennan Thomas (PhD) is an Associate Professor of English at Saint Francis University (Loretto, Pennsylvania), where she directs the university’s writing centre and teaches courses in composition, pedagogy, and novel writing, as well as a first-year seminar, titled ‘Disney Memes and Themes,’ on the animated films of Disney and Pixar Studios. Her research interests include writing centre administration and popular media studies. She has published scholarly articles on the social, political, and consumerist elements of the films Casablanca, Changeling, A Christmas Story, Bambi, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, as well as the television series South Park. Lisa Ellen Williams (MA) is a Lecturer in English and Women’s & Gender Studies at Middle Tennessee State University; in addition, she is faculty in the MFA in Visual Arts programme at Belmont University. She earned her BA in English with minors in Gender Studies and Spanish and also has an MA in

Contributors xiii

English with emphases in Feminist Theory and Pop Culture Studies. Her academic interests include Culturally Responsive Teaching as well as activism and community outreach in Composition Studies; furthermore, her research and publications primarily examine feminist activism’s role in the evolving representations of female identities in horror and exploitation cinema. Her recent publications include an investigation of the Anthropocene’s impact on cinema and a study of portrayals of grief in the works of Oz Perkins. Currently, she is writing a book that traces images of women and weaponry in horror film and an additional book about the cultural contributions of Joe Dante. Brian Wright-McLeod, who is Dakota/Anishinaabe, is a Toronto-based music journalist, writer, artist, producer, archivist, and educator, whose work has furthered the understanding and appreciation of Native music. He has lectured internationally, worked as a music consultant for film, television, recording projects, and institutions including the Canadian Museum of History, the Library & Archives, Ottawa; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC; the Gustav Heye Center, New York City; the National Music Centre, Calgary, Alberta; the Juno Awards, and helped establish the Native music category for the Grammy Awards (2000–2010). Currently, he teaches Indigenous Music in Culture in the Music Industry Arts and Performance programme at Centennial College, Indigenous Studies at George Brown College, and Indigenous Media at York University in Toronto. Jonathan Wright (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Communications and Media at the University of the Arts, London. He completed his PhD thesis on Black British cinema at London Metropolitan University. He lectures across a range of topics including media theory, visual cultural theory, and issues of representation, cultural identity, film and cinema, audiences, and spectatorship. As a theory-based academic, he is interested in the methodological issues involved in the supervision of practice-led research. He has written on British cinema, race, and representation and for a period wrote regularly for the magazine ‘Red Pepper.’ He has recently published a book chapter on race, cinema, and surveillance and an article for an international film journal on the film Birth of a Nation. He is also working on a critical history of Black filmmaking in Britain and has developed his research interests into the historical study of Black film exhibition in the US.

Foreword Jessica Berman

I write this foreword in a dangerous and upended year, when, not 12 months after the murder of George Floyd the world was reminded that Black Americans are not safe on US streets, and Asian Americans also have renewed fear for their lives. Media helped put the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Defund the Police’ on so many tongues – and also helped White supremacists spread the word about their reactionary and violent agenda. Also, a year ago, Higher Education pedagogy pivoted from a communal, largely face-to-face practice, to one where faculty worry either about requiring students to turn on their video or about the converse, what happens when nobody does? Can one have a community of learners when no one shows up at the same time? How do we invite others in when they don’t have the bandwidth to join? In other words, it could not be a better time for a collection of essays on Critical Pedagogy, Race, and Media: Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education Teaching. Throughout Higher Education, the intersections among the terms in the title of this volume are being urgently reworked and reassessed. Scholars worldwide are considering how the word ‘critical’ – thrown about so often in relation to the skills we hope our students gain – might knit together crucial insights from Critical Race Theory and other schools of socially engaged critical pedagogy practice. Drawing on the long tradition of work in critical pedagogy since Paolo Freire, educators are emphasising new ways to practise inclusive teaching while attempting to unlearn the institutionalised structures that perpetuate inequities. In particular, the COVID pandemic, the turn to remote teaching, and the dramatic demonstration of systemic inequality have reminded us of the continuing underrepresentation of people of colour in the professoriate, the unequal and asymmetrical conditions of teaching and learning in the academy, and the many ways in which diversity, equity, and inclusion are too often unrealised buzz words in our institutions. This brilliant and wide-ranging collection focuses on the role of media, both ‘old’ and ‘new,’ in social critique and the ways that instructors might deploy or repurpose them as part of a decolonising classroom practice. Beginning from the editors’ call in their introduction to democratise the practice of critical pedagogy across all fields and teaching areas, the volume makes a good case for the value of such practice in cultural studies, critical gaming studies, film studies, writing

Foreword xv

studies, and especially in screen studies.While ‘intended as a resource for educators,’ it is also ‘a provocation and a call for the inclusion of media studies in critical pedagogy’ (p. 4). It argues that since popular media of all kinds are complicit in circulating exclusionary ideologies and supporting inequality, educators must develop in our students the critical capacity to analyse and sometimes contest screen images and other media representations. The volume ranges from the issues and strategies necessary to teach racially complex films, like The Birth of a Nation or Django Unchained, to an examination of Indigenously determined video games and how they might figure in teaching about systems of power.Throughout, the editors have been careful to attend to the overlapping and intersecting aspects race, class, gender, and other characteristics of identity. While they ‘provide chapters on Black studies, Indigenous studies, Latinx studiesi, and Asian studies, [they] do so with an awareness that racism’s multi-faceted reach does not recognise such discrete boundaries’ (p. 7). Contributions come from scholars around the world and include the voices and experiences of a diverse range of students. While the editors hope that this collection will help educators craft more inclusive syllabi by providing suggestions of primary and other source material, I know it will do more than that – it will help lay important groundwork to support a critical, decolonising, and anti-racist practice for teaching about, with, and through media. I can think of few things more important in the academy right now.

Acknowledgements

This collection is dedicated to all academics, activists, and students who work to promote inclusivity in teaching and learning. Thanks to Emilie Coin at Routledge for her guidance. At Morgan State University, Melanie would like to offer thanks to Dr. L. Adam Mekler, Dr. Brenda James, and Dr. Mary Henderson. As always, Melanie would like to thank her mother for her support during the process of completing this collection. At Waterford Institute of Technology, Susan would like to thank her colleagues and friends at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, especially Dr. Helen Murphy and Dr. Mary Fenton, for providing a welcoming environment for new research.

Introduction Critical pedagogy, race, and media Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

Introduction: rationale and approach Across academia, larger class sizes and heterogeneous students with complex learning needs, coupled with the long-term fallout from the COVID-19 emergency and the growing needs of the ‘knowledge economy,’ impose the need for both rapid upskilling and constant reassessment. Exponential changes in learning technologies and the necessary delivery of online, blended, and flipped learning require educators to have analytical frameworks to help choose and use media and technologies wisely. The profound effect of the Internet, social media, and popular culture on scholarship, research, and teaching necessitates large-scale reconsideration of our methods and frames of reference. Online and remote learning impose a requirement on educators to engage with popular culture, as it is played out online and onscreen. The use of technology for education needs to be accompanied by deep critical multiculturalism and an exploration of the power of the screen to buttress ideologies and norms. Understanding and harnessing how students learn via screens is vital; the power of representation has never been more pertinent to critical pedagogy. What happens in screen narratives affects how we form cultural notions, how we operate socially, and how we construe sameness and difference. For pedagogy, these matters offer a host of challenges and affordances. This collection intends to form theoretical and methodological bridges between the disciplinary fields of pedagogy, equality studies, and screen studies and to bring experts together to explore how we might engage in and critique screen culture for teaching about race. We make the argument here for the democratising of critical pedagogy. The current digital age calls for educators in all disciplines to be critical in their pedagogy, to assess and excavate the resonances of all teaching materials as well as the popular culture with which our students are bombarded. Education is at the heart of transforming society; it is both the means and the end of social change. We focus on the affordances of popular media and its ability to highlight and problematise, to critique norms and ideologies so that transformation inside and outside can take place. Using a range of approaches including critical multiculturalism, critical digital studies, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and gaming studies, this collection offers opportunities for using popular media to teach for inclusion in Higher Education; and to enact a critical pedagogy for this digital age. DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-1

2  Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

Critical pedagogy is the project of awakening critical consciousness, based on Paulo Freire’s term conscientização. Such critical consciousness encourages individuals to effect change in their world through social action. Critical pedagogy attempts to use teaching to combat racism and other inequalities and injustices, to bring together human rights and social justice with disparate disciplinary fields. It is, by its very nature, political work, as education is indeed political. Like all fields, critical pedagogy has established boundaries and ‘gatekeepers,’ and the work of critical scholars is to push those boundaries in new and uncomfortable directions. Much like Freire, we are concerned here with using the everyday life and lived experiences of students and teachers to encourage deep and reflective practice. Our work here is based on the concept of interdisciplinarity and on the need for disciplines to stretch, share, and reshape in order to meet the challenges of society and culture. With the worldwide socio-demographic change, the movement of populations and increasingly diverse student bodies, the need for pedagogy to address race is critically pertinent. In his introduction ‘Writing “Race” and the Difference It Makes’ (1985), eminent theorist Henry Louis Gates Jr. documents that it is not until approximately 1975 that even the most subtle and sensitive literary critics would most likely to have argued that, except for aberrant moments in the history of criticism, race has not been brought to bear upon the study of literature in any apparent way. (p. 2) Gates (1985) further highlights the reason for this belief, specifically referring to the exclusivity, the White gatekeeping that has existed in the notoriously limited ‘traditional’ canon. Effectively demonstrating how the restrictive canon came to be, citing T S Eliot’s connection to this canon, Gates explores the selectivity of literature and how race in literature, due to overreaching effects of the canon, was assumed to be White. Gates delineates how the presumed race in literary outputs came to be, citing the aftereffects as follows: Once the concept of value became encased in the belief in a canon of texts whose authors purportedly shared a common culture, inherited from both the Greco-Roman and the Judeo-Christian traditions, there was no need to speak of matters of race, since the race of these authors was ‘the same’. (1985, p. 4) Both Gates and John Guillory (1983) pinpoint Eliot’s influence on the creation of the canon, Guillory further adding Cleanth Brooks as integral to its inception. Guillory explains that the literary canon was formed and subsequently reinforced as a method of exclusion, the theorist stating that the ‘authority of the culture’ and the ‘authority of the canon’ as the same (1983, p. 174). What is implied is that White, European culture and its literary outputs are then considered to be principal, omitting people of colour and their creative products. Guillory reflects,

Introduction 3

For some reason some literature is worth preserving. We would not expect this or any other conception of authority to have escaped the vicissitudes of social hierarchy, but this is just the claim of the canonical text, which is assumed to be innately superior. (1983, p. 174) In his analogy, Guillory (1983) invokes the ‘aristocracy’ (p. 174) as equivalent to canonised literature, noting that it is this canon that instructors have utilised in Higher Education. It is this canon, this static institution that remained in place that instructors have passed on to their students. It is from Higher Education instructors that students are introduced to worlds outside their own, to expand their horizons, and in turn become broad-minded. By altering this canon currently still in place we enable students to comprehend the experiences of others outside of their own lived experience. Across disciplines in Higher Education, instructors have a duty to address how racial and ethnic diversity moulds the human experience and plays a vital part in the formation of identity. Donnarae MacCann, eminent children’s literature theorist and writer of White Supremacy in Children’s Literature, offers a telling observation, one which should affect all educators and the manner in which they prepare for their teaching: To deny the passing down process that occurs in children’s books is practically to deny the process by which societies are developed and maintained. The social component in objects created for the young is therefore one of the most basic concepts that a children’s literature historian has to work with. (2003, xv) MacCann’s theoretical framework can be witnessed in March 2021 when Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ acted to cease publication of six books it revealed that they contained discriminatory images.While there were those that were angered by this announcement, many educators were pleased with the results. The New York Times’ columnists, Alexandra Alter and Elizabeth A. Harris, note that there is controversy about removing texts from publication, specifically those who have labelled the removal as ‘cancel culture’ whereas ‘In recent decades, librarians and scholars have led a push to re-evaluate children’s classics that contain stereotypes and caricatures’ (2021). As MacCann shows, the alterations in education are integral to the growth of students and have long-lasting effects on their identity formation. As intersectional as identity is, educators’ own race awareness and social identity potentially influence content selected for classroom instruction. Critical pedagogy, or what Ann S. Beck (2005) terms critical educational theory, has a duty to address how notions of race are formed and supported by contemporary culture. Critical pedagogy is a philosophy that ‘applies the tenets of critical social theory to the educational arena and takes on the task of examining how schools reproduce inequality and injustice’ (Beck, 2005). Beck believed students were able to learn by critiquing texts and examining the injustices that existed therein.The current digital realm offers manifest opportunities to experience alternative viewpoints and

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identities through gaming, role play, and other interactive media. How might every person’s mediated experience of Otherness shape notions of race? In what way might such experiences be used for critical interculturalism and race awareness? Can pedagogy use such experiences to enhance race awareness?

The aims of equality in critical pedagogy This collection is intended as a resource for educators as well as a provocation and a call for the inclusion of media studies in critical pedagogy. While inequalities demand that education attends to the sociocultural and political climate which affects teaching and learning, we are keenly aware that teacher biases and stereotypes also play a role in exacerbating inequality (Steele 2011) as do the designs of examinations and selection systems (Fischer et al. 1996). In ‘Inequality in Education: What Educators Can and Cannot Change,’ Kathleen Lynch states, ‘The pre-eminent role that social class and racial inequality outside school exercises over educational outcomes and opportunities is not to underestimate the significant role that schools and educators play in determining educational outcomes’ (2019). Echoing Lynch and Baker (2005), we suggest that equality in education can only be achieved if we recognise the deeply integrated relationship that exists between education and the economic, political, sociocultural, and affective systems in society. These systems, we suggest, are increasingly affected by mass media and by the endless circulation of images and consequently, ideologies. In their article, ‘Diversity and Higher Education: Theory and Impact on Educational Outcomes’ (2002), Patricia Gurin, Eric L. Dey, Sylvia Hurtado, and Gerald Gurin discuss various legal decisions for and against affirmative action in the US. The authors assert that ‘Since the Bakke decision, the educational benefits of diversity as a compelling government interest have provided the primary justification for affirmative action at selective institutions across the country’ (p. 331). The case, Regents of University of California vs. Bakke in 1978, decided that while affirmative action is beneficial to the Higher Educational community, that race may be taken into consideration for student applicants, racial quotas are prejudiced and detrimental. Affirmative action refers to an admissions policy of ensuring that racial diversity exists in Higher Education. Gurin et al. investigate the conclusion that diversity amongst Higher Education student bodies (structural diversity) is what instructors want, that racial diversity in fact creates student success and satisfaction. The authors explore the conclusion that Educators in U.S. higher education have long argued that affirmative action policies are justified because they ensure the creation of the racially and ethnically diverse student bodies essential to providing the best possible educational environment for students, white and minority alike (pp. 330–331). Rather than exclusively contemplating the racial identity of incoming students (what Gurin et al. calls structural diversity: the number of students admitted) and their performance for admission purposes, Gurin et al. have taken this concept

Introduction 5

further, considering how racial diversity affects the learning process of the entire student body. In order for students to be empathetic, to understand one another, Gurin et al. (2002, p. 332–333) argue that there must be racially/ethnically diverse students in the classroom. The students need to have contact in non-formal spaces (‘informal interactional diversity’). Not only does the diverse student body need to work together in a professional setting (in the classroom), the students must also socialise to learn about one another thereby ensuring there is understanding about their respective experiences. In order for a diverse student body to achieve the utmost understanding of others, ‘a third form of diversity experience includes learning about diverse people (content knowledge) and gaining experience with diverse peers in the classroom, or what we term classroom diversity’ (2002, p. 333). The students must connect in the classroom setting through interactions with and about one another. It is this element of the diverse educational experience, ‘content knowledge,’ on which we have focused our collection.

Critical Race Theory While we intend this collection to be multidisciplinary in outlook, it is influenced by Critical Race Theory, which originated in legal scholarship to provide analyses of racism and has since been used across a broad spectrum of academic disciplines including education. CRT is based on the acknowledgement that racism is deeply ingrained in culture and society and that the default position of Whiteness is privileged and invested in social structures and institutions, including the education system. Furthermore, CRT is based on Derrick Bell’s (1980) theory of interest convergence, whereby the interests of Black groups in gaining equality is tolerated only when such interests coincide with existing power structures and the interests of White groups (Bhopal and Pitkin 2020). CRT references the specific socio-historical context in which people of colour have been historically marginalised and oppressed.

Using popular media as a tool and a critical factor in the formation and circulation of ideologies The image, circulated and recirculated through the big screen and handheld devices, celebrated across the converged media-industrial landscape and revered for its potency in the marketplace, is at once a dangerous weapon and a tool for change. In taking the approach that critical pedagogy must interrogate popular imagery and representations, we acknowledge that this position may appear as a Marxist critique; however, our intention is to challenge and to interrogate in order to educate. Developing a critical awareness of the media landscape and its effects is therefore vital, as Rancière writes, ‘images change our gaze and the landscape of the possible if they are not anticipated by their meaning and do not anticipate their effects’ (Rancière 2011, p. 105). Sound knowledge of potential effects and an openness to new and unexpected responses may create a form of emancipation from ideological constraints, ‘an emancipated

6  Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

spectator is an individual that is not predetermined by a targeting strategy, nor by a mode of representation, even less by a certain type of dispositifs’ (ibid.). In other words: it is someone who is available, a spectator who does not expect a certain type of images or a particular pace of images, but someone willing to be surprised by what is in front of her. The emancipated spectator plays the game. The problem with digital platforms is not really the fact that they invade our lives as many people think, but that we are able to see in ten minutes what a series or a film is about. To see a work through requires an effort…. Emancipation, the act of removing oneself from a dispositif, requires in the end a certain form of heroism. (Rancière 2018, p. 117) Critical awareness requires some openness, awareness, or independence in a willingness to go beyond the image. As Rancière suggests, we need to more deeply consider the resonances of what we see onscreen, as the onscreen body stands for ‘too many nameless bodies, too many bodies incapable of returning the gaze that we direct at them, too many bodies that are an object of speech without themselves having a chance to speak’ (Rancière 2009, p. 96). Popular media, as this collection suggests, offers scope to engage in deeply critical work, providing what Horeck (2018) terms ‘fruitful material for understanding the screen as a site of critical engagement and self-fashioning.’ Our aim is to instil a criticality about the screen image, now more critical than ever as we work, teach, and learn onscreen. We must educate about the uses and dangers of the screen to avoid what Baudrillard (1987) termed the perversity of the image, as one that no longer depends on its referent. Avoiding the diabolical power of simulacra falls now within the remit of educators as we teach through screens: [T]he image is interesting not only in its role as reflection, mirror, representation of, or counterpart to, the real, but also when it begins to contaminate reality and to model it, when it only conforms to reality the better to distort it, or better still: when it appropriates reality for its own ends, when it anticipates it to the point that the real no longer has time to be produced as such. (Baudrillard 1987, p. 16) As Adorno and Horkheimer (2002) argue ‘the necessity inherent in the system not to leave the customer alone, not for a moment to allow him any suspicion that resistance is possible’ (p. 113). This collection goes beyond telling how to recognise a politically/ideologically questionable film and relate it to teaching inclusion. It is designed to collate instances of media which buttress or challenge prevailing notions and show how these occasions of racism are embedded in or overturn cultural perceptions.

Introduction 7

Intersectionality and sections As much of the work in this collection illustrates, representation and discrimination are multifaceted. Race, class, gender, and other individual characteristics and constructs intersect and overlap, highlighting the conceptual limitations of investigating particular films or media instances.The danger of such work is reducing the issues to a single-issue analysis (Crenshaw 1989). The case studies and analyses in this collection, therefore, eschew a single-axis discussion of the wide-ranging effects of racism and the potential for pedagogical development and reform. While we provide chapters on Black studies, Indigenous studies, Latinx studies1, and Asian studies, we do so with an awareness that racism’s multifaceted reach does not recognise such discrete boundaries.We have consciously included racially diverse contributors from universities worldwide, each an expert in their own field, who can write legitimately about their own experience of the myriad inequities in Higher Education. This collection, then, is in conversation with Black studies, Asian studies, Indigenous studies, and Latinx studies scholars who have been arguing that racism is pervasive in popular media and that it is an ontological issue that has broad-ranging consequences in education and society. Each contributor has offered an essay addressing the diversity of their students and the necessity when teaching to include visual media which is reflective of a myriad of students’ experiences. We hope that the essays contained within this collection will assist educators in adding a more diverse selection of primary/secondary sources into their teaching and enable educators to dispel stereotypes about Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian peoples. Since the second wave of Black Lives Matter, there has been a significant rise in interest in texts that discuss anti-racism and a heightened awareness of issues surrounding diversity and inclusion in Higher Education. This collection is directed to a Higher Education instructor who is desirous of diversifying their course material but may feel unsure of how to go about doing so. We wish to make clear that this collection is not directed to the White educator at a Primary White Institution (PWI), but rather any Higher Education instructor who wish to familiarise themselves with teaching applications of anti-racist pedagogy. With the second wave of BLM, there is, more than ever, an emphasis on the inclusion of works by/about Black persons. Other marginalised people, however, continue to be excluded from being reflected in Higher Education courses. Our collection is sensitive to the needs of a multiracial and multi-ethnic twenty-first-century student body, one that includes many international students and migrants. As Lori Kido Lopez (2020) notes, the concept of the post-racial society that appeared with the election of President Barack Obama is no longer existent, that there were significant setbacks due to the American president elected after Obama and his acceptance of white supremacists (2020, Introduction). As Lopez asserts (2020), ‘it is important to acknowledge and celebrate the successes and accomplishments of people of colour, and there have been many exciting strides forward in the twenty-first century’ (2020, p. 13). Our collection aims to offer educators a safe space in which to share with others their methods and experiences in integrating diversity and inclusivity in Higher Education teaching.

8  Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

Contributors This collection straddles a wide range of depictions of race, teasing out the possibilities of using representations of race for critical pedagogy. It opens with an exploration of ostensibly the first ‘blockbuster’ film ever made, Birth of a Nation (Griffiths, 1915) that centred on deeply troubling stereotypical depictions of race. Jonathan Wright’s chapter ‘Teaching race in film: Exploring Birth of a Nation (1915) and Django Unchained’ considers the myriad challenges of teaching about race and racial history in Higher Education today. Through a case-study analysis of two contentious films, Wright illustrates how these films can act as a powerful teaching tool, enabling students to examine stereotypes, images of enslavement and the antebellum period, and consequently how their use can facilitate an inclusive pedagogy. In her chapter, ‘Narratives of institutional racism and social critique in contemporary UK television drama,’ Teresa Forde applies Critical Race Theory to her examination of Steve McQueen’s anthology film series Small Axe. Forde examines McQueen’s portrayal of Black British people, including people from the Windrush generation, and their relationship with Britain. She illustrates the systemic racism towards the Windrush generation and their attempted deportation by Britain as documented in the film, Sitting in Limbo. Finally, in her analyses of Noughts and Crosses and I May Destroy You, Forde shows the oppression and subsequent trauma that Black people have faced in Britain. In her chapter ‘Digital and decolonial diffractions of race and materiality for (post)pandemic education,’ Annouchka Bayley utilises the concept of diffraction (Barad, 2007) and becoming-black (Mbebe, 2017) to consider the possibility of altering our ontological and epistemological constructions, as we teach in the digital realm. Examining the pertinent challenges of digital education in the age of COVID-19, Bayley critiques the constraints of pandemic pedagogy and calls on educators to seize this opportunity to reframe the dominant discourses and ideologies of education. Melanie A. Marotta delineates her experience teaching a first-year composition course at an American HBCU (Historically Black College/University) in ‘Teaching an inclusive English composition course: The vampire genre.’ Planning a course that concentrates on a genre that tends to be primarily White in its presentation may appear to be a daunting task for educators. Taking that material and ensuring that it is inclusive for a primarily Black student body is not only successful in its presentation, instructors may achieve this with relative ease as long as educators complete research, keep students’ interests in mind, and are aware of the racial make-up of the university population, thereby ensuring representation. Further, Marotta shows that a racially inclusive vampire genre course presented during the age of COVID-19 (synchronous/asynchronous learning) is possible due to the addition of films to the course, which are available on many streaming services. Finally, instructors must be cognisant that many resources for students may be found for free or low cost online, an asset for a student body in Baltimore, Maryland, that has many low-income students.

Introduction 9

Claudia Böhme discusses the use of social media by migrants in Germany and Kenya in her chapter, ‘Refugee 2.0 – (De)constructing race, ethnicity, and identity through digital practices in refugees in camps settings and in-between places,’ Böhme includes refugees’ personal experiences using ICT and shares their journeys as migrants and what it means to be connected through ICT. In this way, Böhme illustrates how the migrant community is formed and retained through their use of ICT and Böhme documents her pedagogical experiences teaching students about migrants’ experiences. Further, Böhme poses that social media allows for interconnectedness among migrants who may be isolated in their new countries. Kishonna L. Gray, Ashlee Bird, and Edmond Y. Chang’s chapter, ‘Playing difference: Towards a games of colour pedagogy,’ provides an analysis of the portrayal of Black, Indigenous, and Chinese characters in a selection of games that engage the player in a conversation about race. Gray begins the collaboration by discussing the Hair Nah video game. In this game, players become a Black woman fending off White hands attempting to touch her hair, which is a form of racist aggression. Next, Bird analyses the portrayal of Indigenous characters in games, highlighting stereotypes found in Westerns. Her portion of the chapter centres on Never Alone, a game made by Iñupiaq from Alaska and E-Line Media, which enables players to see through the eyes of an Indigenous character, thereby learning about the Iñupiaq people as they experience gameplay. In addition, Edmond Y. Chang discusses his use of ‘plogs’ in the classroom, gaming logs that students keep as they progress through a game. The game that Chang considers, Yellow Face, is one that allows players to live as an Asian person experiencing microaggressions, dealing with what that may feel like. Shweta Rao Garg’s chapter ‘Whose Bollywood is this anyway?: Exploring critical frameworks for studying popular Hindi cinema’ considers the theoretical frameworks which have traditionally shaped our teaching about Bollywood. Given the genre’s transnational significance, Rao Garg suggests a more nuanced reading of Bollywood is necessary in order to address its contradictions and complexities. A number of teaching strategies are provided, which can help students to look beyond the homogenised idea of India and tokenistic representations. Kathleen Tamayo Alves’ chapter ‘Reading and writing to reclaim humanity: Centring the ongoing history of Asian exclusion in America in the (digital) age of COVID-19’ discusses her own experiences as part of a multi-racial family, as an immigrant to the US, and as a Filipinx-American woman. Alves documents what it is like for her to teach at Queensborough Community College, a CUNY school with a large Asian student population. In a timely essay, one which applies Crenshaw’s intersectionality, Alves analyses teaching Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You in the age of COVID-19, an age in which anti-Asian discrimination has risen exponentially. In ‘Counter-visual analysis of migrants’ self-representational strategies: A pedagogical and psychological perspective’ Boris Ružić provides an insight into migrants’ self-representational strategies in contemporary media.This chapter analyses migrant self-representational practices on so-called migrant corridors from parts of the Balkans: Greece, Bosnia, and Croatia, from 2015 to the present. Ružić

10  Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta

examines two case studies; firstly, looking at the digital activity by migrants from North Africa and the Middle East that communicate on social media. Secondly, he examines illegal pushbacks caught on hidden cameras published by BorderViolence Monitoring Network in 2018. This chapter explores the paradox between what Ružić terms ‘disinformative media’ and the public, through visual analysis of migrant self-representational practices. Juxtaposing these case studies against the representation of migrants in mainstream media, the chapter highlights the importance of images not made of migrants, but those made by migrants. In ‘Tribal Ways: How to teach Indigenous studies without textbooks’ Indigenous author Brian Wright-McLeod highlights the dearth of published teaching materials for Indigenous studies. Exploring his own practice as an activist and teacher, Wright-McLeod notes the success of the visual material he uses in his pedagogy, suggesting that visual imagery immediately conveys what words cannot. With a detailed description of the successful approaches used in his classroom, the author provides a rich narrative of utilising the history and culture of the Indigenous peoples in Canada in order to teach for inclusion. In her chapter, ‘Colour-blindness and neoliberalism in Disney’s Pocahontas,’ Brennan Thomas analyses the Disney animated film, calling attention to the discrepancies between the actual woman and the myth.Thomas furthers her examination through the presentation of Othering that has been enacted during the creation of the film. In effect, even though the film purports to centre on a Native American legend, the focal point of the film in fact is on the Whiteness of the creators. Lisa Ellen Williams examines the manner in which Native American and Indigenous experiences, histories, and cultures have been appropriated in film narratives in her chapter ‘Beyond the burial ground: Reflecting on Indigenous representation in 1970s and 1980s American horror.’ Focusing on the horror genre, Williams notes that while discussions regarding ‘otherness’ are common, explorations of Native American and Indigenous representation in American horror are rare, even though such representation feature widely in the genre. This chapter examines how American horror films, specifically those released in the late 1970s through the 1980s, shaped a generation’s image of Native Americans and it considers how to mitigate this to enact more inclusive pedagogy. Wendi Sierra’s chapter ‘Gaming from the margins: Indigenous representation, critical gaming, and pedagogy’ explores some of the opportunities for critical pedagogy which gaming offers. Sierra highlights its affordances, suggesting that the medium offers Indigenous people the chance to use their iconography, art, musical traditions, and values to share their experiences with a wide audience. Sierra advocates for a holistic approach to teaching about Indigenous representation in gaming, and she examines Indigenously determined game design; a movement advocating Indigenous people to develop games to speak their own truths. Sierra’s chapter thus addresses the affordances of using popular media to enact survivance and resist the ongoing effects of colonisation. David Shames engages with the documentary genre in his chapter ‘Questio­ ning the drug war frame: Teaching Mexico’s violence through documentary

Introduction 11

representations of race’ and looks at the concept of documentary truth and the impact of racialised media frames. Here, he examines how documentaries on drug-related violence in Mexico and Latin America can be utilised as a teaching resource to help students to engage critically with race and its representations. Shames illustrates how documentaries centred on the ‘Drug War’ can help students to develop the skills to question the racist stereotypes which are a common feature of screen depictions. Shames discusses examples from four recent documentaries that can be used to cultivate a critical gaze towards depictions of race in the media and therefore help students to become more critical media consumers. In their chapter, ‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory on the side,’ Kristen Lillvis and Ivy Scoville take an innovative approach to critical analysis by offering narratives from both learner and lecturer. In this way, this chapter serves as a valuable reminder of the dichotomous relationship between teaching and learning. Engaging with popular online culture, they examine how popular music can serve as an impetus for students’ understanding of race issues. Their chapter highlights the affordances of pop culture, which can assist students to theorise about race and explore complicated issues. The lecturer’s portion of the essay outlines Lillvis’ experiences teaching Critical Race Theory in a literary theory module at an American university. The student, Scoville, uses the YouTube sensation, Chicken Noodle Soup and its remake to unpack theory and to understand ‘mestiza consciousness,’ where the gaps between cultures are bridged, especially in regard to music and dance. Ultimately, the two pieces together provide a critical dialogue that illustrates the benefits of media culture for teaching about and understanding race and racial culture.

Notes 1 Latinx is a non-gendered term that refers to persons of Latin descent. There has been much debate about whether this term accurately reflects the people to whom it refers, or if it exists only for political/educational purposes. Harmeet Kaur (2020) cites a Pew survey which found that ‘Those who used the term tended to be younger, US-born, bilingual or predominately English-speaking and Democratic-leaning, the survey found. They were also more likely to have gone to college.’

References Adorno, T. and Horkheimer, M. (2002) Dialectic of Enlightenment. Stanford: Stanford UP. Alter, A. and Harris, E. A. (2021, 4 Mar.) ‘Dr. Seuss Books Are Pulled, and a “Cancel Culture” Controversy Erupts,’ The New York Times. Available from: https://www.nytimes. com/2021/03/04/books/dr-seuss-books.html. (Accessed: 16 Mar. 2021). Baudrillard, J. (1987) The Evil Demon of Images. Sydney: The Power Institute of Fine Arts. Bell, D. (1980) ‘Brown V Board of Education and the Interest Convergence Dilemma,’ Harvard Law Review 93(3), pp. 518–533. Available from: DOI: 10.2307/1340546. Bhopal, K. and Pitkin, C. (2020) ‘“Same Old Story, Just a Different Policy”: Race and Policy Making in Higher Education in the UK,’ Race Ethnicity and Education 23(4), pp. 530–547, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2020.1718082

12  Susan Flynn and Melanie A. Marotta Crenshaw, K. (1989) ‘Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,’ University of Chicago Legal Forum 1(8). Available from: http://chicagounbound.uchicago. edu/uclf/vol1989/iss1/8 Fischer, C. S., Hout, M., Sanchez Jankowski, M., Lucas, S. R., Swidler, A. and Voss, K. (1996) Inequality by Design: Cracking the Bell Curve Myth. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Gates, H. L. Jr. (1985) ‘Editor’s introduction: Writing “Race” and the Difference It Makes,’ In Gates, H. L. Jr. (ed.) “Race,”Writing, and Difference. The University of Chicago Press, pp. 1–20. Guillory, J. (1983) ‘The Ideology of Canon-Formation: T.S. Eliot and Cleanth Brooks,’ Critical Inquiry 10, pp. 173–198. Gurin, P. et al. (2002) ‘Diversity and Higher Education: Theory and Impact on Educational Outcomes,’ Harvard Education Review 72(3), pp. 330–366. Horeck, T. (2018) ‘Screening Affect: Rape Culture and the Digital Interface in The Fall and Top of the Lake,’ Television & New Media 19 (6), pp. 569–587. Kaur, H. (2020, 12 August) ‘Why People Are Split on Using “Latinx”,’ CNN. Available from: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/us/latinx-term-usage-hispanics-trnd/index.html. (Accessed: 5 Feb. 2021). Lopez, L. K. (2020a) ‘Introduction,’ In Lopez, L.K. (ed.) Race and Media. NYU Press. Kindle Edition. Lopez, L. K.. (2020b) ‘Racism and Mainstream Media,’ In Lopez, L.K. (ed.) Race and Media. NYU Press. Kindle Edition. Lynch, K. (2019) in Connolly, M. (ed.) The Sage Handbook of School Organization. London: Sage. Lynch, K. and Baker, J. (2005) ‘Equality in Education: An Equality of Condition Perspective,’ Theory and Research in Education 3 (2), pp. 131–164. MacCann, D. (2003) White Supremacy in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge. Rancière, J. (2009) The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by G. Elliott. London & New York: Verso. Rancière, J. (2011) The Emancipated Spectator. London, New York:Verso. Rancière, J. (2018) ‘Un spectateur émancipé: Entretien avec Jacques Rancière,’ La Septième Obsession No. 19, pp. 116–118. Steele, C. M. (2011) Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time). New York and London: Norton.

Chapter 1

Teaching race in film Exploring Birth of a Nation (1915) and Django Unchained (2012) Jonathan Wright

Introduction The increase in the use of online and on-demand digital streaming platforms has provided the field of cinema and film studies with opportunities to access and disseminate film examples from across numerous cinematic canons. For educators and scholars, this has created opportunities for greater ease and for students to have a broader access to a range of texts. Arguably, this expands the possibilities of source materials for the teaching of film and cinema studies. The focus of this chapter, however, considers some of the pedagogic challenges of teaching ‘race’ and film in Higher Education, afforded by the on-line resources available. This argument will plot a comparative case study analysis of two highly controversial films about ‘race’: The Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1915) and Django Unchained (Tarantino, 2012). This chapter draws on both Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy to explore the issues and strategies involved in the teaching of these texts, focusing on the role of cultural contexts of the film and the cultural context of the student’s learning. It considers the teaching of film within Media, Humanities, and Social Science departments, in ways which seek to further understand, not only material filmmaking practices, but also the broader significance of how cinema shapes cultures and societies. Whilst this chapter draws on a largely British context, the issues raised have relevance to those teaching on other national and cultural contexts, which are addressed throughout the chapter. The Birth of a Nation represents a significant contribution to the history of modern cinema. This was the first ‘blockbuster movie’ which was epic in scale, theme, and narrative. The film raises a number of questions around race, ethnicity, and nationhood. The world depicted by D. W. Griffith may well appear alien to contemporary audiences, yet many of the symbols and icons within this film’s racial lexicon are still current in today’s portrayal of ‘race’ and ethnicity. Questions about the historical specificity of racial constructs in Birth of a Nation and the way in which students studying film and media studies in Higher Educational institutions might understand this film are part of a single investigation. Teaching Birth is a twofold process, and this chapter considers how this film might provide students and educators with a way of understanding contemporary representations of ‘race’ to current audiences. DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-2

14  Jonathan Wright

Nearly a century later, Django Unchained was released. In part, directly parodying and paralleling The Birth of a Nation, Tarantino presents an unsparing and relentless critique of ‘race’ filmmaking. Through irony and pastiche this blockbuster film takes on – not unproblematically – many of the tropes and representational politics of ‘race.’ Aligned with Birth, this chapter asserts that when taught together, these films enable students to interrogate images of American enslavement in America.

Historical and academic context Both Birth and Django Unchained are highly contentious films. Both movies have been described as dangerous in some way, and both films examine issues of American enslavement, freedom, and white supremacism. From a pedagogic perspective, each text raises a number of interesting questions. These are the ways Western societies perceive questions of ‘race’ and national identity and the role that cinema plays in the circulation of these ideas and images. Lambasted and despised as the ‘most racist movie ever made’ (Rampell 2015), The Birth of a Nation remains an important part of Anglo-American film history. The film presents a skewered version of the after-effects of the American Civil War, Black emancipation, the abolition of slavery, and rise of the Ku Klux Klan. It demonises tolerance and integration, whilst celebrating the concept of racial purity. Yet, despite the ugliness of its racial politics, Birth is celebrated by film historians for its cinematic beauty, which is an outstanding and remarkable achievement of technology and scale. It is arguably the first blockbuster movie ever made and, as I suggest in ‘Re-Reading Birth of a Nation: European Contexts and the War Film,’ is also an early example of the ‘war film’ (Wright 2019).The power of the text lies in its ability to entice audiences to identify with its characters, even if they might not agree with the ideological beliefs proffered by them in the text. As McEwan argues, ‘If The Birth of a Nation had been a poorly made film that valorised the Klan, it would have been quickly forgotten and perhaps lost – at best it would be a minor historical curiosity’ (2015, pp. 9–10).The endurance of this film comes not from its stance on race and segregation nor its dark vision of American society but from a future shaped by Aryan principles. It is remembered, and returned to, by film scholars because it ‘created a narrative structure and form recognisable in nearly every other historical epoch that Hollywood has produced since’ (McEwan 2015, p. 12). So, on the surface it might seem easier or more politically correct, to consign this film to the deepest recesses of cinematic memory. However, The Birth of a Nation tells students not just about how cinema has developed technologically, or about how the medium has grown in social and cultural significance over more than a century, but about what cinema can actually do and the role of the visceral in the experiential analysis of film spectatorship. This way of viewing is of particular relevance to the ways in which students of film and culture engage with this film as an important historical artefact and moment with the history of American cinema. In many respects, Django Unchained (also a highly controversial film with a degree of notoriety) takes its cue from a variety of cultural and cinematic reference points. It may be categorised as a Spaghetti Western, a comedy, an action movie,

Teaching race in film  15

and a Blaxploitation film. Its transgeneric intertextuality is seemingly boundless. The film confronts contentious issues around race, nation, and gender and the continued effects of slavery in the crisis of race relations in America today. Critical opinion from film critics to cinema scholars is divided. Some claim Django Unchained ‘successfully and accurately depicted antebellum slavery in the United States’ (Bount et al. 2015, p. 1). Others claim that Quentin Tarantino ‘unwittingly undermines his own pretensions to social consciousness, producing instead a film that reproduces the ignorance, strategies of silence, and White guilt surrounding America’s ongoing history of slavery and racism’ (Dunham 2016, p. 1). Either way, I argue that Django owes a legacy to Birth of a Nation, and this is made explicit at various points in the text where the director uses parody and humour, drawing directly on some of Birth’s key tropes. Whatever Tarantino’s intentions, the challenging racial visions of the films from which Django borrows, this is an important film, desperately in need of study and a relevant complimentary case worthy of study alongside The Birth of a Nation. The genesis of this chapter emerges from an ongoing interest in early cinema and in particular The Birth of a Nation. In 2019, I published a journal article that set out to explore the reception of this notoriously problematic film in various national contexts. My focus was France and Britain, and I argued that the audience responses spoke to ‘the cultural significance this film would have had in Europe at that time.’ Indeed, this cultural impact was framed around discourses of race, ethnicity, region, and nationalism in the film [which was] translated into these social, cultural, political European national contexts, and in particular reflected contemporary concerns around structural divisions in society, the shaping of social hierarchies, and the search for a coherent national identity. (Wright 2019, p. 36) The conclusions in that article form the basis for the further discussion I want to explore in this chapter, which is about the dynamics that shape the ways in which spectators in a contemporary educational context might receive this text and what pedagogical issues this study might raise. I identified three key factors that require attention when engaging students with this film. Firstly, as explained above, the question of the film’s production values, the aesthetics and ‘gravitas’ of the film are relevant, despite the technological advances in cinema over the past one hundred and five years. Secondly, the film’s racial ideologies and politics of representation are central to the film’s central message and require exploration.Thirdly, the context of exhibition is significant. Teaching Birth requires careful consideration of how spectators might have experienced the first and second factors. The Birth of a Nation is an adaption of Thomas Dixon Jr.’s novel ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ (1905). Dixon was a writer, politician and, most significantly, an American white supremacist. It is alleged that both his father and his uncle on his mother’s side were members of the Ku Klux Klan in the mid-1800s. The film’s screenplay was co-written by the director Griffith, an iconic

16  Jonathan Wright

filmmaker of his generation. For reasons this chapter explores, Birth is arguably the film for which Griffith is most well-known and remembered. The release of Birth in cinemas across the US brought with it public protests from National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other political organisations deeply concerned by the racist imagery and narrative, by the glorification of the Ku Klux Klan, and by the crude distortion of the way African American communities were portrayed. This film was seen as a potential recruiting tool for racist, white supremacists in the US (Stokes 2007). However, the reception of this film in France and Britain was far more varied. Initially, France banned the film and then allowed its release subject to cuts, then banned it again following public order concerns. In Britain, Birth was released uncensored. However, what was most interesting was how in both contexts, despite the highly problematic images of race in the film and the crude stereotyping, the film’s critical responses were largely universally positive. Jean de Mirbel applauded Birth in Cinemagazine as portraying ‘scrupulously exact reconstructions of numerous historical events’ (cited in Stokes 2010, p. 23). The extravagance and spectacularism of the battle scenes and the outstanding performances of Lilian Gish (as Elsie Stoneman) were oft cited by critics. In Britain, the film toured the country from London to Southampton, then from Bristol to Portsmouth (Stokes 2007). The fact that the intertitles bore Griffith’s name added a form of verisimilitude to the film and historical weight: ‘The overall success of the film was related two main factors: the artistic achievements of the film in terms of its scale of production and technological proficiency, and the seriousness of the content and tone’ (Wright 2019, p. 39). As Hammond (1999) argues in his work on how this film was received in Britain, the narratives of redemption and hope for rebirth would have resonated with British audiences, scarred by the experiences of the First World War and in search of a new and more just social order. For many audiences across Europe, this film was not just a text, it was a cultural event. However, what interested me most when writing this article was how the film – its story and narrative structure, its use of scale, composition, and editing – managed to illicit these positive responses? Or, as I put it in my article, ‘How could audiences (particularly in Britain) see past the issues of ‘race’ which seemed too prominent in […] the US?’ (2019, p. 42). These central questions of cultural diversity seemed to have been overlooked by audiences of the time.The explanation for this comes in part through a recognition of the need for a new interpretive framework that is based on not just historical evidence of the film’s initial reception but a paradigm driven by a close understanding of its politics of representation, as an early example of what we would now classify as the Hollywood ‘war’ movie. How did the elements and textual characteristics of film combine to construct an effect on the spectator, shaping points of identification and resonance? Drawing on the work of theorists such as Susan Sontag (1979), Lillie Chouliarki (2006), and Luc Boltanski (2005), I explored how cinema mediates student’s engagement with and understanding of war and the suffering it causes. Most audiences would not have experienced war first-hand, so cinema can teach spectators how to identify with

Teaching race in film  17

characters through a moral binary where good and evil are as distinctive and seemingly straightforward.This also involves the evocation of pity and empathy. Cinema inevitably shrinks what is being portrayed and can make knowable experience seem finite. Simultaneously, it can also magnify and spectacularise history. Evidence of audience reception when Birth was first released suggests that audiences were shocked into submission through Griffith’s effective use of cinematic technique, which bombarded the senses. Did this emotional response effect viewers’ capacity to critically engage? Did the spectacularisation of the film, which reinforced a powerful nationalist Aryan myth of cultural and racial purity, serve on some level to validate, or even mask the insidiousness of its racial ideologies? In terms of its theoretical foundation, the approach taken in this chapter to these two films is informed through two interrelated paradigms: Critical Race Film Theory and Critical Pedagogy. Critical Race Theory derives from a constructivist approach to identity. Flynn and Wright (2017) have argued that identity sits at the intersection between study of media and cultural institutions (material culture) and the study of representation, language and the production of meaning in texts.The creation of ‘identity’ can be theorised through the self ’s relation to culture and society and the (abstract) discourses/set of meanings attached to the body of ‘self. (p. 8) Identity, therefore, is a process. It cannot be ‘captured’ and ‘defined,’ it is not static (fixed) but is shaped through the individual’s complex and changeable relationship with material society and cultural discourse(s). When approaching the concept of ‘race,’ it is also seen largely as a discursive construct. Race is a process of constructing (and thus naming) a social group through appearance (and skin colour) and attaching that outward appearance with various cultural/social/economic characteristics. These characteristics are then reduced into oversimplifications, which serve, through exaggeration, to magnify these (often negative) traits, which then universalises those features to all within the category. These stereotypes are given currency through the way they are repeated and circulated across various mediums. Stereotypes position racialised subjects within social, cultural, and economic systems. Stereotyping is linked to power, and, as Dyer (2011) explains, stereotyping is about the exercising of power over the powerless. Examining the representations of race in the media, Hall (1997) argues that the roles in which ethnic minorities have been depicted have been stereotypical which ‘reduces, essentializes, naturalises and fixes difference’ (p. 257). Critical Race Film Theory emerged in the 1970s through an engagement with the politics of racial stereotyping. It is a form of direct political action designed to change racist social practices and alter public perceptions of the racialised group. This has necessitated an interdisciplinary approach that attempts to examine the relationship between race, racism, and power, whereby racism is recognised as an ideological function, socially constructed but often normalised and left uninterrogated. Critical Race Film Studies analyses ‘how cinema communicates

18  Jonathan Wright

racist values to individual spectators and society at large […] apply critical theory to explain how the medium carries racist ideology’ (Sim 2014, p. 2). Sim also argues that certain Critical Race theorists privilege the ‘black voice’ in terms of articulating issues around race and identity, and this centres on an examination of ideology, discourse, and identity. This school of analysis can be divided into two main strands. On the one hand, the ‘Idealists’ see race and discrimination as matters of thinking, cultural categorisations formed through attitudes and discourses. Idealists focus on the more abstract, linguistic components of racial representation.Therefore, the idea of the unified social subjective is an illusion. People’s identities are fragmented, ideological constructions. Their identities take form in discourses and exist only in these formations. People act out cultural scripts which are framed through discourse. On the other hand, the ‘Realist’ Critical Race Film theorists suggest that race and discrimination are determined by material and economic circumstances and social and cultural frameworks. Some theorists privilege questions of class in the defining of race and structures of racism. Identities take form in discourses and exist only in these formations. People act out cultural scripts which are framed through discourse. This presents ‘Critical Race Film theory’ as a splintered movement frame through realist and idealist trajectories which sometimes overlook the contradictions in identity politics. In practice, however, this take on Critical Race Film Theory is aligned with inclusive pedagogic strategies. These strategies refer to ways of thinking about teaching that are resistance to a top-down approach, which assumes teachers and students are locked into a regimented hierarchy which cannot be challenged. The Brazilian theorist Paulo Freire first coined the term ‘banking model of education’ in the 1970s. He used this term in order to develop our understanding of this hierarchal paradigm. Freire described his ideas as follows: In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. … The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. (1970, p. 58) Inclusive pedagogy is a critique of the ‘banking approach’ to education, which is designed to foster a more collaborative approach to teaching which connects with the student experiences of world and shows a greater awareness of how teaching and learning are shaped by the cultural and material social environments of the educational settings. In the short film ‘Why Critical Pedagogy?’ produced by The Paolo and Nita Freire Project for Critical Pedagogy, the educationalist Joe L. Kincheloe argues that ‘Critical pedagogy is basically, the study of oppression in education, the study of how issues of race, bias, gender, sexuality and colonialism will shape the nature of what goes on in education and shape the purpose of

Teaching race in film  19

education.’1 The principles of Critical Pedagogy derive from the belief that the act of teaching constitutes a political act. Education is designed to promote social and cultural change which leads to the dissolution of hierarchies that sustain and reinforce systems of oppression and exploitation. The film ‘Critical Pedagogy’ works towards the promotion of self-awareness and a criticality of the status quo. As Henry A. Giroux states in the film: ‘People need to recognise that learning is fundamental to the question of agency and agency is fundamental to the question of politics. And I think that if people make those connections then critical pedagogy will become central in any field.’2 Therefore, Critical Pedagogy is closely aligned with forms of critical media literacy, teaching students how to deconstruct the text, determine ideological position(s), and break down discursive frameworks. For this reason, Critical Pedagogy is an important tool to identify, explore, and challenge the structures of racism found within media texts, a preoccupation at the heart of ‘Critical Race Film Studies.’ However, this still leaves the question of how students should go about executing such an examination of films like The Birth of a Nation and Django Unchained. Notions of self-awareness, self-reflection, and criticality embedded in ‘Critical Pedagogy’ can be articulated through the term ‘Positionality.’ This term describes the ways in which researchers, teachers, and students recognise that their cultural identity can be understood through a set of relationships with other’s identities. Individuals are positioned socially, culturally, and politically.We are both individuals and part of community and societal organisations (Coghlan and Brydon-Miller 2014). This means that we need to be aware of the impact we have on others (and in the case of the student, the ways in which the researcher might affect or change the subject of research). So, the concept of ‘Positionality’ is also about the exercising of power and control and being aware of how these relationships function. ‘Positionality’ is also an especially powerful tool, as England (1994) mentions in her critique of reflexivity and Feminist research, because it challenges the myth that research (and indeed any educational engagement) can be objective and neutral in that ‘positivist’ sense. Central to this concept is notion of self-reflexivity. We need to ask:What cultural baggage do we carry around that impacts on how we interact and relate to others? Positionality is thus aligned to the concept of ‘Intersectionality,’ a critical position that encourages us to consider how the various categories of identity that compose our sense of ‘self ’ overlap and are in dialogue. The relationships between these categories are structured within systems of power that facilitate discrimination and disadvantages. By combining Positionality and ideas around Intersectionality, this discussion seeks to help students understand how structures, such as ‘institutional racism,’ are normalised and sustained and from understanding can come the power to challenge and change. Indeed, Harris’ and Patton (2019) and Lutz’s (2015) recent research on intersectionality suggests that intersectionality is a way of interrogating social inequalities and can enhance transformative social justice. These pedagogical principles are the driving force behind the analysis and questions posed in the next two sections, which discuss in more detail my two case studies.

20  Jonathan Wright

Birth of a nation and the importance of positionality The plot of Birth of a Nation is divided into two parts: the ‘Civil War of the United States’ and ‘Reconstruction.’  The first part follows the exploits of two families. Each family is on opposing sides of the conflict: The Northern Stonemans are abolitionists and the Camerons represent the old South. The film’s plot involves two sons, one from each family falling in love with the other’s sister.When the time comes, the young men of both the Cameron and Stoneman families enlist in their relative armies, brothers pitted against brothers. Both families suffer losses. Despite his heroic deeds, the younger Cameron son, Ben, is injured in battle and captured by the Northern army. Sentenced to be hanged, President Abraham Lincoln is persuaded to issue Cameron with a pardon. However, with Lincoln’s assassination comes a resurgence from the Radical Republicans leading to punitive measures against the South. The repercussions are the foundation of the film’s claim and the justification of its distortion of American History. After the intermission, the second half of the film dramatised the consequences of the North’s victory in the American Civil War and maps the Reconstruction era’s new order. The text shows, through the election of a mainly Black legislature, a picture of voter corruption and White suppression. Crude stereotypes regarding enslaved people depict them as lazy, heaving drinking, fried chicken eating degenerates, reducing them to some of the most dangerous and pernicious caricatures within African American racist lexicon.Thus, set against this background the Ku Klux Klan is born, formed by Ben Cameron. After watching his sister Flora leap to her death from a cliff after being pursued by a Black soldier, he and the Klan track him down and lynch him. On hearing of this murder, the Black lieutenant governor of the state of South Carolina, Silas Lynch, outlaws the Klan, which leads to the arrest of Ben’s father Cameron, who is found in possession of Klan clothing. Cameron’s escape from incarceration leads him to sanctuary in the company of former Union soldiers. After Governor Lynch tries to force Elsie Stoneman (the daughter of now Congressman Stoneman) to marry him, the Klan campaign to free her from this obligation and his clutches. They capture Lynch, and then ride victoriously through the streets, with Cameron as their head. When the next election comes, the film depicts armed Klansmen intimidating Black voters to not cast their ballot. The film ends with the weddings of the two brothers, Stoneman and Cameron, marrying each other’s sister. The closing scene frames an image of Jesus Christ (symbolically watching over the loving couples). Drawing on these issues, my concerns, when teaching Birth from a reception studies stance fall under the following headings. It is necessary to consider the textual impact and ways in students engaged in processes of identification with ideas and people with the text. The importance of the context (of both exhibition and reading) also requires extensive discussion with students to help them consider how they engage with the film. In terms of impact, Birth is a film that may seem strange to audiences today. Therefore, when teaching this text, instructors may begin with the historical context to the teaching of this historic and historical film. This text may be of interest and necessity of film and media students both within the US and beyond, so some explanation and background material around what

Teaching race in film  21

exactly is meant by the Reconstruction period and the nature of the American Civil War would add context. It should also be emphasised that this film had an enormous impact on audiences at the time, it is Griffith’s most well-known film and is an important part of American cinema history. Birth is a reimagining, a specific ideological exercise on the part of both Dixon-Green and Griffith, about the past to make a comment on aspects of both film’s present and ours. This makes clearer the purpose of some of the more uncomfortable and problematic scenes and agents/characters featured in the text and helps explain some of the apparent strangeness when first encountering the text. From the literature produced by those who have tried to teach this film in the past, the greatest concern is contextualisation. To many, Birth has a problematic notoriety. McEwan, in his article about how to teach Birth, recalls how one African American student asked, ‘Why do we have to watch a Klan recruiting film in this class?’ (2007, p. 98). Therefore, before any kind of student engagement begins, it would be necessary to frame the teaching session around what viewers bring to that text, to reflect on their assumptions: What do they imagine this film to be? Indeed, instructors would need to consider how the film speaks to students from a range of social, cultural, and racial backgrounds. Whilst the text might present itself to some students as a representation for a particular moment in film history – perhaps divorced from the present due to the ‘crude’ methods by which race is portrayed – it is necessary to be mindful of how these images may shock and disturb some students. This reflects the awareness of the broader context of the learning experience discussed by those engaged in Critical Pedagogy. This discussion may, inevitably, form a large part of their response and so a clear moment of critical reflection seems a necessary first step. As the educational scholar Alison Cook-Sather argues, educators need to create ‘brave spaces’ where ‘those who enter the space have the courage to face that danger and to take risks because they know they will be taken care of – that painful or difficult experiences will be acknowledged and supported, not avoided or eliminated’ (2016, p. 2). This is a delicate and time-consuming process. However, it is essential to provide an appropriate framework for discussion of both student and educator positionality.There needs to be space for the group to explore the individual experiences they bring to an engagement with a text like Birth, which tackles difficult and personal issues.Therefore, it will be important to stress the pedagogical exercise in hand: To consider the relationship between this film’s narrative structure and aesthetic and the extent to which these representational strategies might resonate with students’ more recent experiences of racial representation. Conversely, there may also be some students who will have little or no prior knowledge of the film.Their engagement with Birth may derive from a different set of indices.The use of accompanying music and lack of spoken dialogue, the use and language of the captions that drive the narrative, all serves to make strange the early cinema medium. The sheer length of the film’s running time may well require a good deal of effort and patience on the part of the viewer. A thorough consideration of these factors is important in order for the students to make connections between past and present racial imagery. Questions about the historical specificity of the racial constructs found in Birth of a Nation and the way contemporary audiences might understand this film

22  Jonathan Wright

are part of a single conversation. This is the central topic when teaching the film. The main questions would be: How does this film provide us with a way of understanding contemporary representations of ‘race’ to today’s audiences? The first issue therefore would be the experience contemporary spectators have with the text. Dyer’s work is of particular use here. He describes how the Birth ‘enacts’ identity, and how ‘race [is] performance and mask […] not a given of the body’ (2013, p. 161). By this he means that the film parodies the racial body: It ‘nominates’ characters even though it is apparent that the African Americans characters in the film are played by White actors in black face (minstrelsy). As I have argued: ‘The verisimilitude of the representation was not an issue. Black figures are predominantly symbolic (rather than mimetic portrayals) in this film’ (Wright 2019, p. 41). Therefore, the world Griffith depicted may well appear alien to contemporary audiences, yet many of the symbols and icons within this film’s racial lexicon are still current in today’s portrayal of ‘race’ and ethnicity. The relevance of this text in the current social and political context of the twenty-first century centres around the ethics of spectatorship. How do students understand this text? With whom do viewers of this film identify? Why and how do students empathise? How does these representations of modern society from the past connect to a vision of present? What, if anything, does this film have to tell us about today’s multiracial world? In terms of exhibition and relevance, Birth of a Nation represents a significant contribution to the history of modern cinema. Therefore, teaching about the film would need to take account of the range of responses to the film in different national and racial contexts at the time of its release. It is important to contextualise this film in relation to contemporary images of enslavement and America in the mid-nineteenth century (12 Years A Slave, Django Unchained, etc.) to consider what this film has to say about the way in which war can be seen to forge national identity.This is where the online environment and availability of this film in various formats are significant. Whilst online and on-demand access increases awareness of this film, there are limitations to the online experience.The scale of the production, the fact that the film was designed to be shown in a theatre with a large screen is lost in the online environment. Therefore, the notion of Positionality seems central to teachers’ concerns when tackling and teaching The Birth of a Nation because of the necessity for students to reflect on the cultural baggage they bring to the text and need for an awareness of how this film would have been received at the time of its release. This historical artefact requires contextualisation in order to be understood.

Django Unchained and the modern spectator In this section, I consider how some of the symbols of race and the depiction of the Ku Klux Klan have been reinvented in contemporary Hollywood filmmaking.

Teaching race in film  23

The controversy around the film Django Unchained may be understood in relation to the cultural icon behind the project. Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino is known for his reputation to parody and pastiche from a plethora of cinematic references. A notorious controversialist, he is best known for his extreme violence and appropriation of problematic subjects. He made his name with the film Reservoir Dogs (1992). An intensely violent film and brutal heist movie, this film borrows dialogue and plot devices from numerous forms of popular culture. This film was followed by Pulp Fiction (1994). This gangster-based drama was described as ‘one of the most complex and intelligent crime films ever made, which teeters on the edge of parody one moment, only to swing back to vicious reality the next’ (Dixon and Foster 2013, pp. 373–374). Jackie Brown (1997) was Tarantino’s most notable homage to Blaxploitation films, a slow burning and more cerebral film than his previous productions. Some years later Tarantino returns with Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004). These transgeneric-referential action films pay homage to the Kung Fu genre and various revenge dramas. In 2009, he took on the Second World War as a topic, in the ambitious Inglorious Basterds, which featured­ his signature excessive violence and complex storytelling. Then he made Django Unchained (2012), possibly the most controversial film in the Tarantino canon, and in part, a parody of possibly one of the most controversial films ever made. Django Unchained is set in 1858 and in Texas. A young enslaved man named Django is travelling by foot in shackles with other enslaved people, to a new enslaver. Dr. King Shultz is a dentist and a bounty hunter. He has heard of Django because of what the enslaved man knows about three outlaw brothers named ‘Brittle.’ They have a bounty on their head (dead or alive). After buying Django from his enslavers together they track down the Brittles as employees of Spencer ‘Big Daddy’ Bennett’s Plantation, where all three brothers are executed by Shultz. Furious, Bennett gathers a Ku Kux Klan troupe to kill Django and Shultz whilst they sleep. This scene, a direct pastiche from The Birth of a Nation, attempts to belittle the Klan through humour and irony. After the Klan’s failed attach, Django and Shultz form a pact which includes helping Django rescue his wife Broomhilda, from whom he was cruelly separated some years before. The learn that her new enslaver is a man named Calvin J. Candie, a ‘Mandingo’3 trainer and trader. Shultz and Django hatch a plan to meet Mr. Candie, who invites them both to his home in Candyland. Django and Broomhilda meet in secret to hatch a plan to free her, but Stephen, the most senior member of the enslaved working in the house foils plan. This leads to the killings of both Mr. Candie by Dr. Shultz and the eventual capture of Django, who is tortured and nearly castrated before being sent to ‘LeQuint Dickey Mining Company’ to be worked to death. However, on route Django manages to trick his captors into releasing him. He returns to Candyland and rescues Broomhilda, before taking his revenge on the Candie family. Together they ride off into the sunset, towards a free future. The question of identification seems to be paramount in an understanding of how students would engage with this film. As with Birth, an awareness of one’s positionality helps structure that process, but it is important to note that unlike Birth and its attempts to ‘enact’ identity, Django deploys a more mimetic approach

24  Jonathan Wright

to the representation of ‘race.’ Whilst both texts play with stereotypes, one could argue that Tarantino’s attempt is more conscious and potentially critical of the traditional African American icons of Hollywood cinema history.Therefore, I want to think about the process of student identification through an examination of three key characters. Stephen is described as Mr. Candie’s ‘house negro.’ He is an exaggerated Uncle Tom stereotype in that he is both submissive to, and active complicit in, both his own enslavement and the enslavement of others. Described as possibly the most problematic of racial stereotypes (Dunham 2016; Massood 2019), Stephen is both manipulative and ultimately self-serving in his attempts to protect the status quo and his own elevated position with the racial hierarchy of inequalities. His acquiescence is bound to his ultimate loyalty to his enslaver and the sacrifices he is willing others to undertake for the benefit of the plantation and Mr. Candie. However, there is potential disruption in this character and the way he is characterised. Stephen’s dialogue excessively uses the ‘n-word’ and other expletives. This could be seen as parody. The overmagnification of the stereotype can be seen as a subversive deconstruction of the Uncle Tom figure. This character has the potential to either reinforce or destabilise this system of racial representation in which he exists, and this requires careful reflection when discussing questions of identification and an awareness of the how the language in the film might be trying to establish some sense of historical authenticity. Dr. Shultz is arguably the conscience of the movie. He is the most important White character of the film. He is ambiguous. On one level, he is an outsider within the US social context, a European with a strong German accent on some level he is clearly opposed to the idea of American enslavement (and can be seen to be separate from the systems of racial inequality).Yet, at the same time he is also (cynically) an exploiter of slavery, should that system benefit him in his aims as a bounty hunter. Nevertheless, he is redeemed somewhat in the scene where he humiliates and defeats the Ku Klux Klan’s attempt to kill him and Django, in the Birth appropriated Klan ride scene (Massood 2019). Thus, Shultz’s character is inextricably bound to how the viewers perceive Django, as Shultz, in his purchase, and later freeing of Django, is the first character to provide him with a voice. Django is then unchained by his survival instinct to pursue deeper principles or revenge and rescue. In this journey he shifts from victim, to mentee, to liberator. We could argue that this remarkable narrative of transformation creates Django as an icon, a hero for all (Bount et al. 2015). However, as with the question of Stephen’s dialogue, where the authenticity of the character could be to some degree defined by his use of racist language, Django’s idealised representation (his revenge as an homage to Blaxploitation films) begs the question: Could this be seen as the director’s attempt to displace historical accuracy in order to represent empowerment? The film’s production and textual impact relies heavily on Tarantino’s aesthetics of violence. As a director, he is very well known for his over-the-top style when it comes to action. However, there are certain aspects of the way in which violence is portrayed that would inform how students would engage in the textual aesthetics of the film in terms of its impact and verisimilitude. The dayglow red blood used

Teaching race in film  25

in the scenes after Shultz is murdered is exaggerated.These images are accompanied with overly amplified sounds: bodies exploding and fluids spilling, plus distinctive snippets of comedic dialogue. Given the parodical nature of this film, the comic book violence could be seen to desensitise audiences. Indeed, this aesthetic is contrasted by other scenes of violence which are less graphic and more implicit. In particular, there is a moment when a Mandingo fighter on the plantation, who is reluctant to fight, is literally torn to shreds by a pack of blood thirsty dogs. The use of blood and special effects is displaced by the way we witness the responses to those who see what we cannot. Whilst Django’s characterisation and production values provide us with insight into how spectators are affected by the film, the text’s reception and experience of exhibition is largely shaped by its transgeneric characteristics. It is a Blaxploitation film (using violence and humour), and it deploys Western iconology. It is also a Spaghetti Western which references to the cult film Django [Sergio Corbucci, 1966]). Following this examination, central questions raised would be: Does the excessive use of the n-word follow ‘historical accuracy,’ or is it an indication of a disrespect for the material (and the contemporary impact of this term)? As with the creation of brave spaces cited in relation to Birth, the group would need to challenge and assess the impact of this term, its usage in different contexts and its racist legacy. In terms of style, this transgeneric production is part of the Tarantino brand, he shocks and provokes. But this does beg the question: Is it appropriate for this White director to attempt to portray Black experiences in this way? Is this his story to tell? Is this film – and its representations – sympathetic towards the victims of slavery? Is the story of enslavement universal, a quintessential American story?

Conclusion This chapter has explored the ways in The Birth of a Nation and Django Unchained have presented the spectator with characters, textual aesthetics, and contexts of production. This piece has also explored the ways in which Critical Race Film Theory and Critical Pedagogy are useful paradigms for Higher Education film instructors because they provide the necessary tools to create spaces in which students can reflect on their own positionality. Students and educators should consider the codes and conventions deployed to construct ‘race’ in cinema. The chapter raised questions around processes of identification with those on screen, and the importance of context, contextualisation, and the experiences of engaging with cinema. From these debates, the chapter explored the ways in which cinema can be used to both reaffirm racist imagery and to interrogate racial representations and challenge preconceptions. The fact that these texts are more readily available (and the provision of online material to support student learning on these films) is an asset when teaching Birth and Django. It also complicates the experience of these films, both of which were produced to be watched in a context where the spectacular nature of the texts is most effective.Whilst these films present challenges for both teachers and students, this chapter has argued that due to the controversial natures of both these films and their spectacularised uses of the medium, these

26  Jonathan Wright

popular culture texts provide a rich and invigorating context in which to explore questions around ‘race’ and culture identity in a teaching and learning environment.

Notes 1 See: ‘Why Critical Pedagogy?,’ 0.30 min 2 See: ‘Why Critical Pedagogy?,’ 1.00 min 3 The term Mandingo refers to a slave who is forced to fight other slaves, often to death, for the sport of their White enslavers.

References Boltanski, L. (2005) Distant Suffering: Morality, Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bount, D, Brown, M. and Selvey, A. (2015) ‘Reviewing the Critical Conversation about Django Unchained.’ Digital Literature Review 2(1), pp. 7–14. Coghlan, D. and Brydon-Miller, M. (2014) The SAGE Encyclopaedia of Action Research. Los Angeles/London/New Delhi: Sage Reference. Cook-Sather,A. (2016) ‘Creating Brave Spaces within and through Student-Faculty Pedagogical Partnerships.’ Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education (18), pp. 1–5. Available from: http://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss18/1 [Accessed 2 January 2021]. Dixon, W. W. and Foster, G. A. (2013) A Short History of Film. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP. Dunham, J. (2016) ‘The Subject Effaced: Identity and Race in Django Unchained.’ Journal of Black Studies 47(5), pp. 402–422. Dyer, R. (2011) ‘Stereotyping,’ in M.G. Durham and D.M. Kellner (eds.), Media and Cultural Studies: Key Works. Oxford and Carlton: Blackwell. Dyer, R. (2013) Matter of Images: Essays on Representation. Florence: Taylor & Francis. England, KimV. L. (1994) ‘Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research.’ The Professional Geographer 46(1), pp. 80–89. Flynn, S. and Wright, J. (2017) ‘“Introduction: Troubled Identity and the Continuing Relevance of Cultural Studies” in Flynn, S and Wright, J. (eds) “Special Issue on Troubled Identity and the Continuing Relevance of Cultural Studies”.’ The Apollonian 4(3), pp. 1–10. Freire, P. (2006 [1970]) ‘The Banking Model of Education,’ in E. F. Provenzo (ed.), Critical Issues in Education: An Anthology of Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Hall, S. (1997) ‘The Spectacle of the “other”,’ in S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London/Thousand Oaks, CA/New Delhi: Sage. Hammond, M. (1999) ‘A Soul Stirring Appeal to Every Briton’: The Reception of The Birth of a Nation in Britain (1915–16).’ Film History 11 (3), 353–370. Harris, J. C. and Patton, L. D. (2019) ‘Un/Doing Intersectionality through Higher Education Research.’ The Journal of Higher Education 90(3), pp. 347–372. Lutz, H. (2015) ‘Intersectionality as Method.’ DiGeSt: Journal of Diversity and Gender Studies 2(1–2), pp. 39–44. Massood, P. (2019) ‘Something Else Besides a Western Django Unchained’s Generic Miscegenations,’ in M. T. Martin (ed.), The Birth of a Nation: The Cinematic Past in the Present. Indianapolis: The University of Indiana.

Teaching race in film  27 McEwan, P. (2007) ‘Racist Film: Teaching Birth of a Nation.’ Cinema Journal 47(1), pp. 98–101. McEwan, P. (2015) The Birth of a Nation (BFI Film Classics). London: BFI Publishing. Rampell, E. (2015, 3 March) ‘The Birth of a Nation: The Most Racist Film Ever Made.’ Washington Post. Available from https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/ wp/2015/03/03/the-birth-of-a-nation/ [Accessed 13 November 2020]. Sim, G. (2014) The Subject of Film and Race: Retheorizing Politics, Ideology and Cinema. New York: Bloomsbury. Sontag, S. (1979) On Photography. London: Penguin. Stokes, M. (2007) D. W, Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation: A History of “The Most Controversial Motion Picture of All Time”. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stokes, M. (2010) ‘Race, Politics, and Censorship: D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation” in France, 1916–1923.’ Cinema Journal 50(1), pp. 19–38. Wright, J. (2019) ‘Re-Reading Birth of a Nation: European Contexts and the War Film.’ Black Camera: An International Film Journal 10(2), pp. 36–51.

Screenography Django Unchained (2012) [DVD] Quentin Tarantino. USA Band Apart/Colombia Pictures. The Birth of a Nation (1915) [On-line] G. W. Griffith. US. David W. Griffith Corp [Accessed 23 November 2020]. Why Critical Pedagogy? (2013) [On-line] The Paolo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy, UK. Peter Lang Publishing [Accessed 23 November 2020].

Chapter 2

Narratives of institutional racism and social critique in contemporary UK television drama Teresa Forde

This chapter explores the ways in which British television offers an opportunity for dialogue regarding critical pedagogy and Critical Race Theory (CRT). The focus on critical pedagogy emerges from working within Higher Education and considering the changes and challenges to curriculum development. The focus of the chapter is on the ways in which CRT can be explored in terms of teaching television studies and the extent to which these fissures are explored and deconstructed via critical pedagogy. It also reflects upon the purpose of studying television as a representative of popular culture and the role of public service broadcasting in establishing and circulating social discourse.

Critical Race Theory and critical pedagogy Critical pedagogy, in relation to television studies, seeks to interrogate accepted norms and interpretations within society and culture by exploring the assumptions that are made or being challenged within television programmes and series. In consideration of television drama, there is a need to explore the production context, the depiction of characters, and the wider role of broadcasting in the representation of challenging voices. CRT has become a prominent aspect of critical pedagogy which is debated within the education sector. As Hylton (2012) recognises, in contrast to the development of CRT within the USA: ‘Many of these studies have engaged with education policy and practice and it is reasonable to argue that it was here rather than the legal profession where the original site of struggle for CRT in the UK began’ (Hylton, p. 25). Currently, educational policy has been challenged by CRT, which highlights the ways in which the concept of systemic racism is both recognised and criticised. In addition to the consideration of what to study, it is important to consider how to study it. This is something that I have been working on in terms of asking students to respond to specific texts that are at the least open and interpretable or that provide a particular ideological perspective. This approach is also significant if there are a number of programmes approaching an issue in different ways which encourages a dialogue between those texts. As students may be reticent to voice their own views, they can draw upon these examples to explore a number of issues. Lauren Clark identifies that intrinsic to the pedagogic project are the possibilities DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-3

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of ‘engaging students in critical dialogue about what they are learning, how it connects with their lived experience, and how they can challenge taken for granted assumptions about knowledge and society’ (Clark, 2018). Equally, Clark considers the function of the lecture as an avenue of critical pedagogy in which there can be a critical engagement with material, particularly if it is not a traditional, onedirectional approach of delivery. Also, the value of small group work is essential in order to enable the greatest number of people to take part. In relation to television studies, it is also crucial that material is viewed and discussed in relation to critical discourse and CRT in order to consider the ways in which these stories are conveyed as an articulation of the tenets of public service broadcasting in the UK. The approach to critical pedagogy has partially developed from the influence of the work of Paolo Freire in the approach to education as a vehicle for social justice. This term has been traditionally associated with class but has become broadened to encompass justice in terms of race, gender, disability, and other markers of difference that experience injustice, prejudice, and discrimination. As such, education becomes one of the ways in which these issues can be addressed. As Shih recognises, drawing on the work of Freire requires teachers to treat learners as co-creators of knowledge. According to the problem-posing method, particular attention is drawn to the dialogue, in the course of which everyone can ask questions or express their views freely (Shih, 2018). Contemporary university education is at something of a crossroads with an increased influence of the concept of consumerism and market forces whilst simultaneously encouraging social values of equality, freedom, and social justice: Concerned also with the challenge of ‘authentic learning’ in the context of increasingly marketized forms of higher education, a new generation of theorists has developed Critical Pedagogy using pre-Freirean traditions of thought. The ‘Student as Producer’ movement […] has gained traction in some progressively inclined British universities. (Serrano, 2018, p. 10) The concept of   ‘student as producer’ can be fruitful in enabling students to develop coursework that is relevant to their interests and principles. Equally, the concept of ‘student as producer’ can be linked to a liberatory approach to education and, at the heart of this approach, is the distinction of the aim of social justice: Critical pedagogy, unlike dominant modes of teaching, insists that one of the fundamental tasks of educators is to make sure that the future points the way to a more socially just world, a world in which the discourses of critique and possibility in conjunction with the values of reason, freedom, and equality. (Giroux, 2010, p. 716) This approach can be clearly aligned with CRT and a recognition that ‘Education cannot be neutral’ (Giroux, 2010, p. 718) in that it will always address the learner in terms of a particular understanding of agency. In turn, this approach illustrated the extent to which CRT is redressing this situation.

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There is currently a debate regarding the role of CRT within British schools with elements of the UK government criticising what is seen as a biased approach which highlights the concept of ‘white privilege’ as the cornerstone of CRT theory and as symptomatic of a challenging, and potentially threatening, ideology. In considering this interpretation, Trilling asks: ‘Does the idea of “white privilege”, for instance, encourage people to think about racism as a social problem, or as a matter of individual conscience?’ (Trilling, 2020). Further, this emphasis upon individual responsibility reflects the way in which systemic racism becomes understood as a matter of solely individual responsibility, which can disengage people from the debate, rather than as a wider social issue that can be challenged. However, it can also be argued that ‘The notion that the personal, professional and political should be tied into methodological processes is one that supports a major thrust of enlightened meaningful critical research’ (Hylton, 2012, p. 38). One of the reasons for writing this chapter is to consider the relationship between the personal, professional, and political in order to establish the role of education as a vehicle for critical pedagogy. Critical Race Theory recognises systemic racism at the heart of social systems and hierarchies. However, to concur with Hylton: Intersectionality is one of the mechanisms used in CRT to emphasise that though the starting point for CRT is ‘race’ and racism there is no intention to lose sight of the complexities of the intersection of  ‘race’ with the constructed and identity related nature of other forms of oppression. (Hylton, 2012, p. 29) If we embrace the richness of intersectional thinking, there is less of a likelihood that the relationship between race, gender, and class will be avoided whilst still recognising the specificity of particular narratives and characters on screen. Malik considers the work of the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies and the ways in which ‘Stuart Hall’s work foregrounds the role of culture and cultural processes in determining how race is discursively constructed, so that ‘race’ is a ‘floating signifier’ whose meaning is never fixed’ (Malik, 2013, p. 191). Although Malik recognises that race is a signifier that can become institutionally anchored, this should not curtail its interpretations. Consequently, Malik argues that the ‘fixing’ of the process of racism can be contested because meaning is discursive and illustrates the arbitrary nature of social distinction based upon race. Three forms of counter-stories have been defined in terms of CRT: personal stories, other people’s stories or narratives, and composite stories. Merriweather Hunn refers to theoretical and cultural sensitivity as significant ways of ensuring that data and information are effectively interpreted. This distinction describes the capacity of individuals as members of socio historical communities to accurately read and interpret the meaning of informants…the idea of sensitivity to meanings embedded in narratives (Merriweather Hunn et al., 2006, p. 245).

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These dramas incorporate personal narratives, autobiography and biography into other peoples and characters’ stories and narratives. The dramas also work to represent experiences in terms of composite characters to a degree, which brings a richness to the dramas but also highlights the ways in which these distinctions seem to work as instigators rather than distinctive definitions.

Public service broadcasting and television drama Public service broadcasting (PSB) in Britain has an established tradition of education, information, and entertainment which was enshrined in the publicly funded broadcaster British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which was later joined by Independent Television (ITV) Network and Channel 4 (C4), two commercial stations adhering to a number of broadcasting principles. In addition, C4 has a remit to represent minorities in its programming. Public service broadcasting has similarities with Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the USA which receives public funding. Although the remit of PSB in the UK has changed emphasis since its initial inception in radio broadcasting in the 1920s, and through changes to the BBC as a corporation and the franchising of ITV, PSB is intended to represent the population of the UK and the BBC also has a social responsibility to achieve this aim as part of their broadcasting practice. PSB has also been criticised by the British Conservative government as it is funded by a compulsory public licence fee. The examples that will be considered in relation to a pedagogic project, CRT, and intersectionalism are all BBC co/productions: Sitting in Limbo; Steve McQueen’s anthology film series Small Axe, specifically Mangrove and Red, White and Blue; and Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You. In exploring these examples, it is assumed that ‘well-told stories describing the reality of black and brown lives can help readers bridge the gap between their worlds and those of others’ (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001, p. 41). These contemporary dramas illustrate the potential to ask questions and raise issues.Although my teaching has not engaged with these dramas specifically as yet, they identify the use of critical and realist texts within teaching television drama which are familiar to my syllabus. The title of this chapter refers to a comment piece in a UK newspaper which refers to the ‘people with normal, decent views’ (Pearson, 2020).The implication is that the BBC needs to appeal to these people, as a majority, in order to justify the licence fee.The article by Pearson also rejects the argument of systemic racism and is critical of the BBC diversity agenda.

Small Axe: police and justice The recognition of a system that is systematically discriminating based on race is also explored in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe film ‘Mangrove.’ This anthology of five pieces was screened on television in 2020 and considers a range of Black British experiences from the 1960s to the 1980s. McQueen seeks to celebrate Black British culture in these films as well as highlight racism, and ‘Mangrove’ illustrates the way in which institutional practices can become habitual and engrained. The story, which highlights police harassment, is based on a real-life court case in which the Black defendants were all acquitted.Two of the defendants

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decide to represent themselves in court and there is an underlying lack of respect for a legal system which upholds values that discriminate both ideologically and judicially as it prioritises the commendations received by police officers as part of their evidence. However, the jury are the arbiters of justice here and, even though a wholly Black jury is sought and rejected, on this landmark case the jurors decide on a verdict of not guilty.The Caribbean restaurant, the Mangrove, which stands at the centre of the narrative, is portrayed as a haven for the Windrush generation and their families as well as a place for activists to gather; it is consistently and violently raided by police and highlights the illegality of their case. McQueen’s ‘Mangrove’ also demonstrates an intention to reclaim what could be described as a hidden history in order to celebrate Black British culture, to explore a range of experiences and views, to recognise the power in collective action and to challenge the trope of victimhood. Small Axe also includes the episode ‘Red, White and Blue’ which depicts a Black man, Leroy Logan, who joins the police force after seeing his father assaulted by the police. His intention is to challenge the system from within, but he experiences racism from police colleagues within the Metropolitan Police and disapproval from his father. The narrative is based on a real person who eventually rose in the ranks to become a superintendent, although the drama does not focus on this part of the story. This scenario indicates the difficulty of trying to change and challenge the system from within and the need to be aware of co-option of any anti-racist agenda. This ambivalence of the role of storytelling and the focus on counter-narratives is reflected in the current desire to avoid only telling stories that depict issues such as slavery, however significant and relevant this might be.The argument here is that this is a particular set of narratives but not the only set of narratives. Therefore, widening representation and the types of stories told may in itself construe a form of counter-storytelling including voices that have not been heard. As Hylton (2012) argues, ‘Critical race theorists recognise that stories or discourses have been the privilege of those historically influential in knowledge generation and research. Counter-stories however, can present views rarely evidenced in social research (my emphasis)’ (p. 27). This approach to a broader representation of experiences is illustrated within Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology. McQueen’s intention is to portray stories that have not previously been represented on screen and to challenge and celebrate experiences and the possibility of social change. Also, director of 12 Years a Slave (2013), McQueen employs a counter-storytelling strategy to give voice to experiences that have been excluded. As McQueen argues, ‘These are the untold stories that make up our nation’ (Olusaga, 2020). The anthology focuses on Black British experiences. In doing so, he challenges what constitutes both the stories of a nation and the construction of nation itself. This recognition of stories of the nation seeks to counter the representation of experiences that exist on the margin and make them a central and recognised aspect of British identity. Although hidden histories and ‘forgotten’ or excluded stories need to be told, Hylton (2012) raises the issue of legitimacy and what we may identify as real challenge or change: ‘research on “race” and racism can perpetuate the status quo and cloud the landscape with spurious “experiences from the margins”’ (p. 27). However,

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McQueen intends to place these experiences centre stage and to emphasise this centrality in order to challenge the notion of marginality. What is most at stake is the notion of marginalised experiences which may be deemed to be ineffectual and counter-productive in exploring issues of systemic racism. McQueen’s films such as Mangrove and Red, White and Blue challenge the status quo by presenting the systems that are conduits for racism and therefore need to be changed themselves.The depiction of the Mangrove’s fight for justice and Leroy Logan’s early experiences within the police force offer stories that raise questions as well as answer them, place stories onto an agenda and implicitly ask the question ‘what has changed now?’ However, Leroy Logan, who is the main character depicted in Red, White and Blue, contextualises the notion of social progress in addressing racism within the police force and wider society: ‘It’s sad,’ he says. ‘I think, in terms of what’s happening to black officers and relations with communities, that we are back to where we were before all the changes that followed the Stephen Lawrence inquiry’ (Muir, 2020). This recognition can be reflected upon in light of both the text’s abrupt yet open ending of father and son seated at the table at the start and Leroy’s career and recent events regarding racism and the police within the UK and the USA.

Sitting in Limbo: the Windrush scandal and citizenship Another contemporary drama, Sitting in Limbo, explores the Windrush Scandal in which British citizens, who came to work in the UK from the late 1950s until the early 1970s, were asked to prove their citizenship decades later or be ‘sent home’ as part of an ill-conceived and underhanded form of ‘repatriation.’ These people travelled to the UK from Caribbean countries, which were part of the British Commonwealth, with the understanding that they were needed to support the post-war industry and the economy due to labour shortages. Windrush refers to one of the early ships bringing people to the UK. Upon arriving, many experienced racism and distrust. The trajectory of coming to Britain to fulfil many of the jobs to meet the labour shortage was also undertaken by many Irish people, hence the ‘No Blacks or Irish’ notices adorning some establishments and lodging houses at the time. Sitting in Limbo charts the developments in a high-profile case which was reported in the British press and illustrates the difficulty of proving one’s national identity and the right to live in your home. The drama, written by his brother Stephen S. Bryan, portrays Anthony Bryan’s experiences as he attempts to fight for his right to stay in the UK. It reveals the extent to which the system is fundamentally flawed because its legal premise repeatedly rejects Anthony’s hitherto automatic right to become a British subject when he arrived as an immigrant alongside his mother. The scandal, reported in 2017, revealed the number of people who had been wrongly detained or deported as a consequence of the Hostile Environment laws in 2012 which required these citizens to prove their residency or be labelled as illegal immigrants. A review finally recognised failings but offered little hope for the backlog of cases that were still in the system or any great sense of justice for those who have been wronged.

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The single drama follows a television tradition of exploring social justice. Anthony becomes a representative of many people of Caribbean descent who have been wrongly detained and deported. As Hylton (2012) argues, we need to be careful and mindful of storytelling strategies, even if they represent concerns about society. However, this is a significant purpose of such storytelling. Within this example, Anthony is a victim, but his position is as a British subject who has been wronged and the system is clearly flawed because, although he has lived in the UK since he was a child, the government rejects his right of citizenship and right of residency. His right to work is revoked; he is arrested and booked onto a plane to Jamaica, a country he has not been to since he was a child 50 years previously. The burden of proof to demonstrate that he should remain in the UK becomes emblematic of such rights being taken away. Anthony’s assertion is that it is his Britishness that made him stubborn and tenacious. As a child, Anthony Bryan did not receive the paperwork he would later be required to prove his identity, potentially erasing the rights that he had automatically gained because the Windrush generation were invited to come to Britain with their families and to work in the NHS and in industries that needed them. However ineffectual, the investigation did recognise a flawed system and an example of systemic racism.The drama depicts Anthony as responding in disbelief at the way he is treated yet having faith in the system that everything will work out, however traumatic it may be. Although Anthony has managed to remain in the UK, some people are still awaiting a decision and his own situation has not been completely resolved. Anthony’s experiences are portrayed as disturbing as he is pulled from his bed in a dawn raid. He had applied for a passport to visit his mother, a former British nurse, in Jamaica and been identified as an undocumented immigrant. He is taken to a detention centre and, despite other documents proving his identity, he is still held to be illegal. There is a sustained call to account for his identity and an identification with the bureaucratic nightmare of Anthony’s plight as, in spite of his family’s support, he is very isolated and alone. The attack on the relations of Windrush immigrants clearly denotes a demarcation of boundaries. As Chadderton argues: The cultural intelligibility of a subject as a citizen is discursively constituted by wider political and cultural regimes. The power of the nation state relies on the production of subjects who do not belong, subjects who are external to the borders it draws, in order to draw these borders in the first place.The state therefore produces both insiders and also outsiders. (Chadderton, 2018, p. 83) Therefore, in expressing a policy of hostile environment the government, via the Home Office, was articulating a specific intent to redefine British citizens as outsiders. This process is finally countered by Anthony who states that he is British although we can see the toll that these experiences have taken on him and his family and the extent to which he has been repeatedly asked to prove his identity. The enquiry highlights these issues and the extent to which there is pressure to produce results, which then leads to victimisation in the name of the law. In order

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to address this issue, it is clear that ‘(P)rofessional environments too, with their shroud of authenticity, must not remain uncritiqued either because they regularly remain uncontested due to their ability to self-perpetuate and validate such practices’ (Hylton, 2012, p. 27). This depiction of Anthony presents someone who has his family behind him although there have been many people who have been removed from the UK who have been in a precarious position with no family support.Anthony’s experience highlights the way in which discriminatory practices can become indiscriminatory in their impact. The focus is not purely on power relations but specifically on how racism functions and becomes a demarcator of difference and discrimination as well as the need to recognise and challenge this practice. Yet there is also the need to avoid ‘overgeneralisation and reductionism’ (Hylton, 2012, p. 29) meaning that these are specific events that need to be explored and examined in relation to how they illustrate underlying assumptions and systemic practices. Also, there is the need to recognise individual experiences and avoid making generalisations through the depiction of characters’ experiences in film and television. Although the account in Sitting in Limbo is semi-biographical, to a degree Anthony serves the function of a representative character who portrays a number of experiences shared by those in the Windrush Generation whose citizenship has been challenged in this manner, which is also a clear tradition within critical social drama. According to Hylton: As a result the use of ‘voicing,’ storytelling and counter-storytelling have become popular tools in the expression of a CRT standpoint. Critical race theorists recognise that stories or discourses have been the privilege of those historically influential in knowledge generation and research. Counter-stories however, can present views rarely evidenced in social research. (my emphasis) (Hylton, 2012, p. 4) The drama portrays one older fellow inmate in the detention centre who says that maybe he should give up and be sent to his place of birth and Anthony encourages him not to do so. Others detained in the centre cannot cope.The drama emphasises the way that this hostile environment began to be circulated in the press. When Anthony travels to and emerges from a detention centre for the first time he is geographically dislocated, having been taken to another part of the country and he looks out, bewildered and shaken by his detention. It is the system that has internalised this approach to race which means that decisions based on these same assumptions could be made again, raising questions about the further impact of a review regarding ‘lessons learned.’ According to Delgado and Stefancic, ‘(P)owerfully written stories and narratives may begin a process of adjustment in our system of beliefs’ (Delgado and Stefancic, 2001, p. 43). This moment in the drama sees the adjustment in beliefs that Anthony begins to experience as he makes his way back home and tries to make sense of his situation. Essentially, the rejection of this form of racism needs to be established in order to make changes. The ‘Windrush Lessons Learned Review’ found that the Home Office had exhibited ‘institutional ignorance and thoughtlessness towards the issue of race and

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the history of the Windrush generation’ (Patel, 2020).This led to the resignation of the then Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, as she claimed that she was not aware of the focus on the Windrush Generation; ‘low hanging fruit,’ a truly problematic phrase, has been used to label people who were easy to criminalise in order to meet targets (Williams, 2020). As Zita Holbourne (2020) points out, ‘Justice for the Windrush generation cannot just be about financial compensation for those directly targeted of that generation, but for restorative justice and an end to this type of racist discrimination’ (p. 1). Those targeted by this policy are still being offered compensation and many people of all ages have been forcibly deported from the country, sometimes with their situation being compounded by their immigration status or their criminal record. In response to the Review, ‘The Government itself accepts that the vast majority of undocumented people have done and will do no harm in the UK’ (JCWI, 2020). The impact on the Windrush Generation and others who have no longer been deemed to be UK citizens, includes the denial of the right to work, no access to healthcare, and the ongoing threat of reality of deportation. Anthony Bryan works hard to maintain a sense of individual identity and integrity as the state seeks to take away these rights. It is Anthony’s stoicism that is both challenging and frustrating as the sense of injustice pervades his world and his stated citizenship repeatedly meets with indifference. I May Destroy You One of the most popular, significant, and challenging dramas to emerge within this period is I May Destroy You which is the project of Michaela Coel as writer/ co-director. It is an HBO/BBC co-production which follows from the success of Coel’s comedy series Chewing Gum (C4, 2015–2017), itself originally a 2012 stage play. Both series include semi-autobiographical events and Coel has discussed some of these in interviews in the media. I May Destroy You depicts Coel paying Arabella whose experiences as a young writer are depicted as she finds fame via writing a novel based upon her social media blogs. Within I May Destroy You, Arabella experiences severe trauma and much of the series illustrates her attempts to deal with her rape. Arabella is affected by her experiences and mental stress and eventually turns to therapy to work towards self-realisation. She is surrounded by her peers who are also struggling to find their voice and represent intersectional experiences of race, gender, class, and sexual identity. Arabella is viewed as the voice of a generation and challenges ideas about how women should behave. She experiences racism as both a discriminatory marker of difference, as echoed in Coel’s accounts of her own experience of drama school, and as part of her negotiation of trauma, although this is not specifically only a ‘victim’ narrative. In depicting Arabella’s experiences being impacted by race, gender, and sexuality, it is clear that though the starting point for CRT is ‘race’ and racism there is no intention to lose sight of the complexities of the intersection of ‘race’ with the constructed and identity related nature of other forms of oppression. (Chakrabarty et al., 2016, p. 29)

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Coel realised that ‘Like Arabella, I realised my life was about to change for ever’ (McElvoy, 2020). At one point when she is giving her details to a police officer, Arabella argues that she is not Afro-Caribbean as her parents are from Ghana. Like her character, Michaela Coel is of Ghanian heritage. Her parents are from Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), which was the first Sub-Saharan country to gain British independence. Arabella has to be defined within certain parameters and definitions, as Afro-Caribbean, in order for her identity to be established and this seems to deny her heritage and history. Yet there is also a sense that the reference to Ghana may function as another barrier to engaging with society as she deals with her own psychological state and mental well-being. Coel was also the first Black woman to give a McTaggart Lecture about the television industry and set out to establish her voice and experiences. She made the decision not to accept a deal with Netflix reported to be worth one million dollars as she would not retain copyright over the majority of the drama.The ability to maintain one’s own voice and perspective is important, and the drama has been well received as an enlightening and thought-provoking series. Coel is viewed as a trailblazer and someone who can have an impact on broadcasting in the future. In relation to the McTaggart Lecture, Coel decided to talk about her experiences of racism within the industry directly and use this as a way of challenging expectations and assumptions, prompting this response from Piers Wenger, the controller of BBC drama commissioning: It was pretty hard to hear because we’ve been complicit, myself included.That was an incredibly ballsy thing to do to stand up and say, “This is what I need. Are you good enough to give it to me?” Not “Am I good enough to deserve the kind of treatment that I want?’. (Jung, 2020) This response is indicative of a realisation that agency needs to come to the fore. In Pearson’s account of the BBC’s diversity programming, she identifies I May Destroy You as a ‘rebuttal of systemic racism’ and claims that it is easy to forget that the main characters are Black. In this response she is articulating a process of identification with characters on screen. However, this response edits out the criticisms embedded within the series and avoids having to address any difficult scenarios or questions in order to view the show as ‘color-blind’ (Pearson, 2020). This is a political response which rejects the validity of systemic racism and sees the series as overcoming difference as opposed to exploring the underlying structures informing such difference. In contrast, Angela McRobbie recognises Paul Gilroy’s account of subject formation: ‘For Gilroy culture exists where human subjects negotiate the social structures they find themselves inhabiting and from this encounter they also create meaning’ (McRobbie, 2005, p. 37). It is this negotiation that enables meaning to be created within I May Destroy You. However, as Jung recognises in Coel’s interview: ‘How do you punch a cloud? The macro and the structural overwhelm her, so she tends to zero in on individual relationships’ (Jung, 2020). Therefore, these personal narratives gain resonance and become more relevant on a larger scale.

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The denouement of I May Destroy You sees Arabella work through a number of possible resolutions or endings, drawing upon wish-fulfilment and fantasy to find a solution. What the series does illustrate is the way in which ‘(B)lack expressive culture with its redemptionist aesthetics provides a space for both politics and belonging.’ As McRobbie argues, ‘Black people are neither victims nor social problems, but agents able in conditions of historical adversity to give voice to collective experience in cultural form’ (McRobbie, 2005, p. 48). This realisation encapsulates the ongoing challenge in relation to CRT. As a response to Pearson’s description of I May Destroy You it can be argued that: ‘Colour-blind ideologies that reflect positions of privilege whilst ignoring racialized realities, processes and disparities, are argued to maintain the interests of dominant groups in society’ (Rankin-Wright et al., 2020). By challenging the dominant perspective, these perceived differences which inform power relations can be deconstructed. In considering these texts as examples to study in relation to CRT there is a focus on voice, identity, and social justice that should challenge systemic practices such as racism. Each of these dramas offers the opportunity for recognition of historic and systemic issues related to the experience of Black people within the UK. Also, they offer the possibility of understanding these stories of challenging institutional practices that perpetuate systemic racism in an open and critical manner.

References Chadderton, C. (2018) Judith Butler, Race and Education. London: Palgrave. Chakrabarty, N. Roberts, L. & Preston, J. (Eds) (2016) Critical Race Theory in England. London: Routledge. Clark, L. B. (2018) ‘Critical Pedagogy in the University: Can a Lecture be Critical Pedagogy?,’ Policy Futures in Education 16(8), pp. 985–999.Accessed from: 10.1177/1478210318787053 Delgado, C. & Stefancic, J. (2001) Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. London: New York UP. Groux, H. A. (2010) ‘Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical Pedagogy,’ Truthout 1 Jan. Available from: https://truthout.org/ articles/rethinking-education-as-the-practice-of-freedom-paulo-freire-and-thepromise-of-critical-pedagogy/. Holbourne, Z. (2020) ‘Race Matters,’ Runnymede: Intelligence for a Multi-Ethnic Britain 6 Feb. Available from: https://www.runnymedetrust.org/blog/hostile-environment-forceddeportations-resumed Hylton, K. (2012) ‘Talk the Talk,Walk the Walk: Defining Critical Race Theory in Research,’ Race Ethnicity and Education 15(1), pp. 23–41. Jung, E. A. (2020) ‘Michaela the Destroyer,’ Vulture 6 July. Available from: https://medium. com/vulture-magazine/michaela-the-destroyer-40fa213a009d. Malik, S. (2013) ‘Locating the “Radical” in Shoot the Messenger,’ Journal of British Cinema & Television 10(1), pp. 187–205. McElvoy, A. (2020) ‘Michaela Coel: “Like Arabella, I Realised My Life Was about to Change For Ever”,’ The Guardian 10 Jul. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-andradio/2020/jul/10/michaela-coel-i-may-destroy-you-bbc-arabella-assault-racism McRobbie, A. (2005), The Uses of Cultural Studies. London: SAGE.

Narratives of racism  39 Merriweather Hunn, L. R., Guy, T. C. and Mangliitz, E. (2006) ‘Who Can Speak for Whom? Using Counter-Storytelling to Challenge Racial Hegemony,’ Adult Education Research Conference 245. Available from: https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2006/papers/32 Muir, H. (2020) ‘Leroy Logan: The Man Who Risked Everything to Fight Racism in the Police Force – from within,’ The Guardian 29 Oct. Available from: https://www. theguardian.com/society/2020/oct/29/leroy-logan-risked-everything-fightingracism-in-police Olusaga, D. (2020) ‘“These Are the Untold Stories that Make Up Our Nation”: Steve McQueen on Small Axe,’ Sight and Sound 13 Nov. Available from: https://www.bfi.org. uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/steve-mcqueen-small-axe-black-britain-david-olusoga Patel, P. (2020) ‘Home Secretary’s oral statement on the Windrush Lessons Learned Review by Wendy Williams,’ Gov.UK 19 Nov. Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/ speeches/windrush-lessons-learned-review Pearson, A. (2020) ‘Comment: The BBC has a Diversity Problem – It’s Just Not the One They Think It Is,’ The Telegraph 3 Jun. Available from: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/ women/politics/bbc-has-diversity-problem-just-not-one-think/ Rankin-Wright, A.J., Hylton, K. and Leanne Norman, L. (2020) ‘Critical Race Theory and Black Feminist Insights into “race” and Gender Equality,’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 43(7): pp. 1111–1129. Serrano, M. et al. (2018) ‘Critical Pedagogy and Assessment in Higher Education: The Ideal of “authenticity” in Learning,’ Active Learning in Higher Education 19(1): pp. 9–21 Shih, Y. H. (2018) ‘Some Critical Thinking on Paulo Freire’s Critical Pedagogy and Its Educational Implications,’ International Education Studies 11(9): pp. 64–70 The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), 2020) Hostile Environment. Available from: https://www.jcwi.org.uk/the-hostile-environment-explained Trilling, D. (2020) ‘Why Is the UK Government Suddenly Targeting ‘critical race theory?,’ The Guardian 23 Oct.Available from:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/ oct/23/uk-critical-race-theory-trump-conservatives-structural-inequality

Chapter 3

Digital and decolonial diffractions of race and materiality for (post) pandemic education Annouchka Bayley

Entrance points Questions are entrance points. How we make them creates the world. But what does it mean in practice for a question to be a world-making device? How does this relate to the matter at hand? That is the way in which patterns of difference that emerge by threading digital and decolonial realities through one another diffractively (Barad, 2007) might offer vibrant new practices for the (re)imagining of race in education for post-pandemic times? This chapter undertakes a thought experiment in which we get together here, now in the act of reading and asking questions about decoloniality, race, and digital education in post-pandemic times to explore what worlds are being made and how these worlds might be made differently. Diffraction is called upon as a central methodology of this inquiry. Diffraction in this context refers to a mode of thinking being used by Donna Haraway and taken up by Karen Barad to explore the processes of difference differing by reading insights through one another. As Kathrin Thiele states: Haraway does not explore new ways of imagining difference(s) in order to move beyond differentiality, but in order to undo the naturalized understanding of it (inherited from the dialectical Western thought tradition) as always only happening between two and as a movement of separation and categorization. (Thiele, 2014. p. 204) In this mode, patterns emerging are brought to the fore, not in terms of what is made as a result in itself but to examine how differences are being made, what haunts difference-making, and how this all comes to matter in the world. Diffraction doesn’t aim to study the world, however. Rather, the way the world is studied – by whom, how, and for whom – is the world. Thus, the questions that frame any study are never innocent. They act as entrance points into the practice of world-making. Research matters. Research materialises the world. If questions are entrance points into specific arrangements of the world, then they are both sign and reality. Onto-epistemic devices build the world through the DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-4

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practice of asking. Enter this way! A doorway emerges and I walk through. The world comes to meet me because I entered here, now. Questions are apparatuses. They open a specific time and space through which I might encounter the phenomenon I have shown up to study. A microscope, a magnifying glass, a question. There’s no ‘odd one out’ here. They’re all tools of difference-making. As discussed by feminist new materialist scholar Karen Barad (2007), apparatuses don’t just render the world visible, they are utterly tied up with the way the world is made. How we perceive and measure the world is a key part of how that world itself is brought into being. A question, in this mode, is therefore a framing device that actively engages the phenomena it frames. It directs your attention with its focus. It is a patternmaker, delivering its epistemic viewpoint in the languages it uses. It splits the world into ontologies of ‘me’ and ‘you’ and other separable entities such as body, phenomena, matter. And so, questions don’t just describe the world. Questions are active and performative. They make the world even as they are describing it. This is the move that new materialist scholar Barad makes (and calls material-discursivity – the entanglement of matter and meaning). Meaning doesn’t represent an a priori world. Meaning is material. Meaning moves. Meaning matters. In the here, now, I propose that world-making questions are a radical practice itself. Forming questions – and the way we scholars, artists, and activists do that – are practices. They are a means to ‘trouble’ (Haraway, 2016) the deep problems brought up by the pandemic and the subsequent move of education to shift – almost overnight – deeper into digital formats. Diffracting ‘the digital’ through the phenomenon of ‘race’ and ‘the pandemic,’ this discussion puts forth the view that not only are these phenomena deeply entangled (Barad, 2007) but that the way we ask questions of such an entanglement now is both urgent and deeply significant. What is ‘race’? What is ‘the digital’? What happens when I diffract these through one another, here, now? How do these questions create new patternings of education for post-pandemic times? None of these aim to represent and critique a finite world that already is or a ‘salvific future’ that will arrive at some point in time (Haraway, 2016, p. 1). Rather, they aim to make a world of differences. They aim to tell the story again in the asking – differently this time, so that the present that contains ‘the dead.Time. Light…’ can find new material configurations that were always-already in potentiality, just obscured by the way we asked. How we ask enacts these configurations actively and vibrantly.

Do I dare to care?: The making of ‘race’ inside distributed intelligences In 2020, mobilisations of #BlackLivesMatter around the world toppled statues in great waves of gathering despite the dangers and restrictions of COVID-19. Tremendous forces came together across the globe, not just waves of people, but waves of questions about power, time, history, space, and place; about ‘marks on bodies’ (Barad, 2007); about coloniality unfolding across the body of the world – the skin of rocks, fields, cities, and flesh – digging in. Such mobilisations aimed to shake up the North-Western hemisphere: We need to care! We need to learn how to care! It all went viral.

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Do I care? was arguably a key entrance point that worlded whole swathes of 2020 experience, bringing practices around the coronavirus (the caring of self, other, community, world) and #BlackLivesMatter (perhaps also care of self, other, community, world), together in a moment of pure trouble. Daring to care, to stand, and be counted became a moment shared in time and across space. Bystanders, press, falling stone, police, protesters, computers, smartphones, streets, social media platforms, TV broadcasts,YouTube uploads, memes, comments sections, tweets and hashtags, political parties of all persuasions, civil laws, and liberties – these are all mobilised. Even the symptomatic phenomenon of the coronavirus itself showed up and humans wrote in ink and print on their face masks: ‘I can’t breathe,’ re-folding a deadly virus and deadly racisms together in viral images that circulated through yet more digital surfaces. Coming together to care arguably became what Puig de la Bellacasa (2017) refers to in this context as a distributed intelligence: Human intervention does not disappear, but agency is distributed. Interests and other affectively animated forces – such as concern and care – are decentred and distributed in fields of meaning-making materialities: from being located in the intentionality of human subjectivity, they become understood as intimately entangled in the ongoing material remaking of the world. (p. 31) Whilst these distributions didn’t affect every corner of the world, they certainly rippled across and within much of it.The point here is that a distributed intelligence of care in this context is diffracted through many different material configurations of the world – not just human, but digital and material ones too. The worlding apparatus of questions of care create phenomena that are packed with multiple differences across human and non-human worlds. These differences are not just like diffraction patterns. They are diffraction patterns taking place in practice, in the world, rippling out even now. And this is why Barad’s work (2007) isn’t about making metaphors. It’s about making things matter. From inside these configurations of care in 2020, a vast phenomenon emerges again: race. For example, Northern Western media racialises the coronavirus, and campaigns in the UK spring up in some universities to combat the victimisation of Chinese students, seen to be in some way responsible for bringing and spreading the coronavirus. Then the coronavirus is reported to spread faster and affect Black communities (in the UK at least) more than White communities. Race and poverty are threaded through each other once again in ways that mark lungs and create restrictions. #BlackLivesMatter could be a cry levied to the virus itself as the organisation of White Western society sets apart Black communities in a configuration that is as spatial as it is racial. Some areas considered to have a higher Black population density have been literally ‘locked-down’ for longer in the UK. Here, the question of politicised ‘care’ is more sinister. The virus itself doesn’t prefer Black bodies. The spatial/racial organisation is arguably what is at stake here. It becomes what Achille Mbembe might call ‘necropolitical’ (2019). Distributed

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intelligences in this necropolitical configuration are, but not only: community, skin, pigmentation, legal-social identity (for example, declared ethnicity), housing, space, architectures, employment grades, and poverty. If we look at these as an agentic distribution rather than bunching them up together under the label ‘identity’ alone, we might start to find new entrance points of resistance and new ways of re-imagining the world. Our world-making questions might therefore become: How are identities reinforced and retold over and over again marking both human bodies and the body of the world in shifting geopolitical violences? How might we want to re-story these? How can we identify practices of care that take place in new ways, allowing for new worlds to emerge through the way we care? All these questions fold and fall into each other, diffracting out from each other to point to a phenomenon – a phenomenon that makes a world: race. Thus, in spirit with question-making as urgent practice: What is race? Any answer given enhances a specific mode of world-making. As argued above, how I define ‘race’ carves out the doorway through which I enter into a racialised world. Here, most entrances are an entangled part of a larger architecture formed by lifetimes of marks made on bodies through cultural, material, and economic practices. Deadly practices. Practices about which we might want to care.

Margins, measures, and marking bodies Making and enacting race is threaded through with world-making practices that we build our everyday lives upon. Practices that have violent consequences, not just for humans, but for life on Earth. Haraway explores this idea in depth in her analysis of the Anthropocene, which she re-terms the Capitalocene (2016).This act of naming differently, of asking differently, creates a new entrance point and thus offers a new way to make critical and urgent moves to rethink/re-enact the world. Joining capitalism, colonialism, and race together, Haraway links a host of scholars (Tsing et al., 2017; Lewis and Maslin) to suggest that these phenomena work together to make up three major faces of the Anthropocene – the era in which Man has affected not just the surface but the geology of the Earth. Race and racialisation effects humans, but it is also a means via which the entire world comes to suffer. ‘Race,’ as a concept, has always been an act of marking bodies. The concept, the mark, and the consequence are interwoven, producing much the world as we know it. In 2020, marking is re-conceptualised as an act of coding. In the digital world – a world so many of us have been forced further into to make daily life function under pandemic rule – bodies and lives are more deeply scored, marked, and made. The 2020 pandemic, thus, is also an entangled part of this world-making trio: race, capitalism, colonialism. Furthermore, in terms of education (but not education alone) separating ‘the pandemic’ from ‘the digital’ would be nearly impossible. How might this entanglement of race, capitalism, colonialism, pandemic, and digital be re-storied through the questions ‘we’ all might put to it? At stake are issues of access and denial built on the kinds of spatial/racial patternings mentioned above. Thus, immediate questions point to immediate modes of practice: How can I participate in the social, economic, cultural, political,

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educational world if I have no access to a device? No access to a quiet space? No or limited access to unlimited electricity? Unlimited data? Certain IT literacies? These are questions of access to supply of all kinds. But the problem arguably goes much further than this too and I want here to ask a different kind of question in order to beckon in new forms of practice: How is race made through datafication itself? Data scores, factors, and codes. Big data is big measurement and measurement has marked bodies for millennia, asking all sorts of questions, grouping all sorts of patterns. In this mode, questions become arguably more sophisticated, attempting to measure not just Black/White divides, but gradations of just how ‘white’ are you? Data impacts worlds, but it also makes worlds. It cuts an ‘I’ and a ‘you’ out of the entangled movement of life and makes stories that we live and die by. Data is lively. But it is also intelligent. I keep referring to the phrase ‘marks on bodies’ and before going further into how the digital and specifically digital education in (post)pandemic times is made accountable for this as part of the flow of material configurations that make race, I’d like to dive into the meanings that make this phrase matter. What does it mean to mark a body? Why does it matter? Why should anyone care? Barad coins this phrase in relation to her notion of intra-activity. Matter is entangled. It is not an essential foundation upon which things – for example, intelligences or discursivities, or stories for that matter, are played out upon. Jones states: When we pose the question of what matters and how, we are not dealing with pre-existing bodies upon which language inscribes meaning, but with relations of doing, acting and becoming that exist in material-discursive superposition until an agential cut intervenes to demarcate clear boundaries between words and things. This agential cut, or boundary-making practice, is a part of the very phenomena it specifies, rather than apart from it (Jones, in Braidotti and Hlavajova, 2018, p. 245) Barad (2007) is keen to note that rather than this creating an absolute interiority, the way cuts, borders, and boundaries are made produce exteriorities within phenomena. This isn’t troublesome if you come from the (somewhat Lucretian) perspective that everything flows or that the universe doesn’t contain movement inside it, but rather is movement (Nail, 2018). However, this kind of thinking requires a new kind of story to take shape in the brain; a story that runs perhaps counter to most (Northern Western) accounts of ontology. Barad (2007) tells this new kind of story thus: Since different agential cuts materialise different phenomena – different marks on bodies – our intra-actions do not merely effect what we know and therefore demand an ethics of knowing; rather our intra-actions contribute to the differential mattering of the world. Objectivity means being accountable for marks on bodies, that is, specific materializations in their differential mattering…Cuts are agentially enacted not by willful individuals but by the larger material arrangement of which ‘we’ are a ‘part.’ (p. 178)

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The mark was never a thing inscribed on top of pre-existent ‘me’ – a ‘me’ that existed in an Edenic state of not being marked. In this version of ontology, the mark has made me. This is why utopic versions of anti-racisms sweeping the global academy fall short of the mark. The mark isn’t just part of my identity. The mark is how I emerge. So, then how on Earth can we make marks that do not (re) enact, (re) inscribe, or perpetuate racisms? Sara Ahmed (2007) argues beautifully (and to my mind bitterly) about this – but perhaps that’s my own mark speaking, folding, and re-telling her narrative through my own body. In her Declarations of Whiteness: The Nonperformativity of Anti-Racism, Ahmed (2004) addresses concerns of the (non)performativity of anti-racism, citing the common presumption that to be anti-racist is somehow to transcend racism as a phenomenon, to ‘do away with’ race altogether: Racism works to produce race as if it was a property of bodies (biological essentialism) or cultures (cultural essentialism)… Such categories are effects and they have affects: if we are seen to inhabit this or that category, it shapes what we can do, even if it does not fully determine our course of action. Thinking beyond race in a world that is deeply racist is a best a form of utopianism, at worse a form of neo-liberalism: it imagines we could get beyond race, supporting the illusion that social hierarchies are undone once we have ‘seen through them’. (paragraph 48) It might be prudent to pause here and explore how deeply race/racisms are bonded together, not just in humans but in the way humans cut, make, and mark digital and non-digital realities. By doing this, might ‘we’ be able to enact differently? Perhaps. Rather than attempt to ‘do away’ with race and racisms in a utopic move or to affirm the measurement of this thing called ‘identity’ through careful categorymaking, I again propose new questions formed at the fault lines of the phenomenon: How far does race penetrate not only into our human notions of global identities (and thus global forms of response) but into the very crust of the Earth – even beyond into the deep layers of code and coding practices on digital Earths? How far is ‘race’ a matter of literal and conceptual geological histories of the Earth? With question-making conceived of as radical practice, these questions act not to abstract ‘us’ out of the issue but rather act as points of revisioning. We scholars-artists, educators, and activists are invited to find new practices by critically re-storying all the way down. Discussions of the Anthropocene (Lewis and Maslin, 2018) and how the colonial capitalist powers of Man have deeply contributed to changes in the geology of our planet look at how mass movements and forced migrations furthered the production of (White) man-made plantations and industrialised intensities of living and fossil and other resource extractions (and all their attendant technologies that in turn required other extractions).What’s more scholars including Anna Tsing et al. (2017) argue that these phenomena have brutalised the Earth in all its entanglements. Framing the questions thus, it becomes possible to interrogate race as a violent planetary commitment. The Earth itself has become a second-class citizen, made

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legal, permitted to exist here, poisoned, extracted, and marked there. I would even dare to suggest that the Earth itself has been racialised (and spatialised). It has been brought to heel under the hand of 500 years of colonial capitalisms. Echoing Ahmed, but not reproducing options of two, race cannot just be thought out of. It needs to be re-Earthed in practice – and ‘thinking’ is a practice. Thinking doesn’t just take place in the mind. It’s a material-discursive part of the entrance point, as mentioned above.What I mean by ‘re-Earthed’ is that these marks cannot be erased, exhumed, or extracted. But perhaps they might need to be re-storied, remarked upon in the material-discursive sense, not only through a ‘speaking out’ or protest demonstration but in the way we onto-epistemically live the world into being together. Marks have been made. We can’t unmake them. What we might be able to do, however, is expand onto-epistemic practices in ways that account for how race appears across distributed intelligences. No small task! Kathryn Yusof (2018) states that Blackness is nothing short of a historically constituted deformation that entangles an intentionally constructed ‘inhuman’ (in the sense of the historical erasure of non-White peoples from the category of ‘human’) with non-human entities such as ‘land’ for extractionist purposes: This contact point of geographical proximity with the earth was constructed specifically as a node of extraction properties and personhood…It is an inhuman proximity organised by historical geographies of extraction, grammars of geology, imperial global geographies, and contemporary environmental racism. It is predicated on the presumed absorbent qualities of black and brown bodies to take up the body of burdens of exposures to toxicities and to buffer the violence of the earth. Literally stretching black and brown bodies across the seismic fault lines of the earth, Black Anthropocenes subtend White Geology as material stratum. (p. xii) In a distributed intelligence, the intimacy goes all ways, Black and brown bodies become Earthed – absorbent. And the Earth becomes black (Mbembe, 2017). At the centre of all these phenomena are White Geology, the Anthropocene, the making-Man of the world.

What to do when your atoms are colonial? Geologies of coding practices both inside the Earth and inside the body are now brought to the fore as we come to the requirement to rethink the questions we ask at the level of binary constructions, including Nature/Culture. The idea that these were ever ontologically split in the first place is superficial because arguably, at least some of the problem of the Anthropocene is thinking that the body of Man is somehow always-already separable from the body of the Earth. This is also called ‘the Nature/Culture divide,’ the binary that brought forth the Anthropocene. Indeed, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) gathered in 2000 under the premise that,

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the Earth functions as an integrated system that humans are a part of. Global change is more than climate change and avoids treating ‘the environment’ as separate from human affairs. What people do affects the world around them, and these effects feed back to the human component of the Earth system. (Lewis and Maslin, 2018, p. 20) If the body of a human and the body of the Earth are in fact only superficially separable, then to speak of race and racialisation is an Earth-Body problem. As Ahmed (2007) suggests, we can’t imagine away race (and therefore imagine away racisms). The question is bred in the bone, and these bones aren’t just human. They exist inside the material-discursive patterning of the world. In this context, bred-in-thebone isn’t just a question of limbs. It’s a question of geologies. Thus again comes an invitation to think differently by formulating new kinds of questions, to rewild some old and new ways of thinking from the ground up, entangling concepts of race, decoloniality, new materialism, and post-humanism in different patterns through different modes that are as curious as they are urgent. The purpose of such a practice is to re-story the way we understand what the world, in fact, is and how we can start to make it differently through the practice of education in post-pandemic times. None of these ideas are necessarily ‘new.’ Lucretius, writing in the first century C.E, had suggested such an approach to matter and mattering processes in his De Reum Natura, presumed to be lost for 1500 years, until an Italian monk and book hunter found a copy hidden in a library in the Renaissance.These are the things of legends, the stories that make us. Lucretius suggested that the active conditions for material and the material itself are actively entwined. As Thomas Nail suggests, ‘the active material conditions or creative flows from which all of being is primarily composed… [are also] the seemingly discreet things which are produced as the products of this kinetic material process’ (2018, p. 57). Put another way, to imagine that things are inherently separable as an ontological precondition, isn’t quite the case. Separability exists, for sure. Differences are made. But – and this is the key – these differences are made they aren’t and have never been the primary state. Why? Because for Lucretius, ontology is movement. Being is being-on-the-move. Thus, being is a continual process of change, flux, difference, diffraction and that’s what a primary state would be. What this kind of thinking allows us to do, is think of how ‘we’ – whoever ‘we’ are/whatever assemblage ‘we’ are part of – is re-imagined. How do we pattern difference? Instead of framing questions around who or what is in power as the fundamental point of resistance to race construction, we dive deeply into the ontological state of motion, patterning the way we understand what difference is and how it constitutes a distributed intelligence of Earth-Bod(ies). Importantly, the idea is not to remain in theory but to put this re-imagination of ontology and epistemology as onto-epistemology at the heart of question-making practice. This is how decolonisation might resist chains of dialectics and binaries that bind us to each other in ways that are as ingenious and ever growing as contemporary capitalism itself. Ways that change patterns just enough, but not enough to really make a difference.

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Speaking his notion of ‘the becoming black of the world,’ Mbembe (2017) states something profoundly intriguing here. In the violence and devastation of history, ‘the anguish at seeing their bodies controlled from the outside, at being transformed into spectators watching something that was but also was not their true existence’ (Mbembe, 2017, p. 6). Mbembe adds a second layer, a layer inclusive of the savagery that is Black skin-as-commodity but also more than that alone: In a spectacular reversal, [Black] becomes a symbol of a conscious desire for life, a force springing forth, buoyant and plastic, fully engaged in the act of creation and capable of living in the midst of several times and histories at once. Its capacity for sorcery and its ability to incite hallucinations, multiplies tenfold. Some saw in the Black Man the salt of the earth, the vein of life through which the dream of a humanity reconciled with nature, and even with the totality of existence, would find its new face, voice and movement. (ibid. p.7) The point is anything but utopic here, especially as Mbembe goes on to ask: At what point does the project of a radical uprising in search of autonomy in the name of difference turn into a simple mimetic inversion of what was previously showered with malediction? (ibid.). But it does open a doorway to new ways of approaching 2020. In essence, as a state ascribed and delivered to shades of ‘blackness’ extends its reach through the making of body as an absorbent commodity (not just skin) for a world of increasing coding practices, White as well as Black forces are mobilising. There’s a bitter conscription of a movement here, as ‘white’ and ‘black’ bodies both become ghosts in the machine, forever haunting ourselves through algorithmic practices. This points to race and racialisation as something that exists far deeper than skin, flesh, or body. It is an atomic process. It is implicated in the most micro of places: the cell walls themselves. If we take the invitation to consider the unravelling of the Anthropocenic Nature/Culture divide seriously, we need to consider racism as something that has been threaded through the planet. Not in the sense that it is a natural state – because that would reinstate the Nature/Culture divide (as well as be utterly abhorrent to my mind). If we return to a Lucretian perspective, patterns of difference-making are tied up with the result of those patterns in terms of what matters. Race and how we make race emerge together; our atoms are the product and the practice. So, getting rid of racism isn’t just conceptual (to refer once more to Ahmed). It is a material, bodily affair where the body is understood as a distributed intelligence. Luckily, in this frame, as much as race is an onto-epistemological condition, so therefore must be de-racialising. Both exist together inside the diffraction patterns we make. In The History and Adventures of an Atom (1769), Tobias Smollett imagines an atom that can somehow be heard by the person in whose body he resides. Popular readings of post-humanism and new materialism sometimes suggest that Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) is the first post-human novel. I would venture that the much earlier History and Adventures is also one given the questions it allows readers to ask. Smollett is writing a clear satire of the Seven Years War and all the colonial

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rivalries that marked Europe and beyond in the eighteenth century. The book, ingeniously, has a human protagonist, Nathaniel Peacock, who is suddenly able to hear the true protagonist of the story – an atom in his pineal gland – speaking to him intelligently. As if he had suddenly become aware of the distribution of intelligences and agencies that shook him to his ontological core. Nathaniel screams and invokes religious curses akin to the way men of the same era often railed against the so-called terrifying and uncivilised animisms of colonial nations:‘Avaunt Satan, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost!’ The atom, undaunted reasons with Nathaniel in the most ingenious and arguably new materialist of ways: What art thou afraid of, that thou shouldest thus tremble, and diffuse around thee such an unsavoury odour? What thou hearest is within thee – is part of thyself. I am one of those atoms, or constituent particles of matter, which can neither be annihilated, divided, nor impaired…Know Nathaniel, that we atoms are singly endued with such efficacy of reason, as cannot be expected in an aggregate body, where we crowd, squeeze and embarrass one another. (Smollet, 1769/1989) The atom goes on to tell a tale that is a thinly veiled satire against the ruling colonial powers of England, France, and Spain. Perhaps I, as a scholar, am easily excitable, but to me this text has strands within it that are way ahead of its time. No solutions are offered of course. Nathaniel doesn’t go on to ‘solve’ colonial power, and indeed the text at times reproduces colonial and racist narratives in the way it imagines its metaphorical setting – Japan. Again, no hard and fast solutions – just new ways of thinking about how diffraction and difference-making might be done differently across a field of distributed intelligences and agencies. A way of thinking that stays with all the trouble stirred up by Anthropocenic modes of divide in a different arrangement. And practicing the way we live and make the world differently, surely, to borrow a phrase from Barad, ‘is no small matter.’

An incomplete alive-ness: a conversation for digital, decolonial pedagogies Enter the digital! Here I use it as a stage direction, an invitation to shift the focus to something that was always-already there but might have been perceived as having been waiting in the wings for its timely moment. An invitation to consider the digital, not as something laid on top of an already arguably over exhausted education system (at least in my context of UK Higher Education), but as much a thing as it is a question; the question of what to do we do with education during a pandemic? The pandemic doesn’t just reveal what was always-already there – a digital world poised to code us into marked categories – but is part of the new material configuration happening in 2020. The pandemic asks us all to re-evaluate what it means to be embodied in 2020. It is part of an emergent configuration that is all to do with thinking about what it means to matter in a post-human, (early) algorithmic world. And further a phenomenon-as-question that can assist us in unravelling the seeming

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urgent rush to capitalise on what ‘we’ve’ already got as we forge further into the twenty-first-century education. (The ‘we’ here is more suspect than anywhere else it has been used in this chapter.) To continue with Barad’s proposition that all phenomena are material-discursive, what happens when we encounter ‘the digital’ through the requirements of delivering meaningful post-pandemic education? Moreover, what happens when we diffract the material – bodies, spaces, places, and all manner of materialities we are habituated to in our everyday – through the pandemic and digital education in still violently racialised 2020? Again, as with earlier sections, I examine some key terms and invite you to join me in now asking: What is this digital? and why is it being set up as distinct from the material? If we continue with the thought experiment offered by new materialisms and some of the approaches outlined so far in this chapter, the digital and the material are not necessarily inherently separated and separable. Does this mean then that the digital must be a kind of transposition of the material world? The idea of a transposition of one world to another is interesting and is perhaps quite clearly evidenced in the way that many teachers and lecturers are engaged in uploading their courses via PowerPoints, tearing their hair out with synchronous and asynchronous forms of teaching and putting together research bids via shared drives and late-night Zooms because of a lack of contact with participants, spaces, and co-investigators; all trying to establish a ‘new normal,’ to echo the political rhetoric, to make a norm out of the madness of the pandemic, to reproduce business as usual as best as possible, online. To represent academia as we know it with minor changes that aren’t too disruptive, we hope. There are at least two main problems with the transposition approach. One: the digital is not opposite to the material but is another diffraction of being in the world. Thus, the digital is material. It has its own materialities that deeply affect us, not only through our politics and policies – and the subsequent issues of access that education online have made very real. To pose the question of digital materialities more directly:When you’ve sat in front of a Zoom screen all day, teaching, hosting, and participating in meetings, working across a polyphony of platforms, does your body feel the effect of the materiality of the screen-self-knowledge-flesh intersection on the body? These affects are not theoretical. They are very much material. Critical pedagogic scholars (Friere, 1974; Robinson, 2015) have discussed the deep impact made by the seemingly innocuous ways classrooms are arranged. Putting chairs and desks in rows, all facing the teacher is indicative of the will to create epistemologies of expertise and expert. Along the spine of such epistemologies, the industrial, colonial method emerges, where the adage ‘knowledge is power’ shapes bodies, ontologies, and rights to be. A power, no less, that makes marks on bodies and provides the systematic knowledge to tear up the world and re-carve it according to powerful, extractive colonial lines. Theorist bell hooks worked with Freire’s phrase ‘the banking’ model of education in her startling book Teaching to Transgress (1994), where she states that ‘teaching is a performative act. And it is that aspect of our work that offers the space for change, invention, spontaneous shifts…’ (p. 11). To return to the practice of worldmaking through question-making: What imperative emerges when we take the

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spirit of such critical and radical feminist Black pedagogies and see how the contemporary digital diffracts them. What new questions, rather than old, attempt to re-create the same world, the same old power structures made invisible, do we need to ask urgently as we move further online? I stress urgently because we are making faster strides into the digital on account of agencies and imperatives produced by the pandemic. In brief, one of the main questions running through my interrogation of post-pandemic education is not about access but about the way the digital is shaping our material every day. Might we shape it in ways that resist colonial and racial imperatives of oppression, erasure, and silence? Mapping the diffraction patterns (or patterns of making differences) produced by ‘seeing’ new materialism and race through one another, Philip Butler (2020), who writes on Black transhumanisms and post-humanisms (and perhaps following the train of thought put forth by Mbembe on animisms and coding), discusses how definitions act as cuts, creating divides that aren’t necessarily helpful in themselves, but that provide us with in-roads – entrance points, if you will – into how the world is being enacted right now. Butler queries why and how the idea of a human-animal (that is material, sweaty, alive) is set up as opposite to a human-digital (that is cold, cyborgian, and some not alive) as a way to make differences, to understand, and therefore mark the world. The phrase ‘human-animal’ is in itself coded with histories of dehumanisations used all too familiarly by slave traders past and modern. Why is foregrounding the ‘animal’ part of being human being put up as a negative definition that works to define what it being ‘human-digital’ is? Butler states that both these terms are incomplete descriptors. Why? Because all these terms are unfixed, unfinished. I suggest that this deep, epistemic creation of divide functions in the same way I mentioned earlier that ‘race’ does. A divide does what it is. Referring to a ‘humananimal’ does do the work of decentring some enlightenment thinking that divorced us from the body and set up a quasi-religious notion of a disembodied mind or spirit as something good and the body as something bad, profane, in need of taming, in a transcendent move that arguably seeks justice from elsewhere. Thus, when ‘human-animal’ is set up as a differencing (and sweaty) apparatus against an apparently disembodied human-digital, it reinscribes the same elsewhere. If being ‘human’ is a phenomenon of mixed and unfinished differences of the materialdiscursive kind, then whether I am human-animal or human-digital is simply a process of enactment. It is a diffraction that begs the question: How am I participating in the enactment of divides online? ‘Human’ is a term that has never been complete. It’s also a word that has marked bodies over and over. In the Northern Western tradition, people all stared down by the Vitruvian Man, whose White, male, able-bodied eurocentrism has been spun like a wheel of (mis)fortune, denying everybody outside of ‘his’ power descriptors any access, any purchase on power. But in the spirit of performing ethically inside the field, inside all the erased violence, murder, and atrocity that comes with contemporary versions of ‘Vitruvianism’ re-inscribed in modern day colonial will, one small voice whispers at my earlobe: ‘thank god these terms continue to be incomplete.’ Incompleteness points to a resistance of being finished,

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closed, captured, stamped. It means ‘never done.’ To me, that means ‘alive.’ All these terms – human, animal, digital, decolonial, education, resistance, are pulsing with incomplete aliveness. With the arrival of the pandemic in 2020, rather than replacing the same old colonial, racist mechanisms online in a singular scramble to transpose, reproduce, represent, and reflect business as usual, what about doing something differently? Something lively and incomplete? Something that begs new questions and makes new worlds through them? What does different mean in this context? Mbembe (2017) states that ‘race is an image, form, surface, figure and especially a structure of the imagination’ (p. 32). In this formulation, ‘different’ is therefore both a description and a mode of imagination that invokes three words like an incantation: different, differencing, diffraction. When digital platforms, Microsoft Teams-worlds and Zoom-i-verses, are structuring our imaginations with their digital cosmologies, telling us how to perform, how to be and how to think, recapturing the imagination becomes a vital part of being in the world material-discursively. If words are not descriptors but active agents that make matter, and matter makes and remakes itself with and through discursive games, then neither one has priority because they exist inside each other (which problematises Judith Butler) but both concepts and matter are arguably, diffractions of one another. The same is perhaps true of code. Coding and worlding come together here to produce specific material arrangements of the world in 2020. The platform doesn’t represent the world, the platform reproduces, reiterates, and thus recreates the world. In this mode of questioning, if claiming that the digital and material are mutually exclusive is a trickster’s hoax that comes to Houdini us all out of our agency, then working out how we might imagine an ethics of care inside these incomplete terms might just help us fashion new worlds. Material-discursively. Teaching is a performative act capable of laterally creating new registers of questioning. Questions that care.

Modes, practices, methodologies: artistic research Speaking of new registers, (post)2020 has provided an interesting moment for artistic research to step through the entrance it has made for itself in the past few decades and enter into the arena here, not as the poor, weird cousin of academic research, but as a set of epistemic practices and propositions that live squarely in this moment. All research requires imagination and creativity. What makes artistic research unusual in Higher Education are its methods and registers, which are always varying, different, and differencing. Artistic research has always been something of a conundrum in academia because it has constantly been engaged in trying to prove itself as useful in the world according to institutional criteria. Be useful! Demonstrate your use and we’ll let you keep your funding! are arguably the phrases that haunt most Artistic Research bids. Each sentence on the page is threaded through with the spectres of ‘use’ and ‘value.’ Art has engaged in a forced habit of presencing itself alongside the ‘real’ research in academe. It has been reduced to being the object of research, an addendum, or a

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representational aspect of research. At worst it’s used to make the work look pretty. As soon as modes and methods of art making/art practice get into the wider research bid or the curriculum, funders and external assessors start to get nervous. But what will it do? How will it show impact? How can it be measured? Or, one of my favourites can you demonstrate its use according to the standards criteria? If so then, by all means. Such initial questions produce a rigged system because the methodological registers of art-making are onto-epistemologically differenced from the ones that can be found in social sciences that tackle world issues. The registers of art making diffract critical frames in nuanced ways.They provoke different kinds of questions. The age-old: How do you measure art’s impact resurfaces, comes to structure us out of our material-discursive registers, and fall back into clear, measurable languages of cause and effect which find post-human complexities difficult? Oftentimes, we end up making art that ‘fits,’ or make the richness of our artistic-research invisible in order to make the grade/tackle the problem/answer the question, airbrushing out the full critical potentials in the process. ‘Made to measure’ becomes an epistemic practice that keeps the world still and is at odds with the rhizomatic and quantum modalities of the twenty-first century world with all its complicated tech. But there’s another very real and insidious danger here. This danger is not solely about taking art out of the university altogether, refusing, vehemently, to place artistic practice in a Procrustean academy, where the epistemic aggressions levied against art create minor warfares that start in institutional corridors and end in larger scales where practices of alternative world-making are silenced (because they don’t fit the Vitruvian university) and where governments, like my own in the UK, start urging artists (apparently all called ‘Fatima’ according to government advertising) to retrain in something useful.What’s more, the danger isn’t just that for the growing number of artist-scholars, such divisions don’t quite capture the exciting reality of artistic research. Artistic research calls epistemologies and modes of practice into question through its very presence in the academy. It doesn’t just make art practice visible. It brings about a deep questioning of how we measure, code, critique, and create knowledge in the world. It highlights what kinds of knowledge get to participate. Artistic research works with different forms of time – learning time; different ways of performatively engaging in space; different ways of understanding how materiality and imagination work multiply and are entangled, rather than producing each other in clear, linear ways. Artistic research is affective, engaging, even erotic in its foregrounding of the mess of sensate experience in multiple ways, as part of the mess. Thus, it is not to turn to the arts to provide new ways of creating a more sustainable neo-liberal, neo-colonial practice in and for post-pandemic times. It is not to call for a ‘retraining’ towards a more useful application. But rather to call for a re-visioning of what epistemic practices that function in zeroes and ones need to become if they are to form the atomic code via which the entire digital world unfolds. Art doesn’t have to be ‘useful,’ but it is always, in some way political. Art, like scholarship, makes worlds; thus, at a time when we are reconsidering everything we do on account of the fall out of 2020, art is urgent.

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Call for participation: artist scholars, twenty-first century onto-epistemic practices and digital revolutions Dear Artist-scholars, Can we pause in this most politically urgent moment, with all our divergent practices, registers and knowledges at the ready here, now, and rather than take the view that our material practices cannot work online, experiment for a moment with the thought that differenced and diffracted and material-discursive knowledges emerging through art-practice are vitally informing ways of imagining what online education might look like in a world that seeks to ‘find new ways to live and die well together in a thick present’ (Haraway, 2016, p. 1). If we’re not careful, if we don’t approach with care positioned at the heart of the matter, we may well (re)produce our own tethers, our own prisons, our own kind of violence. It’s true, to my mind – to say that our deep practices don’t fit in the reproduction of business as usual this time online. But perhaps that’s exactly the point. Rather than fit them into the neoliberal tidal wave of what online education is becoming in the pandemic, perhaps we might engage with our practices in ways that imagine a new digital future-present. To recode the code, not with content but with onto-epistemic modes that resist and re-imagine the structure of the world. This is a political act.You might even say it’s a new form of critical pedagogy, working with distributed agencies and intelligences that move between notions of human-animal, human-digital. Living between the material-discursive codings of race, gender, sexuality to dream up new ways of living in the world. Such ‘new’ ways call on question-making as radical practice to re-think how we engage online and what old ghosts of category making and binary identification are being vivified and which of these do we want to resist in practice. Presencing Questions; Sounding Critical Realities that Care: Five questions to imagine new, critical pedagogies in your classroom/studio

1. How are we currently structuring our questions – what’s the role and function of categories in the onto-epistemic here, now? 2. How does the matter I work with re-imagine the question you set me / I set you – in the patterns, divergences and differences implied in its registers? 3. How is the practice of making online rather than in an analogue personto-person format diffracting a) the way I make, even at the level of touch b) the kinds of questions I ask of the material, c) the ways different publics can and cannot engage with my work, d) the materiality implicit in making, e) demanding I engage (via a pre-coded platform) … and so on? 4. ‘Who’ is making and how is that distinction enacted here, now, different / differencing ‘what’ is making? 5. How am I disrupting new forms of categorisation in order to make/ teach/enact digital work – and what forms of categorisation mechanisms are these already haunted by?

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These are just a few prompts to use when creating new pedagogies that think through the practice of artmaking as response-able questioning. Returning to the idea that questions are entrance points – doorways into new worlds that are made even as we build the door – then the five above do nothing more than suggest a meeting of posthuman, decolonial, new materialist thinking with the touch of clay, the slope of ink on the page, the vibrations of air entangling with the apparatus of ear, the skin cells left behind by the performer, and all other multiple, polyphanous dimensions implied when we slide between analogue and digital worlds.They draw attention to how we identify, enact and eternally create patterns of difference. In response to the highlighting of racial, social and political violences brought about by the phenomena of 2020, this kind revision is not interesting. It is urgent. Ultimately this is all labour. Our labour. And so, whilst this might be a somewhat impassioned call to resist and restructure through a material-discursive, diffractive approach to education and research in 2020 and beyond, into postpandemic times, it is a call to labour, nonetheless. To do the work, if we’re so inclined, of responding to our times. At the forefront, a question of the ethics of such a labour: can we, rather than make our artistic epistemologies useful in the re-coding of a racist, sexist, profiteering and unjust world, resist these by materialising the geology of code in ways that are many-worlded? Not in a utopic vision of a transcendental world that is other-where and nowhere inside the code. But a mode that imagines the platforms we engage in differently in ways that matter and ways that re-interpret what it means to care in modes that don’t reinscribe all our labour into neo-colonial endeavours. Incompleteness, indeterminacy and unfinished imaginaries are all things that a White Geology of a coded world find hard to reconcile within its landscape (or codescape, to play with words). Until the next stage in quantum computing emerges, the digital will always want to make a ‘zero’ or a ‘one’ out of us all; to mark us without innocence, into questionable languages of care. As artists and educators, perhaps we can start to invite the world to start ask questions that materially-discursively make alternative worlds – worlds whose registers have hitherto been silenced. We are here at the inception, no small position to be. Instead of dancing to the same old tune, can we find the questions that might allow for new performativities to emerge in modes that are not fixed towards colonial-capitalist narratives of ‘emerging markets’ but rather emerging ways of creating difference differently? I say all this from the standpoint, like so many others in their own unique ways, of an artist-scholar working inside academia with passion – a woman of mixed heritages, multiple religions all violently enacted to somehow create the shape of me; who was captivated early by the idea of incompleteness, watching light playing on the surface of snow bouncing into eternal refractions and diffractions. Who thought at an early age: perhaps there’s no greater power than this. Yours sincerely, Annouchka Bayley

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References Ahmed, S. (2004) ‘Declarations of Whiteness: The Non-Performativity of Anti-Racism,’ Borderlands 3(2): paragraph 48. Barad, K. (2007) Meeting the universe halfway: Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Durham: Duke UP. Butler, P. (2020) Black transhuman liberation theology: Technology and spirituality. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Friere, P. (1974) Education for critical consciousness. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the trouble. Durham: Duke UP. hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. London: Routledge. Jones, B. (2018) ‘Mattering,’ in R. Braidotti and M. Hlavajova (eds.) Posthuman glossary. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Lewis, S. and Maslin, M. (2018) The Human planet: How we created the Anthropocene. London: Penguin Random House. Mbembe, A. (2017) Critique of black reason. Durham: Duke UP. Mbembe, A. (2019) Necropolitics. Durham: Duke UP. Nail, T. (2018) Lucretius I: An ontology of motion. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press. Puig de la Bellacasa, M. (2017) Matters of care: speculative ethics in more than human worlds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Robinson, K. (2015) Creative Schools: Revolutionizing education from the ground up. London: Penguin Random House. Smollett, T. (1989) The History and adventures of an atom. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Thiele, K. (2014) ‘Diffracted Worlds, Diffractive Reading: Onto-Epistemologies and the Critical Humanities,’ Parallax 20(3): 165–287. Tsing, A., Swanson, H., Gan, E., and Bubandt, N. (2017) Arts of living on a damaged planet. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Van der Tuin, I. (2014). Diffraction as a Methodology for Feminist Onto-Epistemology: On Encountering Chantal Chawaf and Posthuman Interpellation. Parallax, 20(3): 231–244. Winterson, J. (2005) Weight. Edinburgh: Canongate Books Yusof, K. (2018) A billion black Anthropocenes or none. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Chapter 4

Teaching an inclusive English composition course The vampire genre Melanie A. Marotta

Introduction: the course In spring of 2020, the unprecedented happened – the world was embroiled in a pandemic, one that created a reverberation throughout Higher Education. It is this pandemic and the protests linked to racial inequality that are working to alter the face of Higher Education and, hopefully, that change is more than superficial. Over the course of the summer of 2020, Twitter erupted with academic voices, Higher Education instructors upset due to the lack of diversity and inclusion in Higher Education teaching. In July, the Department of English at the University of Chicago announced that for 2020–2021, only students interested in Black Studies will be considered for its PhD programme. An article from Emily Jacobs (2020) in the New York Post has reported that five students have been admitted for its newest cycle of students; apparently, the low number is due to COVID and the exclusivity of the programme. In order for undergraduate students to obtain their degrees, the Department of English at Pennsylvania State University had already been requiring them to take three courses in diversity and inclusion. Some faculty in the American Higher Education landscape are taking steps to ensure that their students are reflected in their courses that they teach. Further, there are those educators that recognise the need to expose students to contributions from people worldwide. In September, I was once again teaching Freshman Composition I, an intensive essay writing course – one that I had not taught for a few years. The course has its merits: It aids students in honing their essay writing abilities and offers further assistance with grammar and mechanical skills. For readers who are unfamiliar, in the US this is a course that almost all students are required to take. Each university tends to have its own version, updating where necessary. This course, which under normal circumstances garners less than enthusiastic reactions from students, becomes more challenging as it must be converted to a remote synchronous/ asynchronous course format due to COVID-19. The course itself is found by students to be demanding due to its structure (multiple assignments and tests) and content (grammar!). As a required course for all undergraduate students, structuring the content to appeal to students of all majors has its challenges. In addition, while some instructors are placed in the themed version of this course, the course I was assigned was not a themed version and therefore I needed to ensure students’ DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-5

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interest as well as diversity and inclusivity in the course. For almost all of the course’s students, this is one of the initial courses in which they engage in a Higher Education setting. Therefore, it is essential that they be connected to the material as disinterest may lead to larger educational issues across the board, i.e. challenges with essay writing in other courses, indifference in remainder of educational career, etc. Finally (and certainly one of the most critical points), the university is an HBCU, but one with an increasing number of Latinx, Caucasian, and international students. At the forefront of HBCU education is Black history and culture, so not only must materials be of interest to all students but also there must be an emphasis on Black literary resources. In this chapter, I explore the vampire genre, one which has been reflective of a Caucasian viewership and readership, but rarely anyone else. Further, I address the re-envisioning of the vampire genre for a Black student viewership: the Blaxploitation film, Blacula (1972), and the post-apocalyptic film, I Am Legend (2007). In my experience, educators have challenges making changes to canonised courses, and it is my hope that this essay will serve to assist others in diversifying their courses, particularly those designated for a first-year student. It should be noted that the course I am writing about here was conducted on Zoom. Since this was the case, the racial identity of the entire student body was unknown: As educators we must be cognizant that not all students have cameras and/or feel comfortable with their living conditions to turn cameras on. However, some students revealed their racial identity to be African American. Finally, 30 students were registered for this course.

Why the vampire? Diseases (including pandemics and epidemics) are often reflected in cinematic and television offerings. FX, which has invested in airing a few vampire series including the recent What We Do in the Shadows (2019–current), gave viewers an adaptation of the novel series from Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan titled The Strain (2014–2017). The series concentrates on the notion that vampirism is a virus, one which has spread throughout New York, causing an apocalypse. Placing their own spin on the vampire story from John Polidori, whose novella is the starting point for my course design, del Toro and Hogan have made their vampires Nazis. Through the exchange of roles – the vampire hunter is Jewish concentration camp survivor Abraham Setrakian (David Bradley) and the vampire, The Master (Robin Atkin Downes) – the FX series alters the Othering that Polidori displays in his genre altering novella. The del Toro and Hogan series is only one of many contributions to the genre in the twenty-first century that attempted to subjugate the accepted structure for the vampire narrative. As I stated, the first-year composition course was on my schedule starting fall of 2020 and I needed to find a genre that would be familiar to all students yet exciting enough to pique their interests in an online setting. Presumably, due to the pandemic, broadcast and streaming services were playing contributions to the vampire genre continuously, aiding in my selection of course genre.

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By choosing to focus the composition course on vampires, I negated the lack of knowledge (and hopefully lack of interest) from students as the figure of the vampire has been fully integrated into popular culture. Depending on the level of course (mine was a first-year undergraduate course), the instructor may wish to insert background regarding the genre as well as characteristics, so that students can keep an eye out for commonalities and changes throughout the time period and medium selected for the course. As the vampire myth is predominantly White due to its Eastern European origins, the issue of diversity and inclusion may appear problematic, but this is not an impossible task. The goal here becomes (a) offering a diverse and inclusive course directed towards an almost entirely Black student body and (b) making it textually as well as visually appealing as the course is offered in the synchronous/asynchronous format. It should also be noted that due to COVID and because this HBCU tends to have many low-income students, the materials need to be affordable and accessible. The list of primary sources was narrowed to the following vampiric contributions: Polidori’s The Vampyre, Jewelle Gomez’s The Gilda Stories (the chapter ‘Off-Broadway: 1971’), Blacula, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, and I Am Legend (film). As this collection concentrates on the visual and the integration of such into a Higher Education course, I primarily examine the presentation of the films. The question remains regarding approach for an introductory course. In effect, even though the instructor may assume that students are familiar with the subject matter, the extent to which they comprehend the genre’s traits is in question. The students who are enrolled in an introductory course are of all majors offered at the university. Further, W. Scott Poole poses a significant point about the teaching of what he terms the monster genre. In Poole’s Foreword (2017) to the collection, Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us, he addresses teaching monsters in the Higher Education classroom, delineating the criticism and concerns that accompany doing so. According to Poole, ‘Now, over the last few years, condescension toward the idea of a monsters class has slowly begun to erode in my particular corner of academia’ (p. 2). What Poole states is a stark reality.   As a presenter and attendee at popular culture conferences and science fiction conferences, I can attest to what Poole asserts. Unfortunately, some genres are not treated seriously by some academics, preferring instead to only teach canonised texts. Others object to ‘popular literature,’ citing the commodification and ‘dumbing down’ of academia: They object or even go as far as to refuse to teach ‘low-brow’ literature. Poole (2017), too, documents numerous theorists who have stated the lack of seriousness associated with that labelled popular culture: ‘Skepticism about the pedagogy and the study of monsters comes, knowingly or unknowingly, from scholars influenced very much by the Frankfurt School’s grumpy evaluation of pop culture as mind-numbing, apolitical mass culture’ (p. 2). These allegations remain such and act as recourse, a gatekeeping of sorts thereby barring students from studying that with which they are familiar due to a low-brow label. Sam George (2013), one of the leaders of the University of Hertfordshire’s Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture Research Project, writes in her Preface to the aforementioned project’s essay collection how her interview about the project

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which is given to The Guardian (UK) becomes a point of contention. George observes that the reaction to the project and the subsequent MA course, ‘Reading the Vampire: Science, Sexuality and Alterity in Modern Culture,’ was unexpected as was the contempt. According to George (2013), ‘We wanted to put vampires in the context of a rigorous academic conference to prove that you can study popular literature in a serious way’ (Preface). Even though George takes the reactions lightly, the numerous articles internationally citing that their project is their ‘reacting against the Americanisation of the genre’ is telling of the interest in the vampire genre as well as its examination in a Higher Education setting (George, Preface). Poole (2017) continues: Although historians are playing catch-up in this area, scholars of film studies and communications theory have long taught the reading of the horror film, and how cinematic texts frame the monstrous and depend on certain audience assumptions about what constitutes a monster (while of course sometimes subverting those notions). (p. 2) Theory regarding those sources deemed popular culture have merit, aiding students not only in their introduction to the study of the Humanities but also in their understanding of cultures and nationalities, outside of their own. Kellan Strong (2019) presented ‘The Love U Give: The Literate Lives of Black Adolescent Girls’ at the Popular Culture Association’s 2019 conference; here, the PhD candidate reiterated the findings of her research, namely that African American female adolescents primarily engage in reading fantasy/dystopian literature. In effect, I applied Strong’s finding to a Foundational Reading course in the 2019 fall semester, swapping out George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four (very little interest from students) for Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. This new addition, complemented by Douglass’ slave narrative and Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Cask of Amontillado’ (both have Baltimore connections and aid in teaching first-person narration), was a rousing success. I determined this as such by the number of students who a) brought the novel to class and had annotated it, b) the many participatory comments, and c) the sheer interest and excitement from the students regarding the novel. Therefore, from the research that I conducted and with the assistance of Strong’s conclusion regarding readership, I commenced the course design for the composition course centring it on vampires with emphasis on diversity and inclusivity while integrating digital media assignments into the course.

Polidori: Where to start? With such a large body of media from which to choose, factors must be in place before selecting. First, as this is a first-year composition course in a literature department, as is required written texts must be foremost in course design. The purpose of the course is to ensure that students have the skills to write a fiveparagraph essay, transmittable analytical skills that will assist all majors in their

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success during their undergraduate education. There is a set syllabus in place with types of assignments included within. Notably, as this course is to be one for remote learning, and the fact that selections featuring Black characters in the vampiric genre are few, including the visual was an option that was readily accepted. In addition, after the genre and media were chosen, it was integral to ensure that the media was reflective of the twenty-first century student’s needs. This includes diversity and inclusivity in the selection of materials as well as the integration of digital media resources. Further, selecting a starting point, one that will assist in the introduction of the vampiric genre to students is necessary for clarity and setting the tone of the entire course. From the enthusiastic comments made on Twitter, Polidori’s The Vampyre was the correct choice to make. As I had over 30 students registered for the course and it was to be held over Zoom (and the fact that I had used a Discussion board the previous semester to no avail), I elected to have students make participatory observations on a Twitter account I created specifically for my courses (Johnson 2011; Matos 2020). Having participation on Twitter is helpful if there is the possibility that a student may not be able to attend class (and will watch the recording later): Many students during the pandemic had no other option but to work. While we as instructors want all students to attend class as the best results are always achieved from constant engagement, adjustments must be made in time of crisis. Twitter participation makes it so that participation is not missed (Twitter is accessible constantly), can be made up if it is missed (which does happen), and is a useful tool for essay brainstorming. Due to the creation of the Byronic vampire stock character, and the Othering of said character, Polidori appears to be an ideal starting point for the course. George and Bill Hughes in their co-written Introduction to the Open Graves, Open Minds (2013) collection write that researchers of the vampire genre are ‘indebted to his [Christopher Frayling’s] identifying the dominant archetypal vampires as they emerge in fiction: the Byronic vampire (or ‘Satanic Lord’), the Fatal Woman, the Unseen Force, the Folkloric Vampire, the ‘camp’ vampire and vampire as creative force’ (p. 1). It is the vampiric character types that can assist in identifying a starting point for a course and a method of dividing the course into sections. Further, it is also possible to add in other vampire character constructs, one which George and Hughes identify as being addressed in their collection, namely the twenty-first century’s ‘sympathetic vampire’ (p. 2). Poole (2017) asserts that ‘Noting the ancient pedigree of studying the monstrous highlights the obvious fact that they have long been essential to various kinds of histories’ (p. 2). The educator continues his statement by showing how historically there is the appearance of monsters in oral and written traditions. Interesting Poole (2017) pronounces that ‘Sadly, when European explorers, settlers and conquerors made their way to West Africa, Asia, and the Americas, they took such conceptions of monstrous races with them’ (p. 3). By offering this assertion, Poole alerts the educator to a one-way influence – Europe to those that have been colonised – one which has been prioritized over others. By highlighting the European only in this statement, the European coloniser takes centre stage rather than the cross-cultural influence which is more accurate when representing monsters overall but not

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vampires specifically. In previous observations, Poole highlights the European impact on myth-making but not White-only. The horror genre – particularly that of cinema – has been criticised in the past for offering viewers a Caucasian representation, placing characters of colour in the background of the horror plots. It is for this reason that Jordan Peele’s films and HBO’s Lovecraft Country have become so popular with audiences. It is not that Black persons and culture are non-existent in the horror genre, it is that Caucasian history and culture took precedent over others. In fact, there is a long history of Asian horror; the issue is not that this genre is not good or not popular but rather that Hollywood decides that this is not what viewers wish to engage with so Asian horror has been relegated to cult status – for devotees of horror only. Film theorist Bruce Kawin in his text, Horror and the Horror Film (2012), categorises that which causes fear in visual contributions worldwide and is one such theorist that includes the influence of Black culture onto horror. For example, when Kawin delineates the zombie subgenre, he divides zombie films into two groupings: the earlier films influenced by the Haitian zombie and later ones from George A. Romero. In 2009, I attended the Mami Wata exhibit (Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas) at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, one which celebrates the African water goddess and her numerous incarnations due to the cross-cultural influences that happen because of enslavement. Throughout the exhibit, varied art forms from half a century display the many cultural influences and interpretations of the water goddess, who appears simultaneously as human and amphibious. In both cases as well as that from Poole (2017), multimedia reflects the chosen or forced movement of peoples and the fact that numerous cultures exist in the horror genre. Polidori’s text is particularly intriguing not only because of the Byronic vampire character but also because it has been identified as the first vampire text to be written in English. Polidori’s work is noteworthy partially due to the controversy surrounding its publication, namely that there were those who believed that Lord Byron himself wrote the story, and that Polidori creates the Byronic vampire character. Rather than beginning the course with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as many academics may prefer to do due to the popularity of the novel, if attempting to teach a course about diversity and inclusion it is preferred to have students read a text that reveals an instance of Othering that has deleterious effects on the body of literature itself. In his essay, ‘Dracula’s Pre-History: The Advent of the Vampire,’ Nick Groom (2017) relates the history of the vampire, its connection to disease, and the origins of Stoker’s story. It is the link to immigration and to Britain’s xenophobia that is most compelling an argument for its addition to a vampire course: ‘he [Ruthven] emerged from a highly specific phenomenon that had had its genesis in the tensions of international politics and regional identity, the militarisation of borders, the aspirations of medical science and the hybrid methods of rational theology’ (Groom, 2017, p. 23).

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On the surface, Polidori’s vampire story presents a plot that lacks inclusivity, one that only offers a single ethnic identity. Before delving into contemporary representations of vampires, Deborah Mutch (2011) discusses why the figure of the vampire resonated with its readership: ‘Fear is the response, not only to the threat to the individual, but also to the porousness of social and national boundaries. These nineteenth-century vampires act out colonial Britain’s fears of hybridity and miscegenation and what Stephen D. Arata has referred to as ‘reverse colonization’: the possibility of making ‘us’ like ‘them’ (p. 76). For students, especially those in a first-year course, teaching the act of deconstruction is key to their future analyses. Polidori’s multifaceted story allows for readers continued interest – Aubrey’s promise, Ruthven’s ruthlessness, and the women’s repeated demise – as well as a concrete starting point for a discussion of diversity and inclusivity in the vampire genre. For a first-year student body, many of whom are international students, immigration is a polarised issue and may be tackled when studying Polidori’s novella. As Mutch (2011) has asserted, xenophobia and discrimination towards persons other than the dominant nationality permeate vampire literature. Throughout the course, I verbally recommend films and television series that students, if they choose, may watch alongside those required for the course; one of these is Dracula – James Whale’s and Francis Ford Coppola’s. The image emulated in Blacula is that of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula, who according to Kawin becomes an iconic presence in world culture, a nearly universal symbol of undead evil wearing the formal mask of evening clothes that shows how evil can adapt to and hide within a society – or, from another point of view, shows the vampire’s decadence. (2012, p. 102) The upper class, well-dressed vampire is one that appears in Polidori’s novella as this is how Aubrey describes Ruthven. Polidori’s vampire as well as the later incarnation of the vampire, Prince Mamuwalde from Blacula, are cast as the interloper, as the Other who is widely accepted by societal members excepting Aubrey, the protagonist, and Professor Gordon Thomas, the vampire hunter. With reference to The Vampyre, it is Ruthven that assimilates easily and gives/receives attention to/from young, virginal women. Consensus from the comments made on Twitter as well as those reported in their essays, the students found Aubrey disagreeable, an unlikeable character due to his insistence on loyalty to Ruthven rather than his sister. As their travels ensue, Aubrey remains in awe of Ruthven, looks up to him as he proports to have everything. Aubrey is in effect alone; he has a sister, who the reader meets at the same time that Ruthven does, and guardians but no other family. He is portrayed as being targeted by Ruthven due to his upper-class status and his insecurity about himself. Ruthven is self-confident – assured; he comfortably assimilates into European society, drawing attention to himself when doing so as he emanates a desirable image. He is desired by both men and women; he appears as others wish to be. Unbeknownst to Aubrey and the women he seduces, Ruthven is a threat to life and to women’s purity. In true horror film fashion, the sexualised woman always dies at the hand of the villain. In analysing Whale’s Dracula, Kawin (2012) examines the relationship

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between Dracula and Van Helsing, the vampire hunter: ‘Both of them are foreign to the England where their encounter takes place, as their supernatural knowledge is foreign to the normal, unsuspecting world’ (p. 102). Kawin pinpoints the commonality between Dracula and Van Helsing, that which draws the two characters together. When applying this concept to Polidori’s Aubrey and Ruthven, a pattern appears. The marginalisation of the vampire – the Othering – and the implication that Aubrey feels this way results in an intimate relationship between the two. Whereas Jonathan Harker survives his interactions with Dracula, subsequently siring a male child, Aubrey is unable to both keep his promise to Ruthven and protect his sister; therefore, Aubrey succumbs to death after his sister is killed by Ruthven. Since Polidori writes Ruthven as reigning supreme over the English Aubrey, he is symbolically revealing the Other as conquering the British system.While offering a trigger warning before teaching Polidori is necessary as the subject matter is delicate, Polidori’s text is integral when teaching an inclusive vampire course. As with Gothic publications of this time including Polidori’s friend’s Frankenstein, the novella invokes fear in its nineteenth century reader, but for different reasons. Whereas Mary Shelley’s novel utilises advances in science and the possibilities of bringing the dead back to life (now known as CPR), Polidori raises feelings of concern in the British reader regarding the power of the immigrant and the morality of the Romantic period woman. Ruthven remains in control of British society and women who take control of their own bodies die. Ultimately, Polidori’s novella still resonates with the contemporary undergraduate student and may be integrated in a course, thereby enabling the instructor to show students the lack of diversity in inclusion in nineteenth century British society and the fears that revolved around a society that included international persons.

African American vampire stories Literary works written by African American persons about vampires do exist; however, many are not well known nor well studied. In fact, author and editor Patrice Caldwell (2020) eloquently captures this fact in her short story, ‘Letting the Right One In,’ her addition to her #BlackGirlMagic Young Adult collection, A Phoenix First Must Burn. Following Gomez’s model, Caldwell also offers her readers the first-person narrator; however, in this case the narrator is Ayanna, an African American cisfemale adolescent who is struggling with depression and utilises her love of the vampire genre as a coping mechanism. Ayanna adores all vampire media, including Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire amongst her list of reading material. Her entrance to the genre came about when her father introduced her to Wesley Snipes’ character of Blade in films of the same name. Ayanna meets her vampire, Corrie, in a library where she is soon to suspect that the reason why Corrie does not have a reflection and is able to glide rather than walk is because she is a vampire. In Ayanna’s story, her parents are struggling because they blame themselves for her depression; they announce that they are getting a divorce and she must select a parent with whom to reside.Ayanna discusses how in contemporary vampire literature, the vampire chooses their family, an act

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that Ayanna completes at the close of the short story as she climbs out of a window to meet her vampire girlfriend. In Gomez’s The Gilda Stories (1991), the protagonist Gilda is an African American lesbian vampire, who acts as narrator for the text. This novel is a standout among vampire media as not only does the lead tell her own story but also she identifies as both African American and a lesbian, a rarity for the genre. Due to time constraints for the course, I elected to have the students read the chapter, ‘OffBroadway: 1971,’ and had them do so before watching Blacula, which takes place in the same decade. Gilda is unnamed as the novel begins; she adopts the name of her sire once she is transformed into a vampire and the original Gilda dies. In a note, George and Hughes identifies Gilda as falling within the category of the ‘sympathetic vampire’ (Ch. 1). The unnamed Gilda, who begins as ‘The Girl’ in 1850 Louisiana, is introduced as an escaped enslaved young girl, one fleeing a fugitive slave catcher. She falls asleep, remembering her mother, her family’s history, and her mother’s desire for a better life for her daughter, when she is awakened by the hunter attempting to rape her. She stabs him in self-defence and when in hiding is located by Gilda who later transforms her into a vampire. Each chapter of the novel encompasses a decade of Gilda’s life, ultimately concluding in 2050. In the chapter selected for class, Gilda has taken on the position of stage manager in a small Broadway theatre, where she meets Julius. Gilda has her vampire family, one which includes her Native American mother, Bird. Gomez has fashioned her vampires to have an exchange of life: If a vampire chooses to add to the vampire family, then the vampire elects to die. While Gomez’s vampires are constructed using some of the same tropes as are common in the genre, Gomez’s Gilda also respects humanity and falls into the sympathetic vampire category as she suffers tragedy in her life. Unlike Rice’s Caucasian vampires that sees the enslaved as bodies from which to feed, Gomez writes Gilda’s story much like a slave narrative. Conclusively, Gomez tells the vampire story as one riddled with discriminatory practices in an unequal society. This novel resonates with students due to its insistence on inclusion with regard to gender and race and acts as an ideal lead-in to Blaxploitation.

How to address Blacula with undergraduate students First, before delving into the background behind Blaxploitation and Blacula, the instructor must provide a language and image warning for students. I reiterated orally in class and provided a written statement on the course Canvas site, ensuring that viewers knew that due to the constructs in place during the early 1970s when Blacula was made, that the language in the film may be challenging to some students. Specifically, the n-word, which is derogatory to Black persons and the f-word, which was predominantly used in the film, and acts to degrade gay men, were both included in the characters’ speech. Regarding language,Tara Macdonald (2012) writes in ‘Teaching Dracula in the Netherlands’ that her students’ attention has been drawn to the manner in which Bram Stoker wrote Van Helsing’s language. Students’ viewpoints are influenced by their own experiences, as shown in Macdonald’s article where she cites that her students’ primary language was Dutch,

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and secondary was English. Macdonald uses her students’ questions about language as a starting point for analysing the text, integrating theory that shows Van Helsing’s language affectation as aiding in Dracula’s downfall. Further, Macdonald examines the assumptions made aboutVan Helsing’s nationality and discriminatory constructs in connection to his European origins. In class, Macdonald presented a literature review of Dracula, one which the writer falsely asserts that Van Helsing is German: ‘For this reviewer, then,Van Helsing’s native language trumped his stated nationality. This further demonstrated the way that many late-Victorians, like Stoker and the anonymous reviewer, often ignored major distinctions between other European nations and their people’ (p. 13). While there is no mention of racial identification, Macdonald’s article is intriguing as she shows how non-native English-speaking students approach reading Dracula. In addition, Macdonald’s investigation demonstrates how students outside the predominantly examined locations – the US and the UK – connect with Stoker’s novel. It must be noted that the instructor has an obligation to their students to not state the discriminatory language outright. While preserving character and plot context is integral to our discipline, students of colour in the US, Canada, and the UK have reported that hearing these words outright are traumatising and hurtful. One student expressed in their essay their dismay at the homophobic slurs used by the character and was upset at this use of language. Even though derogatory language has been included in Blacula, it does not mean that the film should not be approached by faculty and students. On the contrary, many of my students valued the film’s connection to the civil rights movement and to its message regarding Black enslavement. The film opens in 1790, the viewer’s gaze trained on Castle Dracula, up on top a hill in Transylvania. While Blaxploitation films are notorious for the lack of budget, which affected the filming process, overall the inexpensive nature of the set and costumes as well as the hand-held camera work did not take away from the message in Blacula. There were problems with the sound in the initial and integral scene, however, which many students observed in their essays. For this section of the course, I assigned a five-paragraph film review essay (500 words), one that garnered positive results. The majority of students found the initial scene in the film the most intriguing and, significantly, the information provided within almost did not make it to the screen. In an interview with Shakespearean actor William Marshall, he identifies to interviewer David Walker (2009) that he was responsible for adding one of the most indispensable plot elements, namely Prince Mamuwalde’s request to Dracula. Mamuwalde and his wife, Luva, are shown at a table across from Dracula, in a room which also contains his minions. Mamuwalde have come to Dracula’s castle to ask him to cease the save trade, a request that Dracula acknowledged with racist remarks. Further, in a white supremacist act, Dracula turns Mamuwalde into a vampire (Blacula) and buries Luva alive. In response to Walker’s question about the plot elements that he added to Blacula, Marshall responded: The character I portrayed had an African background. That was what I came up with. The producers were not particularly interested in any concept of

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African people at that time, or with that aura surrounding the figure. I rather insisted. I felt that this would be the selling point, particularly for young African American men and women. (2009, p. 121) The genre of Blaxploitation which the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) originally termed race exploitation films in 1972, developed as a result of the lack of African Americans in American films. African American actors tended to be relegated to minor roles and those (like in the plantation film Gone with the Wind) roles that typified stereotypes of African American people. Blaxploitation placed African American characters at the forefront of each film, situating White characters in minor roles, subsequently making sure that African American people particularly those still affected by the Jim Crow south could see themselves in the big screen. Marshall asserted that Blaxploitation drew crowds ‘because they are seeing aspects of themselves that are anything but demeaning. Quite the contrary. They’re seeing aspects of themselves that made them proud. Prince Blacula’ (2009, p. 120). By adding the connection to enslavement, Marshall makes the film relatable to an African American audience and provides them with a character that is at the forefront of American history. Overall, the students enjoyed the film and found the connection to enslavement compelling. Overwhelming, then students identified the misogyny in the film, a marker of Blaxploitation, to be unsettling. Specifically, they are referring to Luva’s transformation into Tina and Blacula’s stalking of this character.

Conclusion: futuristic vampires Ultimately, my students in the composition course enjoyed the course and, as their grades could attest, fared well. The Final Project assigned for the course was for students to create a blog containing three blog posts and one vlog post. Each student had the option of writing in the voice of any of the characters studied, the most popular being that of Robert Neville. Students studied both Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend (1954) and the cinematic adaptation (2007) starring Will Smith. This contribution to the vampire genre was the one with which students were most familiar and the one that they emulated the most when it came to their final submission. Notably, this film’s cast is primarily made up of people of colour.When writing the comparison or contrasting five-paragraph response essay, students observed that they liked the changes that the cinematic brought to audiences. For example, Neville was a Caucasian vampire hunter who heavily drank in the novel whereas in the film he was an African American male scientist whose primary goal was to cure the virus rather than kill the vampires. It is telling, particularly in the midst of the COVID pandemic, that students preferred it to a plot where the protagonist chose to immerse himself in life over death. It is also indicative of twenty-first century media that the adaptation centres on an African American protagonist, one that is not only a virologist but in the US Army.The US has a history of medical experimentation on African Americans (i.e. see Tuskagee

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syphilis experimentation and Henrietta Lacks’ cell use for cancer research). This film offers a positive representation of an African American male, one that acts to save humanity from its own short-sighted actions.

References Caldwell, P. (2020) ‘Letting the Right One In,’ in Caldwell, P. (ed.), A Phoenix First Must Burn: Sixteen Stories of Black Girl Magic, Resistance, and Hope. New York:Viking. George, S. (2013) ‘Preface,’ in George, S. and Hughes, B. (eds.), Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present Day. Manchester: Manchester UP. George, S. and Bill Hughes (2013) ‘Introduction,’ in George, S. and Hughes, B. (eds.), Open Graves, Open Minds: Representations of Vampires and the Undead from the Enlightenment to the Present Day. Manchester: Manchester UP. Gomez, J. (1991) The Gilda Stories. San Francisco: City Lights Books. Groom, N. (2017) ‘Dracula’s Pre-History:The Advent of the Vampire,’ in Luckhurst, R. (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Dracula. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Kindle Edition. Jacobs, E. (2020, September) ‘University of Chicago Only Accepting English Students Willing to Work in Black Studies.’ New York Post. Available from: https://nypost. com/2020/09/15/uchicago-only-admitting-english-students-to-work-in-blackstudies/ Johnson, S. (2011) Digital Tools for Teaching: 30 E-tools for Collaborating, Creating, and Publishing across the Curriculum. Gainesville, Florida: Maupin House. Kawin, B. (2012) Horror and the Horror Film. London: Anthem Press. Macdonald, T. (2012) ‘Teaching Dracula in the Netherlands.’ Victorian Review 38(1), pp. 12–15. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23646848. Matos, A. D. (2020). Twitter tweets. Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diasporas (2009) [Exhibition]. Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, Washington DC. 1 April–26 July 2009. Marshall, W. (2009) ‘William Marshall,’ in Walker, D., Rausch, A.J., and Watson, C. (eds.), Reflections on Blaxploitation: Actors and Directors Speak. Interviewed by David Walker. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press. Mutch, D. (2011) ‘Coming Out of the Coffin: The Vampire and Transnationalism in the Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse Series.’ Critical Survey 23(2), 75–99. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41556418. Poole,W. S. (2017) ‘Foreword,’ in Golub, A. and Richardson Hayton, H. (eds.), Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. Kindle Edition. Strong, K. (2019) ‘The Love U Give:The Literate Lives of Black Adolescent Girls.’ Popular Culture Association’s 2019 Conference.

Chapter 5

Refugee 2.0 (De)constructing race, ethnicity, and identity through digital practices in refugees in camp settings and in-between places Claudia Böhme Introduction ICT and social media have become not only important tools on migratory journeys but especially for people in protracted refugee situations1. These connected migrants (Diminescu, 2008) are able to create and maintain virtual bonds and social networks in their homeland, while on the way to and in the host country. This is especially crucial for people living in protracted refugee situations as in refugee camps or in-between places of migration. Refugee camps especially in the Global South but also asylum accommodations in the Global North are often located in marginalised places and border regions. They are perceived as places of despair and ‘total institutions’ (Goffman, 1961) where people are under strict control and surveillance with no hope nor future. However, refugee camps are highly ambivalent places. With an existence of up to several decades they have become ‘accidental cities’ (Jansen, 2018a) and homes for hundreds of thousands of people with own social organisation, politics, economies, and cultures. ICT are not only essential for camp residents as forms of entertainment and connection to the world but also for practicing and expressing their live worlds, identities, and future imaginations. After having arrived in host countries in the Global North, refugees2 find themselves again in camp-like asylum homes and their legal status and future remain uncertain. Through the spread of new mobile devices and the internet, refugees are now able to consume digital cultures similar to non-migrants.Witteborn (2015) uses Willson’s concept of ‘Technologically mediated sociality’ (Willson, 2012) to look at refugees’ practices of self- presentation, social networking, and collective learning to manage their (in)visibility (Witteborn, p. 15). Doná (2015) argues that through their use of social media, refugees find new ways to create home in non-territorialised settings such as online communities and virtual spaces where they ‘are free to navigate, to enter in dialogue with co ethnic, co-national, and also transnational and trans-generational others, and to feel “at home” among online communities’ (p. 71). Using the example of refugees living in protracted refugee situations in Germany and Kenya, in this chapter I want to look at refugees’ ICT practices to analyse what it means to them to be connected, how these online networks can change their lives, and how they present themselves with their multiple personal, ethnical, political, or gendered identities. DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-6

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The research for this chapter is based on a student research seminar at the University of Trier, Germany in 2016, in which students cooperatively worked with newly arrived refugees from Syria, Eritrea, Iran, or Iraq, unravelling their migratory histories, daily lives, and struggles in the host country. Based on the seminars’ results, two research projects were conceptualised in the following years. One project analyses the problems and conflicts in asylum centres in Rhineland Palatinate and the second larger project looks at the use of social media in refugee camps in East Africa.3 I first discuss the internet and social media usage of migrants and present the state of the art on social media and migration. In the following, I elaborate the role these media mean to migrants and refugees in general and in constructing and deconstructing, representing, hiding, or discussing ‘race’ and ethnicity.Then, I present a case study of two young men who have applied for asylum in Germany and two women in a Kenyan refugee camp to show how they talk or/talk about their ethnic identities, origin, and skin colour online.These cases shall answer the following questions: How do refugees receive and consume digital cultures such as social media platforms or online visual culture and how do they or reject to present ‘race’ or descent or avoid it? Do they discuss their ethnicities online or their (dis)belonging to ethnic communities in the offline world? Do they present themselves with new and alternative identities beyond their ethnicity, nationality, and the label of refugee? I argue that in constructing an imaginative or alternative identity online and offline they take an active part in the deconstruction of racial identities and racism. Finally, I return to the question of how refugees’ experiences can be included in Higher Education teaching in order to address ethnic diversity and racial discrimination as well as the historical roots and politics, which lead to forced migration. Digital communication and social media can be a viable tool to let refugees speak for themselves and give students thus direct insights into their live worlds.

Social media and migration Up to the penultimate century, migrants could only rely on information from personal intermediaries and oral and written reports of returnees like emigrant letters, literature, and advertisements (Borges & Cancian, 2016; Lehmkuhl, 2014). Getting information was difficult and tedious during their journeys because there was usually a break up of communication. Mass media like radio, cinema, and television have widened the communication and information channels of migrants in the twentieth century. This process was revolutionised through the digitalisation and global distribution of mobile phones, access to the internet, and social media since the early 2000s. From this time on, migrants not only have delocalised access to information and communication networks but do also produce content relevant for other migrants. This can have severe effects as the example of the ‘Merkel-selfies’ shows, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel made selfies with newly arrived refugees in Berlin in 2015. What followed was the glorification and iconisation of the refugee saviour ‘Mama Merkel’ on refugee social media sites (Hagen, 2015), hate speech

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directed to the refugees, and a political debate that Merkel in this way attracted more refugees to come to Germany. What the example also shows is how important mobile phones have become for refugees to report on the experience of migration and flight as well as how they make themselves at home in new places.4 These publications testify and make visible to us what great risks refugees take and the horrors of their journeys to reach Europe as well as the power of access to the mobile phone. The images of refugees with mobile phones not only alters our vision of them as poor and faceless victims of global circumstances but also makes them subjects of mistrust and suspicion when smartphones are discussed as luxury tools not appropriate for people seeking refuge. The role of ICT and social media was only recently taken up by migration and refugee research but is slowly growing (Borkert et al., 2009; Charmarkeh, 2013; Hannides et al., 2016; Leurs & Smets, 2018; Ros, 2010; Ros et al., 2007). What these studies show is that transnational migrants and refugees today use mobile phones and social media before, during, and after migration to inform and connect themselves and report on their journeys (Byrne & Solomon, 2015; Emmer et al., 2016; Gillespie et al., 2016; Hendawi, 2015; McLaughlin, 2015). Social media is used for resource mobilisation and social capital (Bourdieu). Through the easier generation and use of weak ties (Haythornthwaite, 2002; Hiller & Franz, 2004; Wells, 2011), social media changes the availability as well as trust in information, imaginations of the future as well as social networks (Dekker & Engbersen, 2012; Schönhuth, 2010; van den Bos & Nell, 2006; van Meeteren & Pereira, 2013). Communicating via social media in this way is part of an active future-making (Appadurai, 2004, 2013), practices through which the present and future are connected, and which focus on the relation between imaginations of hopeful futures and the deeds which aim to realise these (Pink & Salazar, 2017). Media in general play an important role for diaspora communities or transnational families, as they become ‘media migrants’ (Hepp et al., 2011). In a study of Philippine foster mothers in the UK, Madianou and Miller (2012) show how transnational families keep up their family lives with ‘polymedia’5. Facebook, the most used social media platform around the world, is essential for producing and maintaining social networks as well as for identity construction. In his book Tales from Facebook (Miller, 2011), Daniel Miller shows that Facebook in Trinidad is essential for the construction and preservation of ‘Trini-ness’ and is sometimes itself perceived as an actor in its own right, severely changing people’s lives. Through mobile phones and social media migrants in this way have become ‘connected’ (Diminescu, 2008),‘virtual migrants’ (Komito, 2011, pp. 27–29), or ‘smart refugees’ (Dekker et al., 2018), who with the help of the virtual connections made possible by the internet, create a social space of ‘presences,’ a ‘connected presence’ (Licoppe, 2004), and are therefore here and there at the same time.Through this ‘multi-belonging,’ they are able to continuously renew their ties with their homeland while making contacts in the societies of the destination country (Diminescu, 2008, p. 569, p. 572). This space of presences is an interconnection, overlapping, and merging of past, present, and future. As in a present situation of the migration process, future action is made possible by the activation of past experiences and contacts.

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A UNHCR report from 2016 with the title ‘Connecting Refugees’6 shows that despite affordability constraints, refugees place significant value on being connected, to communicate with friends and family, in their home and host country. As refugees also use their smartphones for gaining help and assistance, digital connectivity is important for refugee well-being and self-reliance (UNHCR, 2016, p. 22). In refugee camps, people manage to hold onto their family and the familiar and keep in touch with the ‘outside world’ in the host societies (Leung, 2011). Mobile phones function often as the main channel of communication with people outside and as tools for overcoming isolation and connecting with the world (Doná, 2015, p. 72).

Social media and the discussion of race and ethnicity As social media in general function as spaces for community building and group solidarity, ethnicity and ‘race’ play a vital role as group markers in digital spaces. In this regard, social media have become what Brinkman calls ‘a battleground for conflicts over political and social concerns’ (Brinkman, 2018, p. 6). Due to current political developments, race and racial discrimination have become the most popular issues on social media (Brinkman, 2018). According to Brock (2009), for people of colour, social media have become a major meeting point to talk about and discuss issues of Black identity. Chan (2017) has shown how the identity of student users of social media sites in the US are highly influenced by the postings, are encouraged to connect to ‘racial groups’, take part in their discussions and develop pride in their identity. As Anderson and Hitlin (2016) state, recently ‘these platforms have provided new arenas for national conversations about race and racial inequality’ (p. 2) in such a dimension that Florini (2013) renamed the social media platform Twitter ‘Black Twitter’ as people of colour use the platform extensively to express their racial identity through microblogging service as well as linguistic performance. In the history of Twitter, the two most used hashtags focusing social issues were #Ferguson and #BlackLivesMatter (Anderson & Hitlin, 2016, p. 2). In South Africa as Suzanne Beukes (2017) exemplifies with the student movement #FeesMustFall, Twitter has become an important platform for young Black students to discuss and organise political actions against their long-time racial discrimination. Therefore, discourses about race and ethnicity intersect with other topics like popular culture, sports, and the everyday experiences of their users (Beukes op.cit.). As a survey by Anderson and Hitlin (2016) shows, there is also a significant difference in the perception of Black or White social media users in the US. Black users about twice as often as White users perceive posts they see relating to race and Black people say three times more than White people that their posts entail issues of race while nearly two-thirds of White users say that their postings don’t relate to race at all (Anderson & Hitlin, 2016, pp. 2–3). Among the race related postings, six in ten tweets are related to current events news or media events (pp. 6–9). The remaining tweets discuss racial discrimination in a historical context or as very personal experiences (pp. 12–14). In general, Black users regardless of their offline discussions of the topic much more often see, post, or share racial issues (Anderson & Hitlin, 2016, p. 6).

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As Byrne (2008) and Parker and Song (2006) have proven, online activities have hereby severe effects on offline happenings, as the case of #BlackLivesMatter has shown, which has grown into a global movement in the offline world. Social media in this way are a powerful platform for discriminated and marginalised groups. This also applies for refugees, who are often stuck at foreign places due to asylum politics. In the host countries, they experience exclusions and restrictions, hate and racial discrimination, loneliness and isolation, and the feeling of not being wanted. Through social media, these negative feelings can be countered with social networking, positive identity construction, and self-presentation.

The self-presentation and identity of refugees in online spaces Today, refugees can take part in digital communication in manifold ways. ‘Technologically mediated sociality’ (Willson, 2012), the way social relations are being reshaped by technology in the form of Skype calls or Facebook (Witteborn, 2015) play a vital role in this process. Social media can be a means for refugees to distance themselves from the label refugee and its connotations of being a passive victim or unlawful intruder. Through ‘technologically mediated sociality,’ refugees make themselves invisible or can assert themselves through co-presence and selfrepresentation. Alternatively, they can use the online world to become visible as a kind political force (Witteborn, 2015, p. 352). Refugees then use the refugee label in their own terms and as a discursive force for political mobilisation online and offline. As Godin and Donà (2016) show in their study on young Congolese living in the diaspora in the UK, through the use of social media, refugees and members of the diaspora make a plurality of identities visible as they are establishing connections beyond the categories of refugees or people of the diaspora. New ICT foster the communication of refugee voices or those of the diaspora in transnational and trans-generational spaces. Through these media, they are able to produce their own narratives and engage in forms of hybrid activism in virtual as well as in non-virtual spaces (Adams Parham, 2004). As Castells (2001) has stated, ‘the Internet brings people into contact in a public agora, to voice their concerns and share their hopes. People’s control of this public agora is perhaps the most fundamental political issue raised by the development of the internet’ (Castells, 2001, pp. 164). Through internet usage, the 1.5/second generation of migrants have found new ways of engaging in the politics of representation and political activism (Hess & Korf, 2014, pp. 419–437; Leurs, 2015). As Doná writes, in protracted refugee situations, refugees use a virtual form of homemaking in that they link past with future ‘Homes’ (Doná, 2015, pp. 67–73) and do interact in a form of ‘Virtual homemaking’ (Doná, 2015, p. 71; Bonini, 2011). In relation to Anderson’s concept of imagined community (Anderson, 1983), Doná states that internet ethnic and national groups create powerful imagined virtual communities:

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Living in prolonged displacements, migrants find new ways to create home away from the dwelling and towards non-territorialized settings such as online communities. Forced territorial and bureaucratic immobility is reversed in virtual spaces, where forced migrants are free to navigate, to enter in dialogue with co-ethnic, co-national, and also transnational and trans-generational others, and to feel ‘at home’ among online communities. (Doná, 2015, p. 71) As Cindy Horst (2006) has described, Somali refugees in displacement transcend their immobility by interacting with family members and friends in transnational spaces through Skype calls and email. By accessing news and sharing information with other members of their ethnic and national group on the internet, migrants, refugees, and e-diasporas can feel virtually part of their home country (Donà, 2014). Bernal (2006) shows how the Eritrean online diaspora reinforces their political imagination of the home. As Bello (2014) has shown, new media play a pivotal role in the formation and management of dual identities and in this way influence migrants’ cultural (dis)comfort or stress and their integration into the host society.

Social media and identity practices by refugees in Germany Since the summer of 2015, more than a million of refugees have arrived in Germany from Syria, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. At the time, Germany was unprepared to receive such a large number of refugees and process their asylum cases. Public opinions concerning the reception of refugees have varied between a ‘Welcome culture’ and fear and hostility towards refugees fostered by the rightwing party AfD (Alternative for Germany). By now the administration and receiving structures have been improved, more places for accommodation have been made available, and asylum procedures have been systematised and optimised while the numbers of refugees have decreased. When arriving in Germany, asylum seekers are received and registered in a home of first admittance and their asylum is started to be legally processed. Asylum seekers have the right to seek legal assistance and complain against the asylum decisions. After some time, they are ‘transferred’ to other asylum homes in the respective region. Finally, they are moved to decentral accommodations in the communal districts. If asylum is denied, refugees have to leave the country either voluntarily or they will be forcefully deported to the country of first entrance or to their home country. To account for the new developments in Germany, I have organised a student research seminar at the University of Trier in 2016 in which students worked in smaller research groups on the topic of newly arrived refugees in the city. As many students already had contact with refugees or worked with aid organisations, they were highly motivated to do fieldwork in this area. The overall aim of the seminar was to learn to undertake anthropological fieldwork and was organised over two semesters. In the first part, there was a theoretical input on migration and refugees and practical exercises on ethnographic methods and a reflection on the challenges

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and ethics of doing research with refugees. The students read texts and discussed important topics like the vulnerability/agency nexus, postcoloniality and power relations between German students and asylum seekers, challenges of communication and language and, most importantly, issues of trust. We also prepared students how to deal with the dramatic events in refugees’ migration narratives, to be sensible to refugees’ trauma, and the danger of retraumatisation during recounting their stories. One of the female students who had a Syrian boyfriend had the idea to invite him and other refugees to the seminar who were willing to talk about their experiences. To avoid a mere showcasing, refugees did not stand before the whole class but would sit together with students in smaller seating circles. After that, students formed teams, conceptualised their research topics, and prepared fieldwork. Topics chosen for the research groups entailed the material culture of refugees, the future perspectives of refugee youth, work integration of refugees, refugee statistics, local news coverage of refugees as well as the use of new and social media by refugees before, during, and after migrating. Students quickly made contact to refugee related institutions and organisations as well as with singular refugees from Syria, Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, or Pakistan. In the semester holidays, the actual fieldwork started, and students accompanied refugees in their daily lives in asylum homes, schools, job trainings, or language courses. They talked to them and interviewed them, worked with questionnaires and visual methods. Most importantly, they formed social relations or even friendship with them and were invited to festive gatherings like fast breaking or Eid al Fitr. During fieldwork, they wrote field diaries and regularly presented the ongoing results. The following semester was focused on the analysis of the research data as well as the writing of the research report. The seminar was successful especially as the students were able to form trust relationships and even friendships with refugees with whom they have worked together in a friendly and cooperative manner. During the following research on conflict and complaint management for refugees in three asylum homes in Rhineland Palatinate in 2018, I was able to know some of the asylum seekers better and follow their migration biographies and trajectories. In the asylum homes with a very regulated, restricted, and boring daily live and very uncertain future, the internet and mobile connectivity have a very high importance for asylum seekers, which is sometimes even compared to food (Kutscher & Kreß, 2015). When I was observing the arrival of newcomers in one of the accommodations, one man stepped out of the bus and directly asked the social workers if Wi-Fi was available. Moreover, refugees would protest if Wi-Fi was not working or if they were not able to charge their phones. In the following, I introduce two young men I met in the asylum homes and with whom I am in contact since then through personal or online communication. I give a brief sketch of their journeys to Germany and their process of seeking asylum and outline which role the use mobile phones and internet play for them and the construction of their identities. The first example is Abdul7 a 28-year-old Sudanese man who came to Germany in February 2018 via Italy. He belongs to the Zaghawa (or Beri), a semi-nomadic group located in Eastern Chad and the Darfur region in Sudan. The Zaghawa like

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other groups were prosecuted and killed during the war in Darfur. In 2004, when Abdul was nine years old, the Janjaweed8 attacked their village and kidnapped his brother and him together with other boys and kept them as work slaves on their farms. When Abdul tried to escape, they branded him so that they would know that he belongs to them. After three months, he and his brother managed to escape and reunite with their relatives in a refugee camp in Sudan where his parents stay until today. In 2016, Abdul started his onward migration to Europe. A smuggler brought him in a truck through the great desert to Libya where he had to stay for one year as a slave worker. Finally, in 2017 he managed to escape and process his onward journey crossing the Mediterranean Sea to Italy. From Italy, he hid in a cargo train to France and finally found his way to Germany. His family is spread over Uganda, Turkey, Germany, and the refugee camp in Sudan. As Abdul told me, he is constantly thinking about his home country and he often feels like a stranger in Germany (Abdul, 2018).While going for a walk in the small city he is staying, for example, two young drunken boys called to him ‘Negro, you have no business here!’ Similar racist reactions happened to him three to four times. Nevertheless, as he said he was happy that in Germany they would not violently attack him and in the end, racism would be something normal, which happens everywhere (Abdul, 2020). Against all odds, Abdul achieved big steps towards his integration into German society.Via mobile phone and YouTube, he was able to learn German reaching B1 level in the course of one year. After a transfer to a village, he could move to his own flat in a small city in the region. He received a temporary allowance to stay, Duldung, and was able to start job training. However, despite the unsafe situation in Sudan, his plight for asylum was several times denied until recently and is still being processed. Until now, he has to live and work with the fear of being deported. The mobile phone, internet, and social media play a very important role for him because it helps him to stay in contact with his friends and family, especially with his mother with whom he regularly phones and talks via Skype. Although he has a place to stay, a job, friends, and he knows German well, Abdul still doesn’t quite feel at home in Germany: ‘My mother always tells me I should feel at home in Germany, but what use it is for me if I don’t?’ He uses the internet to access information on the current situation and developments in Sudan. He uses the websites of the German news programme tagesschau to inform him about the political situation in Sudan as well as different Facebook sites from Sudan or from Sudanese people in exile (Abdul, 2018). While there are also Zaghawa Facebook groups, which inform about their culture and teach the language, ethnic belonging on Facebook does play a minor role for him. This is also true for movements like #BlackLivesMatter, which he thinks is something very good but at the end would not change much (Abdul, 2020). Another person I met at the same time is David9, a 31-year-old Nigerian Ibo man who has arrived in the asylum house of first admittance in the region’s city in March 2018. Although he had a good life and was on the way to become a fashion designer, he left Nigeria for a dream of Europe. The Facebook posts and communication with a friend who has fled to Italy before him spiked his interest as they

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showed a better, easy, and glamorous life in Europe. David believed his friend and left Nigeria with the help of smugglers. What follows was the most horrible experience in his life. First, the journey from West Africa to Libya where he was imprisoned and had to escape and the following boat trip crossing the Mediterranean Sea. During his journey, he suffered greatly and saw many people die on the way. After his arrival in Southern Italy, David stayed in a camp near Milano, where his friend disappeared. Still clinging to a hope that his long journey would have a meaning in the end, he headed on to Germany, where life as a refugee was said to be better than in Italy (David, 2018). He arrived in Germany with the dream of carrying on his former work as a fashion designer. However, his asylum application was rejected as well as his judicial complaint against it. When he was threatened to be deported back to Italy, as this was his country of first admittance10, he slept at friends’ homes and only stayed the weekend in the asylum home. Later on, he was transferred to a small village where he felt totally lost, alone, and bored. His mobile phone was the only retreat and connection to the world. A few weeks later, David was deported to Milano in the early morning hours. As soon as the police handed his phone back to him, he informed me and other friends of what happened and used WhatsApp to find emotional support. In Milano, he could stay at a friends’ place, sharing a small room with several people sleeping on the floor. As he did not want to live like them, without any support and begging on the streets, he quickly decided to come back to the German city where he already felt at home. He came back to Germany on trains, hid and slept in train stations. When he arrived, he sent me a message with a smiling emoji that he was back. In the following months, he stayed with a friend before he came back to his first camp where he started to apply for asylum once again. After two weeks, he was brought to another camp in the countryside. For David, his mobile phone and internet connectivity are most important. He was always calling, texting, and chatting with contacts, friends, and families around the world. With his parents and sibling at home in Nigeria and with friends in Nigeria, Italy, and the UK, he plays online games with them and with new contacts and friends in Germany. Although contact with home can reduce his homesickness, it also enforces it. Nevertheless, through the mobile phone he can still be part of the family and know what is going on. While talking to people in Germany, he would not tell them that he was a refugee and instead performed an alternative identity – a design student from Nigeria. Online he would post either positive pictures of him in Germany or some self-reflexive texts about his life, hopes, and dreams. He avoids concrete information, as he fears to be spied on by officials. David also uses the mobile phone to inform himself about where to go, on new asylum laws, and to seek help and advice as well as to learn German and find possible small jobs in the place he is staying. His virtual practices helped him to make friends in Germany. As a friendly and attractive young man, he soon had several female admirers and found a German girlfriend.Video chatting with her became most important during times of isolation, when he was not able to leave the asylum accommodation due to COVID-19 quarantine or when he was transferred to another city in 2020.

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Although his second plight for asylum was also denied and chances to get an allowance to stay are very low, David still dreams of being able to stay in Germany. His virtual practices help him overcome isolation as well as to live his dream of being already accepted.

Online identity practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp Kakuma Refugee Camp was founded in 1992 following the arrival of the ‘Lost boys of Sudan,’ young Nuer and Dinka who were orphaned and displaced during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). Other refugees came from Ethiopia and Somalia and the camp’s population from diverse nations increased over the years. At the end of July 2020, the camp has a population of about 196.666 people from the Horn of Africa and Eastern Africa.11 The camp consists of four parts Kakuma 1 to 3 and 4 which is the Kalobeyei settlement designed as an alternative and innovative camp where refugees should live more or less self-sustained in three villages (UNHCR Kenya, 2020). The camp is administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and a wide range of humanitarian organisations is active in the camp (KANERE, 2019). Kakuma refugee camp is situated in north-western Kenya at the outskirts of Kakuma town in the Turkana West District of Turkana County, about 120 km from the next city Lodwar and 130 km from the border of South Sudan. The camp lies in a harsh semi-arid desert environment with regularly occurring dust storms, high daily temperatures of 35 to 38 degrees Celsius, and regular outbreaks of malaria and cholera during the flood in the rainy season (UNHCR Kenya, 2020). Around the camp, the majority of the local population is made up of the nomadic pastoralists of Turkana. They are themselves a marginalised group of people who depend on missionary aid to get education and health services. As access to water and pasture land is restricted, the area has become a place of regular intergroup and cross-border violence with the neighbouring Pokot, Karamojong, and others. Although the local population also profit from the camp, the relationship to the refugees is ambivalent and marked by envy, when saying, ‘It is better to be a refugee than a Turkana in Kakuma’ as well as violent conflicts between the two groups (Aukot, 2003, p. 74). Like other refugee camps, Kakuma is a place where most people stay for several years, a whole life, or even several generations and has become a city-camp over centuries with its own urban structures and social organisations. It is a geographically defined, ruled, and restricted place but also a place of hope and singular chances for success and the hope to get out.This is only possible through education in the camp and a scholarship for a university outside or the UNHCR resettlement programme, which allows vulnerable refugees to be accommodated in a country abroad (Jansen, 2018a). Somali refugees call this constant and all-encompassing longing to go abroad and leave the camp buufis12, which can have severe psychological effects like mental health issues and even suicide. According to Horst, buufis is fostered by transnational flows of remittances and information (Horst, 2006). However, although buufis are strong, the inhabitants also try to concentrate

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on their life in their current home through their daily work, diverse projects, social groups, and social activism. When I visited Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2017, I was able to talk to two women, Amina from Somalia and Joyce from Southern Sudan, in their small photo art studio they built up with the help of a photographer from the US. Both have spent most of their lives within the borders of the camp. Amina came to the camp in 1992 with her parents when she was two years old. She is a single mother of two daughters and is working for an NGO and an international organisation in the camp. At the time I met her, Amina was hoping for resettlement to the US, but the Trump government stopped the process of their application and all her hopes laid on a resettlement to Canada. In February 2020, Amina learned about the possibility of joining the German Resettlement Program. The interview with the German delegation in March 2020 went well but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all resettlement measures were stopped, and her dream shattered. Joyce was born in Kakuma in 1995, following her parent’s flight from Southern Sudan. She completed her secondary education in the camp, was working for a camp related project, and even won an award for her activities. Her biggest dream had been to get a scholarship to study abroad (Joyce, 2017). In 2018, her dream came true: Joyce received a scholarship from the University of Nairobi and could leave the camp for her studies and part time modelling. As both said, life in the refugee camp is marked by restrictions and limitations, lack of security and regularly occurring violence, a lack of access to resources and chances and identity, as the refugee label is stamped upon them, hiding their personal identity. In this negative in-between present-ness, dreams and hopes for change and a better future are all encompassing. As Amina stated: You don’t want to lead a refugee life for the rest of your life you feel wasted you feel you lack that sense of identity. […] So you wish that one day not at least (your) kids will not have an identity like you. So yes I have like a whole lot of dreams like once to get out of this place […]it’s everyone’s dream but we have been in camp now for most of our lives so it still is our home. We are thankful they hosted us but sometimes you’re supposed to break some boundaries and find your own identity. (Amina, 2017) Life in the camp is also marked by the UNHCR’s administrative structure by place of origin, ethnicity, or clan and the formation of camp communities built along ethnic lines reflected in the ethnic names of different blocks or by common interest groups and activities (Agier, 2002; Jansen, 2018a; Horst, 2006).13 However as Agier shows with the example of Daadab camps, more than these rather fixed identities, camps create identity as bricolage and new identities are made. While there is a lot of conflict between the different nationalities, ethnicities, and clans, there exists also what Agier calls a camp specific ‘ethnic chessboard’ on which ‘each affiliation takes on its meaning and position in relation to the other ‘pieces’ on the

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board–competing, antagonistic or allied’ (Agier, 2002, p. 334). Since camp inhabitants use social media, they vividly take part in online communities not only different from offline groups in the camp but in global networks that go far beyond the borders of the refugee camp. Moreover, refugees are able to present themselves online with their own and alternative identities. Through these online practices, the ethnic chessboard in the camp becomes highly dynamic and multidimensional as off- and online activities influence each other.

The role of social media in Kakuma in talking about Black identity When internet and mobile phones became available and widely used in Kenya, the UNHCR’s reaction to new media usage was firstly disapproving. The authorities prohibited the use of mobile phones and ICT in the camp (Jansen, 2018b). When pressure from the inhabitants and the public grew, they not only allowed but also fostered new media usage in the camp. In 2017, the UNHCR initiated an ICT Bootcamp for Kakuma inhabitants to educate refugees on the technical skills of ICT to enhance their abilities to find education or work (Otieno, 2017). Within the vicinity of the camp internet cafés, mobile phone shops and mobile money services like M-Pesa blossomed. Today these make up a big part of economic activities as well as the visual landscape in the camp with painted phone shops, creative charging facilities and their advertisement boards all over the place. Kakuma is presented on diverse different websites and all major social media platforms.14 However, power cuts and financial resources still restrict media usage. In order to access the internet, camp inhabitants have to have well working and charged smartphones and buy data bundles from the respective provider, which not everybody can afford. Shaky and timely restricted network is another problem they encounter. The internet and social media have made it possible for the residents of Kakuma not only to connect with their places of origin but also to connect to possible future places to stay. A friend or family member is now ‘just a phone call away’ (Amina, 2017). On the internet, information and pictures of possible new futures elsewhere are distributed, received, and appropriated. Through social media, refugees can publish camp related projects and events and connect to larger supporting networks to receive donations or even become famous. Social media in this also functions as a motor of change (Amina, 2017). Both Amina and Joyce use their mobile phones to access the internet and social media platforms very actively, especially WhatsApp, Facebook, FB Messenger, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram. Although they sometimes have difficulties with access or money to buy data bundles, social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are most important to them, as they can connect with people outside the camp and present themselves with a personal identity beyond the refugee status (Joyce 2017; Amina, 2017; Böhme, 2019). Through Facebook, both of them have built up large networks of contacts in Kakuma, Kenya, and abroad.

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Amina started to use Facebook on 9 September 2009 with a post saying ‘Am looking 4 friends’ and two weeks later ‘Am serchng 4 gret, honest, lovng n caring frnds!ʼ To date, Amina has 3.924 friends and 1.836 subscribers from different places like Kenya, the USA, and Europe. As with many camp residents she is using an alternative profile, which reads that she comes from a Kenyan town and lives in the capital. On her profile, one can see a picture of her sitting cross-legged between her two beautifully dressed daughters in front of a black background in the photo studio. In the middle is a smaller round picture of herself sitting at a window looking at the sea. While at the beginning Amina used Facebook as a simple messenger tool, today she uses it for multiple forms of communication like posting selfies and photos of her daughters and close friends in the camp, picture-text messages, greeting, exchanging news, religious greetings and messages, political topics, love issues, raising awareness for refugees, or promoting love for popular culture, music, and sports. Most of all, she is using personally coined or ready-made sayings to communicate her feelings and thoughts on a particular day or moment. Joyce has been on Facebook since 2010, using it more actively since 2012. Starting mainly with selfies or pictures of her friends, today she also uses Facebook for various forms of communication. Her profile picture is a picture of herself standing looking at some plants with a background picture of Amina and her, both laughing it reads ‘(two lucky clover) Dear self, in a world that is constantly judging and plays victim even in circumstances of hurt, it is my hope you learn and step back and be kind to yourself.’ She has 2,161 friends to date. Besides topics on refugees, women, or popular culture, her posts reflect her origin as South Sudanese reporting on the situation of the country, the hope for peace as well as her aim to reach Higher Education and to be a beauty model. As one of her dreams is becoming a beauty model, there are many posts consisting of very professionally staged self-portraits (FB page 2019). The photo studio has its own Facebook page, which helps the two women to advertise their project beyond the camp as well as display the photographs and report on photographic projects in the camp. In the posts of the two woman and their friends there are many ‘black identity’ discourses. In several posts and comments of Amina and her friends one can find references to ‘being black’ which relate to pictures of female camp residents who display a naturally African or Black look. These are commented with ‘niledesert_flower,’ ‘beautiful black’ combined with a Black woman emoji or a Black strong elbow, ‘mtoto buskoti/chokoleti,’ ‘black African woman,’ ‘Beautiful Black Woman,’ ‘pretty black women,’ or ‘Black Melanin.’ While in these examples ‘black’ is presented as a positive force, in some commentaries ‘black’ has also a negative connotation. In a longer post of a woman practicing yoga in the camp showing her in a black and white picture in a yoga pose, she refers to her heart as a ‘a big dark void’ and ‘the sadness that lived in this black space’ (posted 29 May 2019). In May 2015, Amina wrote in her news feed: ‘I like my coffee how I like myself: dark, bitter, and too hot for you!’ This joking statement takes up the racist connotations of people of colour with ‘black’ or brown drinks like coffee and food like chocolate or cookies and turns it into an

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articulation of proudness. The final phrase ‘too hot for you!’ has a clear sexual connotation and warning to men to approach her and in this way can be read as a feminist statement. Commentators reacted in jokingly asking to pass some of the coffee to them, ‘usambaze’ in Swahili, or in joining in with ‘Black rose is beautiful.’ References to popular people of colour or refugees who have made it in the global arena are often used as positive role models in these postings. Commenting on a photo shooting in the camp in October 2017 with models who display a ‘traditional African’ look Amina writes: ‘When beauty lies in our culture, am proud to be an African!’ Adding several hashtag links. On the 7th of November 2018, Amina reposted an open acknowledgement of the US-American activist and politician Ilhan Omar, who was elected as a member of congress in Minnesota in 2018. In this post with a picture of Omar and words of gratitude, Ilhan refers to her exceptionality with the many firsts she embodies: the first Muslim woman, the first woman of colour, and the first refugee to be a member of congress. Amina reposted Omar’s picture with the praising ‘Well done Ilhan omar, you make me and any young girl who is a refugee or an Immigrant to fight for justice and whats right. Proud to call you a role model.’ On the 29th June of 2019, Amina posted a text and eight photo portraits of her daughter. On all pictures, the girl is seen from her head down to her chest leaning on a wall. She is either smiling, looking serious into the camera, or making a funny gesture. The text reads: To my beautiful dark Angel My love, I just want you to know that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you or your skin texture. You may look different than most of your friends with caramel skin but You are perfect! I know how it feels to wish you looked like your friends at school, but I know that your cocoa skin is magical and perfect. Know that people like Lupita Nyongo, Danai Gurira, Eman, Adut Aketch exist. I know how it feels to live in a generation where beauty is defined by your skin color and caramel skin is everything, please don’t ever change your gorgeous Melanin! I know how it feels to live in a world that wants some part of you, but not all of you. Always remember to be bold and stay strong. Be kind, humble and always in love with yourself because Allah created You perfectly Masha Allah. I love u queen of the dark and You are more than enough. Love, your mom @ Nairobi, Kenya With this text, Amina is relating to an insecurity her daughter has relating to her darker skin colour compared to her friends in the camp. Amina ensures her

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daughter that everything is well with her and that she should not worry about the lighter skin of her friends, referred to here as ‘caramel skin’ or ‘cocoa skin.’ The mother hints that she had similar problems before, as she would know how it feels. She is praising her daughter’s skin as ‘magical and perfect’ and refers to well-known popular people who have a similar dark skin. Those are the Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o who had a breakthrough with her participation in Star Wars-The Force Awakens (2015), the American actress and activist Danai Jesekai Gurira (whose parents are from Zimbabwe), who acted in the movie Black Panther (2018), the Somali fashion model and widow of David Bowie, Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid ‘Iman,’ and the South Sudanese–Australian model Adut Akech Bior. Bior has also lived in the Kakuma Refugee camp in her early childhood before she got resettlement to Australia with her mother. As Bior reports she herself has experienced racism when she first came to Australia when other children made fun of her appearance, her skin colour, teeth, and size. Her features, however, helped her to become one of the leading beauty models in the world (Cruel, 2019). In her text Amina begins three times the sentence with ‘I know how it feels’ to refer to friends, generation, and the world which can be discriminatory. She calls on her daughter to never use skin-bleaching products, to remain bold and strong, kind and humble, and to love herself. Finally, she is referring to Allah as her creator following with the Arabic phrase ‘ma sha allah!’ (What God has willed). She ends with her love in calling her ‘queen of the dark’ and that she is ‘more than enough.’ As this post makes clear racism between refugees with different skin colours does exist in the refugee camp but that it is not talked about much in public. Through the use of social media platforms, this problem can be made public even if it is only hinted at. In this case, Facebook is used as a form of private but open communication form to level out the discrimination her daughter has experienced, to prevent personal consequences like skin bleaching and foster her self-esteem. In Joyce’s posts one finds many positive and empowering Black consciousness references. Firstly, she states being proud to be African through her afro hairstyle and her dressing styles. Her WhatsApp profile picture shows an animated picture of her sitting with a larger-than-life Afro in an idyllic countryside with cows and sheep as well as elephants and giraffes. It looks like one giraffe is close to eat from her afro-tree. On FB she has reposted a local politician saying ‘They never told us that black is beautiful’ as a subtitle of a group picture of 16 Black women in similar dresses. The three comments say ‘Awww! See all those beautiful different shades of black’ added by and one black okay sign which is taken up in another commentary ‘Different shades of black

Amazingly beautiful’

.

Conclusion The mobile phone as a mobile communication tool and the internet and social media platforms as new social spaces and virtual homes have become essential for

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refugees. The internet does offer spaces where images and imaginations of better places are produced and distributed. Using the mobile phone as a tool, migrants can connect and retrieve information before or during their journeys and reconnect with their homeland and new communities at their destination. Like everybody else, refugees use social media platforms for networking, communication with far away friends and relatives, discussing relevant issues, and for self-representation and identity construction. However, compared to non-refugees, the difference of their situation is crucial to understand the role these media play for them. Social media have changed migration practices through their easier availability of information and networks. For the young men from Nigeria and Sudan in Germany mobile phones, internet, and social media can reduce isolation and despair far away from their home. At the same time, it helps them to make themselves at home in the host country. Through the performance of an alternative life, their dream to find a new home seems to have already come true. However, as they live these virtual dreams, the real-life practices of rejection and deportation by the executive forces feel the worse. The images presented can also lead to decisions taken which might be later regretted, as David’s example has shown. As Abdul’s example has shown, social media can help to integrate into the host community while on the same time staying informed and connected to the homeland. As the example from Kakuma has shown, for people in the liminal or in-between-state of a refugee camp, mobile phones and social media do offer widened social spaces, a connection to the world and a way to present themselves with identities beyond the refugee label. With the possibility for active networking and raising awareness and funds, it can be a way of active future-making to find a new home somewhere else. However, it is also a means to inform the world about their present home and show its residents in a more positive light. Refugees of colour do experience racial discrimination in their home countries, which can be a reason to flee, at in-between places of migration like refugee camps and in the host countries in the Global North. In all cases, social media are an important means to reflect on the notion of identity, ethnicity, and race. Identities can be changed, multiple identities displayed. It has also become a powerful means to create new identities and fight against racial discrimination. Moreover, social media have become a powerful means for refugees to connect to a global community of people of colour, to digitally join in Black Power movements and articulate their proudness. Through the use of digital communication and social media, refugees present themselves to the world as people with talents, dreams, and aspirations who should be taken seriously. Refugee voices can and therefore should be included into curricula of Higher Education. Through direct communication and refugees’ presentations, students get direct insights into the live world of migrants and refugees marked by social exclusion, restriction, and hardships. This should be framed by teaching about refugees’ countries of origin, colonial, and postcolonial politics and theories, which they embody.

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Notes 1 The UNHCR defines protracted refugee situations as ‘those in which at least 25,000 refugees from the same country have been living in exile for more than five consecutive years. Refugees in these situations often find themselves trapped in a state of limbo: while it is not safe for them to return home, they also have not been granted permanent residence to stay in another country eitherʼ (https://www.unrefugees.org/ news/protracted-refugee-situations-explained/). I use the concept here for all refugees who find themselves in a state of limbo over several years. 2 I use the term refugee when talking about the discourse on ‘refugees’ or about people who are officially defined or registered as refugees or define themselves as such. The terms migration and migrant are used as a cover term when I talk generally about people on the move. 3 The project ‘Trust Building and Future Construction via Smartphones and Social Media at intermediate Locations of Transnational Migration with the Example of Refugees from East Africa’ was conceptualised and is led together with Prof. Dr. Michael Schönhuth, University of Trier and is funded by the German Research foundation (DFG) from 2020 to 2022. 4 On several social media platforms, like Facebook or YouTube, refugees show pictures and movies of their escapes. In the documentary ‘My escape from Syria – Europe or Die’ (Al-Jezairy, 2015) on VICE NEWS, Syrian refugees report in detail on their migratory journey. The documentary ‘My Escape’ by the German television station WDR (2016) is a montage of mobile phone videos by several refugees on their flight. Via mobile phones, the bandits negotiated with smugglers to get money from the refugees’ relatives. 5 The term polymedia describes the availability and choice of many different media, the way this transforms the relationship between people and the media, and how media are socialised (Madianou & Miller, 2012, p. 8). 6 UNHCR, with the support of Accenture Development Partnerships (ADP), carried out a global assessment of refugees’ access to, and use of, the internet and mobile phones, with the aim of the development of a new UNHCR Global Strategy for Connectivity for Refugees. 7 Name was changed. 8 A local militia in Darfur. 9 Name changed. 10 The Dublin Regulation (Dublin III) as part of European law determines which country is responsible for processing an asylum seeker’s application. According to Dublin III, this is normally the country where the asylum seeker first entered Europe. 11 Southern Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, DRC Congo, Congo Brazzaville, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania. 12 Buufi is a Somali term that means ‘to blow into or to inflate’ (Zorc, Osman, 1993 as cited by Horst, 2006, p. 143). It refers to air, hawo, which also stands for a longing or desire for something specific, an ambition, or a daydream. Thus, buufis can be understood as a longing or desire blown into someone’s mind (Horst, 2006, p. 143). 13 Residents call these blocks with national or names of bigger ethnicities like Somalis, Ethiopians, or Sudanese. These ethnic blocks can be differentiated by their cultural style be it a Somali or Ethiopian neighbourhood or that of minority groups like Somali Bantu, Ugandans, or South Sudanese. A group of South Sudanese young men, for example, have created a miniature village with well-structured mud huts with their own sports field and church within the camp, which they guard in the nights. However, there are also shared open spaces used across ethnicities or nationalities especially of small entrepreneurs (Agier, 2002, p. 325–329). Further, social hierarchy goes along the social, economic, or camp work status also in relation to aid organisations (Agier, 2002, p. 331–332).

86  Claudia Böhme 14 The UNHCR website, Kakuma Girls, a ‘Welcome to Kakuma Refugee Camp’ YouTube video by FilmAid, the Kakuma News Reflector kanere.org, the education project ‘Kakumaproject’ and several sites and chatrooms on Facebook like Kakuma, Project Kakuma, Kakuma Kenya, Kakuma, Kakuma R-camp K-town, two sites called Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kakuma Refugee Secondary School and Refugee Flag Kenya.

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88  Claudia Böhme net/profile/Dimitris_Skleparis/publication/310416833_Mapping_Refugee_Media_ Journeys_Smartphones_and_Social_Media_Networks/links/582c77b008ae102f0729e9a1. pdf. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020). Godin, M. and Doná, G. (2016) “Refugee voices”, New Social Media and Politics of Representation:Young Congolese in the Diaspora and Beyond. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees. 32(1), pp. 60–71. Goffman, E. (1961) Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City: Anchor Books. Hagen, V. (2015) Arabische Facebookseite für die Kanzlerin. Merkel, Mutter der Ausgestoßenen. Stuttgarter Zeitung.de. Available from: http://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/inhalt.arabische-facebookseite-fuer-die-kanzlerin-merkel-mutter-der-ausgestossenen.167a5bc7cd1c-4d3a-b923-dd3a3e19059b.html. (Accessed 20 Sept. 2017). Hannides, T., Bailey, N. and Kaoukji, D. (2016) Voices of Refugees – Information and Communication Needs of Refugees in Greece and Germany. London: BBC Media Action. Available from: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/mediaaction/pdf/research/voices-of-refugees-research-report.pdf. (Accessed 31 Jan. 2018). Haythornthwaite, C. (2002) Strong, Weak, and Latent Ties and the Impact of New Media. The Information Society 18, 385–401. Hendawi, H. (2015) For Savvy Migrants, Social Media Helps Ease Trip to the West. Available from:  http://bigstory.ap.org/article/2a20e30010db42a09879549a723b08af/savvy– migrants–social–media–helps–ease–trip–west. (Accessed 29 Aug. 2016). Hepp, A., Bozdag, C. and Suna, L. (2011) Mediale Migranten. Mediatisierung und die kommunikative Vernetzung in der Diaspora. Wiesbaden:VS Verlag. Hess, M. and Korf, B. (2014) Tamil Diaspora and the Political Spaces of Second-Generation Activism in Switzerland. Global Networks 14(4), pp. 419–437. Hiller, H. H. and Franz, T. M. (2004) New Ties, Old Ties and Lost Ties. The Use of the Internet in Diaspora. New Media & Society 6(6), pp. 731–752. Horst, C. (2006) In ‘Virtual Dialogue’ with the Somali Community:The Value of Electronic Media for Research amongst Refugee Diasporas. Refugee 23(1), p. 53. Jansen, B. J. (2018a) Kakuma Refugee Camp: Humanitarian Urbanism in Kenya’s Accidental City. London: Zed Books Ltd. Jansen, B.J. (2018b) (Personal Communication, 24 May 2018). Joyce (2017) (Interview, 24 March 2017). Joyce (2019) Personal Facebook Page. URL Anonymous. 29 May 2019. KANERE (2019) Kakuma News Reflector-A Refugee Free Press. About Kakuma Refugee Camp. Available from: https://kanere.org/about-kakuma-refugee-camp. (Accessed 23 Mar. 2019). Komito, L. (2011) Social Media and Migration. Virtual Community 2.0. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 62(6), pp. 1075–1086. Kutscher, N. and Kreß M. (2015) Internet ist gleich mit Essen. Empirische Studie zur Nutzung digitaler Medien durch unbegleitete minderjährige Flüchtlinge. Universität Vechta. Available from:  https://images.dkhw.de/fileadmin/Redaktion/1.1_Startseite/3_Nachrichten/ Studie_Fluechtlingskinder-dig itale_Medien/Studie_dig itale_Medien_und_ Fluechtlingskinder_Langversion.pdf. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020). Lehmkuhl, U. (2014) Heirat und Migration in Auswandererbriefen Die Bestände der Nordamerika-Briefsammlung in der Forschungsbibliothek Gotha. L’Homme 25 (1), pp. 123–128.

Refugee 2.0  89 Leung, L. (2011) Taking Refuge in Technology: Communications Practices in Refugee Camps and Immigration Detention. New Issues in Refugee Research, Research Paper No. 202, Geneva: The UN Refugee Agency, Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Available from: www.refworld.org/docid/4d88757f2.html. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020). Leurs, K. (2015) Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Leurs, K. and Smets, K. (2018) Five Questions for Digital Migration Studies: Learning from Digital Connectivity and Forced Migration in (to) Europe. Social Media+ Society 4(1), pp. 1–16. Available from: DOI: 10.1177/2056305118764425. Licoppe, C. (2004) ‘Connected’ Presence: The Emergence of a New Repertoire for Managing Social Relationships in a Changing Communication Technoscape. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 22 (1), pp. 135–156. Madianou, M. and Miller, D. (2012) Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. London: Routledge. McLaughlin, D. (2015) Mass Migration Guided by Mobiles and Social Media. Irish Times. Available from: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/europe/mass–migration– guided–by–mobiles–and–social–media–1.2344662. (Accessed 28 Nov. 2015). Miller, D. (2011) Tales from Facebook. Cambridge: Polity Press. Otieno, S. (2017) Refugee Girls in Kakuma Camp Attend ICT Bootcamp. Available from: https://www.unhcr.org/ke/11851-refugee-girls-kakuma-camp-attend-ict-bootcamp. html (Accessed 9 Mar. 2019). Parker, D. and Song, M. (2006) New Ethnicities Online: Reflexive Racialization and the Internet. The Sociological Review 54(3), 575–594. Available from: DOI:10.1111/j. 1467-954X.2006.00630.x. Pink, S. and Salazar, J.F. (2017) Anthropologies and futures. Setting the agenda. In Juan F. Salazar, S. Pink, A. Irving and J. Sjöberg (eds.), Anthropologies and Futures. Researching Emerging and Uncertain Worlds. London: Routledge, pp. 3 –22. Ros, A. (2010) Interconnected Immigrants in the Information Society. In Andoni A. Alonso and P. Oiarzabal (eds.), Diasporas in the New Media Age. Identity, Politics and Community. Nevada: University of Nevada Press, pp. 19–38. Ros, A. González, E., Marín, A., and Sow, P. (2007) Migration and Information Flows: A New Lens for the Study of Contemporary International Migration. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute, Working Paper. Available from: http://www.ameriquelatine.msh-paris.fr/IMG/pdf/ Working_Paper_-_February_2007.pdf. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020). Schönhuth, M. (2010) Netzwerke aus ethnologischer Perspektive. In C.W. Hergenröder (ed.), Gläubiger, Schuldner, Arme. Netzwerke und die Rolle des Vertrauens.Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 171–186. UNHCR (2016) Connecting Refugees. How Internet and Mobile Connectivity can Improve Refugee Well-Being and Transform Humanitarian Action. Available from: https://www.unhcr. org/5770d43c4.pdf. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020). UNHCR Kenya (2020) Kakuma Refugee Camp and Kalobeyei Integrated Settlement. Available from: https://www.unhcr.org/ke/kakuma-refugee-camp. (Accessed 21 Oct. 2020). van den Bos, M., Nell, L. (2006) Territorial Bounds to Virtual Space. Transnational Online and Offline Networks of Iranian and Turkish–Kurdish Immigrants in the Netherlands. Global Networks 6(2), pp. 201–220. van Meeteren, M.J. and Pereira, S. (2013) The Differential Role of Social Networks. Strategies and Routes in Brazilian Migration to Portugal and the Netherlands. Norface Migration, Discussion Paper 10.Available from: http://www.norface-migration.org/publ_uploads/NDP_10_13. pdf. (Accessed 8 Dec. 2020).

90  Claudia Böhme Wells, K. (2011) The Strength of Weak Ties: The Social Networks of Young Separated Asylum Seekers and Refugees in London. Children’s Geographies 9(3–4), pp. 319–329. Willson, M. (2012) Being-Together: Thinking Through Technologically Mediated Sociality and Community. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 9 (3), pp. 279–297. Witteborn, S. (2015) Becoming (Im)Perceptible: Forced Migrants and Virtual Practice. Journal of Refugee Studies 28 (3), pp. 350–367.

Chapter 6

Counter-visual analysis of migrants’ self-representational strategies A pedagogical and psychological perspective Boris Ružić Introduction Between 1945 and 1988 West Germany accepted 14 million people of different nationalities. Other countries such as France, which were devastated by World War II industrially, economically, and socially, also allowed for increased immigration during that time. Knowing the historical lessons of xenophobia and racism that resulted in World War II, how could a country that politically bred hate and fear towards other cultures a decade prior be able to absorb so many newcomers? It seems that the definition of a refugee and the acceptance of a migrant does not exist in a vacuum or as an abstract invention, but is deeply cultural, economic, and political. What was welcome in the post-World War II era1 has been banned again or heavily discouraged amidst the rising political populisms, reassertions of national identities, and fearmongering. Saskia Sassen (1999) asserts that well into the 1950s ‘the vast numbers of refugees, displaced persons, and returnees from the colonies wound up providing a needed additional labour supply to the European economies which were in full reconstruction’ (p. 99). In her crucial study on migrations, Guests and Aliens (1999), Sassen concludes that when taking into account the history of people’s movement, it should be noted that migrations should not be considered as an individual act of a search for a better life, but as a result of various (usually adverse) geopolitical and economic changes and challenges. She opens her book with the following sentence: ‘Today immigrants appear as threatening outsiders, knocking at the gates, or crashing the gates, or sneaking though the gates into societies richer that those from which the immigrants came’ (Sassen 1999, p. 1). More than 30 years later, we are quoting the sentence that originally seemed like a diagnosis of a specific issue but turned out to be applicable to today’s geopolitical situation in the world. Given the limited scope of this chapter, there are some issues I will not be able to discuss in detail, even though they are closely related to the main subject. The main issue I will not be able to elucidate more is the dichotomy between migrants and refugees. There is a lively scholarship on the complexities of today’s separation of the two categories, and I am also aware that there is a moral and ethical dilemma in possible misrecognition of one for the other. Refugees are an internationally recognised entity in law and practice.When dealing with the term, scholars usually DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-7

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cite two documents: the 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights drafted by the UNCHR. While the first defines refugees as persons fleeing from persecution and/or armed conflicts which render them unable to return home safely, the second defines the rights of the persons fleeing in seeking asylum, namely Article 14: ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution’ (United Nations, UNHCR, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). Migrant, on the other hand, is not universally defined, and migrations are subject to interpretation in international and national law. Migrants could be students, young people looking for work abroad, children, or highly skilled workers. Some might be fleeing their countries not because of a direct threat but as a result of the lack of basic rights to be healthy, to work, or to be free. One cannot be sure if the above-mentioned dangers that migrants face can be clearly separated than those of refugees for which the UNHCR states they should not be returned to places where their life and freedom might be under threat. Today that is the case especially in countries where there is a clear and known collaboration between governments and terrorist groups and targeted economic deprivation. The lack of definition of the migrant means that nation states are free to interpret individual cases, resulting mostly in deportations, pushbacks, or setting-up of migrant camps. As I show in this chapter, because of the inability to provide a clear resolution between the migrant and the refugee, as well as contemporary political discourse that is highly changeable, I use the broader (hence, more problematic) term ‘migrant’ for both possible refugees which were not yet proven as such and regular (mostly economic) migrants. I do so to be more consistent in terminology, even though my view is that the strict separation between the two by definitions we have today is not enough to provide a guideline and a possible answer to the contemporary mass movements in the world. Also, this chapter does not try to encompass the history or even the present situation of migration in Europe, or even its south-eastern part that follows. Instead, this chapter provides a review and analysis of migrant self-representational practices on routes (so-called corridors) from parts of the Balkans, namely Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia from 2015 until today. I include two qualitative case studies: ‘digital activity’ by migrants arriving mostly from north Africa and the Middle East that communicate on Facebook in order to help each other in their efforts and travels as well as illegal pushbacks caught on cameras. Reece Jones (2016) writes that ‘globally, according to the International Organization for Migration, as estimated 40,000 people died attempting to cross a border between 2005 to 2014’ (p. 4). Today, that number grows larger every day and the response from the European Union suggests ‘the problem can be solved by using military force against human traffickers, destroying their boats, and attacking their camps’ (Jones 2016, p. 4), which I underline as misguided. In this chapter, I show how the mistreatment of migrants is the result of aimed depersonalisation of their struggle, of a systemic denial of space for representation. I suggest that emancipatory logic of critical pedagogy should be aimed at first seeing those who are not seen in the media but are being described by others and represented by others. I lean on

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Freire’s reversal of the teacher as the subject who forms the student, the object of knowledge.The reversal of that passive situation of transferring the knowledge and reproducing the hierarchies of teaching is found in his Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage (Freire 2000a) in which he states that the process of teaching in not only related to the passing on the knowledge to the student but is inseparable from learning while teaching and concludes that ‘teaching that does not emerge from the experience of learning cannot be learned by anyone’ (p. 11). That is the crucial starting point for the exploration of pedagogical potential: In learning about images that are not usually seen, or are prohibited, we are firstly being made aware of the incompleteness of discourses surrounding migrants, and secondly, we are relearning how to share that knowledge with others in becoming receptive to those images. In the second part of the chapter, I present specific examples of images and videos and their power in dislocating the hierarchies of learning about migrations in the analysed region. The indication of complexity of migrations can be summarised by the Changing the Narrative (Pierigh and Speicher 2017) study that reports, for example, that Greece was the impacted the most by the refugee influx. Up to September 2017 there were 45,614 refugees (which is only 0.4% of the entire population) in the country. Italy, with a population of around 60 million and one of the so-called hotspots, had around 100,000 applications for asylum (which is less than 0.2% of the entire population). In Serbia, a transit country, only 574 applied for asylum (Pierigh 2017, p. 10). As can be seen by this short comparison, the interest of media systems in the presupposed threat of migrations is disproportionate to the actual number of migrants in border countries of the EU. By using research on the ‘willingness to contribute,’ I show how usual images of migrants in the media affect viewers. I aim to present images that open a space for affective involvement in a pedagogical sense: looking as teaching and vice versa.

Methodology and goals This research is based in the field of visual studies and cultural studies and aims at providing a so-called counter-visual approach to images of the migrants by emphasising the importance of images not made of them, but those made by them. More specifically, the aim is to further explain self-representational practices as intersubjective practices that have the potential to epistemically reframe the dominant narrative found in media today, which rarely enacts a migrant’s point of view. By sharing various fragmented and subjective migrants’ visual stories, the aim is to use them as constructive and emancipatory in a pedagogical sense, that is, to show how exposure to the usually underrepresented personal accounts of the migrants themselves can establish an affective, empathic, and emancipatory impulse in viewers. Giroux (1997) calls that approach ‘insurgent multiculturalism,’ which shifts ‘the discussion of multiculturalism to a pedagogical terrain in which relations of power and racialised identities become paramount as part of a language of critique and possibility’ (p. 235).The pedagogy of multiculturalism includes shifting the focus from the questions of subordination as an effect to the questions of

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subordination as a process that is being politically, ethnically, and historically produced in a certain time and space. For this study, the analysis of the production of subordination shows the representational bias in the media (not differentiating and/or showing between migrant subjectivities) and is aimed in a pedagogical sense as a means of education by using visual material not widely available. For example, the study, ‘Changing the Narrative: Media Representation of Refugees and Migrants in Europe,’ analyses ways in which mainstream newspapers reported on the so-called migrant wave in print media and online in 2016 and 2017 in eight European countries. It concludes that 67% never directly quoted migrants although they clearly spoke about them; only 5% news on migration put an emphasis on displacement, while 74% fell under politics and crime, etc. At the same time, World Association for Christian Communication – Europe Region (WACC Europe) and the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) concluded that approximately 63% of EU citizens believe they are not well informed in the questions of migration and integration: ‘Only 21% of news items on asylum and migration reference a refugee or migrant. Over three-quarters of the stories […] do not identify an individual refugee or migrant nor include their voice or experience’ (Pierigh 2017, p. 5). The research concludes that those numbers clearly indicate a pattern of invisibility. Firstly, I present two hypotheses that aim at explaining the lack of self-representational visuality of migrants in the media: The first is that the lack of subjective accounts is a well-established strategy of prohibition of identification with the suffering of the victim. Building on established psychological research, I claim that the appearance of migrants as unrecognisable masses leads to the perpetuation of populist discourses of fear and threat of the unknown. Through counter-visual and self-representational approach, I demonstrate ways of possible emancipation of the oppressed in the pedagogical sense. The second hypothesis is that the usual notion of biopolitics, as argued by Foucault (1990) and Hardt and Negri (2005), should be advanced taking into account Mbembe’s notion of necropolitics who explains it as the management and regulation of life from the perspective of a production and regulation of death. Necropolitics (2019) is crucial for better understanding of border control and management, violent alleged pushbacks from the border police, and the rise of so-called Fortress Europe from the cautioning figure of speech in the early 2010s to the materialisation of that fortress in shape of closely monitored and controlled borders walls in the late 2010s. My main point of interest here is to provide an alternative to the aforementioned representations of migrants as the unidentifiable ‘sea of bodies’ and to argue that the subjectivisation and individualisation of suffering on the borders should be addressed by critical pedagogy, and understood as the liberation of the oppressed. To be more precise, when I write about self-representation, in this case I refer to my analysis of visual production mostly made by migrants of their travels shared between themselves on private and public groups on Facebook. When I point to necropolitics and death on the borders, I refer to my analysis of illegal pushbacks in bordering regions carried out by state authorities from Greece in the south of Europe to Croatia and Slovenia in the western Balkans; those pushbacks, I argue,

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are a result of the EU’s lacking response and a failure to address the contemporary migrations in legislature as well as rearticulate the relations of local, national, and global today. In a practical sense, I refer here again to Freire’s notion of fragmented knowledge that is a requirement for emancipated education: ‘Women and men are capable of being educated only to the extent that they are capable of recognizing themselves as unfinished. Education does not make us educable. It is our awareness of being unfinished that makes us educable’ (Freire 2000a: p. 38). That awareness of our unfinishedness should be implemented in Higher Education for the purpose of questioning the politics of image production regarding migration: what is being shown (the distant Other) and what is being concealed (subjective migrant images or suspect actions by state authorities at the borders). For example, in showing images without context or explanation (description) made by migrants in camps, the student is confronted not only with the realisation of the targeted semiotic and ideological framing of images in dominant discourses but is also made aware that the process of learning is inseparable of the political and social forces that shape our knowledge of what we (are allowed to) see. For Giroux (1997), pedagogy should ‘recognise and appropriate cultural traditions and experiences that different students bring to the school setting’ (p. 124). These strategies of showing diverse and fragmented images in the classroom is aimed precisely to show how students react differently to images that include self-representational practices of migrations in the bordering regions depending on their own context, knowledge, and interest. To educate, in that sense, means firstly to recognise the limits of our own knowledge regarding those subjects. Secondly, it means to recognise the psychological differences in identifying with the struggles of migrants because of those divergent subjective experiences, but also because of visual objectivisation in the dominant media that impedes the affective response in viewers. In the next section, I lay out the context of the visual prohibition of pushbacks and subjective image-production of migrants and present specific case studies and examples of the possibilities of counter-visual representation that offer the opportunities for learning from those fragmented images and producing the affective response of the ‘willingness to contribute.’

Migration and necropolitics of conventions Marina Gržinić in her introduction to the volume Border Thinking: Disassembling Histories of Racialized Violence (2018) states that ‘the migrant today is the fundamental category through which to rethink the meaning of citizenship, non-citizenship, management of life, and management of death, as well as the relationship between governmentality and sovereignty’ (p. 28). Illegal pushbacks normalise necropolitics as a way of controlling movement across borders: Push-backs are a set of measures by which refugees and migrants are forced back over a border – generally immediately after they have crossed it – without consideration of their individual circumstances and without any possibility to apply for asylum or to put forward arguments against the

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measures taken. Push-backs violate – among other laws – the European Convention on Human Rights. (ECCHR, Push-back) As I show in the visual analysis of Greek and Croatian pushbacks, they are a crucial state measure towards visual prohibition of migrants and the necropolitical control over their bodies.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to cross borders or to emigrate. Seyla Benhabib in The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens underlines that there is no mention of the right to immigrate (enter a county). The declaration, she continues, offers a right to asylum under specific circumstances. Benhabib (2004) continues that the second half of Article 15 stipulates that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality (p. 11). There is an apparent contradiction in the Declaration between a universal right of an individual, and a lack of defined states obligations towards executing those rights. In reality, that means that territorial sovereignty overpowers universal rights. Nevertheless, that doesn’t necessarily put into discord local and global dimension of the problem. As Sassen (2006) notes, there are two separate dynamics driving globalisation: The first is in the form of global institutions and processes (such as the WTO, global financial markets, etc.) in which the policies are decided on a global scale. The second process Sassen (2006) sees as equally important for globalisation but is formed by smaller, even local institutions which ‘take place deep inside territories and institutional domains that have largely been constructed in national terms in much of the world. That makes these processes part of globalization even though they are localized in national, indeed subnational settings […]’ (p. 3). Applied to the issues of undocumented migration, it seems that countries such as Greece and Croatia chose to defend their right to sovereignty with the help of supranational entities (Frontex – European Border and Coast Guard Agency, for example), while local and regional NGOs and informal groups report on migrant maltreatment regularly, proving Sassen’s theory. Concretely, pushbacks are a result of comprehensive procedures of monitoring and mapping undocumented migrations: ‘Optical and thermal cameras, sea-, air- and land-borne radars, vessel tracking technologies and satellites constitute an expanding remote sensing apparatus that searches for “illegalised” activities’ (Casas-Cortes et al. 2015, p. 17). Much of this mapping charts migrant pathways and crossings to assess risks and develop management strategies. Those strategies can feature pushbacks carried out by state actors that include destroying of boats while people are on them or violently and illegally returning the migrants over the border without providing the right to asylum.2 Mbembe (2019) in his influential book Necropolitics writes that ‘[…] sovereignty consists in the power to manufacture an entire crowd of people who specifically

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live at the edge of life’ (p. 37). State sovereignty during pushbacks can be related to Mbembe’s necropolitics: As a rule, such death is something to which nobody feels any obligation to respond. Nobody even bears the slightest feelings of responsibility or justice toward this sort of life or, rather, death. Necropolitical power proceeds by a sort of inversion between life and death, as if life was merely death’s medium. It ever seeks to abolish the distinction between means and ends. Hence its indifference to objective signs of cruelty. (p. 38) His important but disconcerting study features a slight move from Foucault’s biopower as means of controlling and disciplining the body towards the exercise of death as a way to assert a sovereignty that is usually devoid of symbolism. Deaths of unseen migrants in unseen boats destroyed by unseen agents seems like it has nothing tragic about: It doesn’t get reported, subjectivised, taught in schools or universities, but is perpetuated in secret ‘out in the open,’ perpetuated as ‘small massacres’ (p. 38) without witnesses. Mbembe (2019) notes that: to a large extent, racism is the driver of the necropolitical principle insofar as it stands for organized destruction, for a sacrificial economy, the functioning of which requires, on the one hand, a generalized cheapening of the price of life and, on the other, a habituation to loss. (p. 38) Racism is for him equally important here because the ban on movement can be traced back to colonialism and enslavement. It seems that the clash of conventions and rights of the people is inscribed in the very logic of local and global flows. A country in the EU can follow the Dublin Regulation,3 claim to not act against any international law, and at the same time decide to carry out pushbacks that privatise a right to life by making it structurally contingent. There is growing evidence of these acts of violence that this chapter cannot presume to summarise. Nevertheless, something must be said regarding those accusations. For example, an investigation conducted by German paper Der Spiegel in June of 2020 revealed that the Greek Coast Guard intercepted boats carrying migrants in international or even national waters, firing warning shots, and towing the boats back to Turkey, and in the process violating international maritime law. Der Spiegel and partners conducted forensic analysis of more than a dozen videos and spoke to witnesses to see if those accounts are an exception. They conclude that ‘masked men, almost certainly Greek border control officials, regularly attack refugee boats in the area’ (Christides and Lüdke 2020). In the images from the article, a reader can see the boat belonging to the masked men (Greek Coast Guard and the Greek Coast Guard ship ΛΣ-080) towing the migrants from Greek waters towards Turkey. Der Spiegel concludes that most boats

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end up in Turkey’s waters for their coast guard to receive. Those pushbacks are a confirmation of a complicated relationship between, as I already displayed, sovereign national borders, international conventions, and global politics of controlled migrations. In these instances, there is a clear violation of international law and the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights which, as has been noted, should provide a right for asylum seekers to be heard individually in the country of arrival.

Digital transparency The usual visual records of migrants in mainstream outlets include masses of people on boats that are either depicted as an invading force, appearing anonymously, en masse, shot from the distance, or individually if the portrayal is geared towards victimisation or death, ‘following the tradition of Christian iconography’ (Falk 2010, p. 96).4 Migrations are closely monitored and controlled by the use of digital technologies. Shoshana Zuboff contends that the mixture of state surveillance enabled by the political discourse and capitalist interests form a special relation to digital technologies that separates societies in two: ‘the watchers (invisible, unknown and unaccountable) and the watched. This has profound consequences for democracy because asymmetry of knowledge translates into asymmetries of power’ (Naughton 2019). That is the reason why we usually cannot see videos such as those that include pushbacks: The access to the surveillance technologies of borders is unavailable, and the migrant self-representational discourses are hard to obtain. In the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Zuboff (2019) analyses the implementation of digital technologies in surveillance that can be easily applied to the complexities of migrant representation today in terms of asymmetry of power. In my analysis, I provide a countervisual and pedagogical approach that can reverse the roles of those who look and those who are being looked at. By allowing migrant visual stories to be seen in western discourses means to use in part a systemic, hegemonic scopic order of visualisation and reappropriate it by turning the look backwards. By using ‘technologies of surveillance,’ migrants are making themselves seen and are providing a look into what is usually out of sight – police violence. What those images usually lack in terms of visual quality is compensated in their affective qualities: Instead of the sea of bodies, we can see individuals struggling in specific situations. As I noted earlier, those strategies of visualisation are crucial for critical pedagogies in teaching, affective attunement, and emancipation of the viewer. For Peter McLaren (2020), critical pedagogy at its core explores the historical forces that drive, and eventually transforms educational practices. By developing the critique of dominant discourses regarding education, they ‘engage in dialectical reversals of received common sense such that the strange becomes familiar and the familiar strange’ (Mclaren 2020, p.  1244). Reversing the roles of those who look (in those images migrants look back, either at the viewer, or the border police during pushbacks) challenges the familiarity and privileged position of students and educators. Presenting previously unknown accounts, testimonies or even visual evidence of migrants can enable the

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spectator to realise the usual position in which he or she engages with the image, but also provide with possibilities of the reversal of the dominant look in acknowledgement of those counter-visual migrant practices. In recent years, a counter-mapping practice has emerged that challenges this regime of visibility and surveillance of the state actors. For example, Aegean Boat Report or Watch the Med are online platforms designed to map with precision violations of migrants’ rights at sea and to determine which authorities hold responsibility for them. WTM was launched in 2012 as a collaboration among activist groups, NGOs, and researchers from the Mediterranean region and beyond. This initiative has created an alarm phone that provides an emergency number that functions around the clock and is run by volunteers and covers the Central, Eastern, and Western Mediterranean corridors. The idea is to localise the migrant boat in distress and contact the coast guard who is responsible for performing search and rescue operations for the passengers. Thus, the idea is to give such specific details that the coast guard can no longer claim that they were not aware of the boat in distress. If they fail to act, the case is rendered public and disseminated widely in the media.5 Thus, it operates in two ways: First, it creates a ‘disobedient gaze’ that refuses to disclose what the border regime attempts to unveil – the patterns of ‘illegalised’ migration – while focusing its attention on what the border regime attempts to hide; the systemic violence that has caused the deaths of many at the sea borders of Europe. They alert authorities, verify videos with potential illegal activities by the police, and cross-reference material with local and national media images as well as social media production of local people who witnessed anything of value. Those counter-mapping efforts re-situate the borders in terms of barriers to the ‘freedom of movement’ attempting to create new spatial imaginaries of migrant subjectivities, practices, and experiences. Even stronger evidence of police violence towards migrants can be seen in instances of land border crossings which further perpetuates the uneven relation of the one who records (border police, Frontex) and the recorded (migrants in the forests and camps). Migrant camps are a mostly novel occurrence, born out of inability to adapt to new developments. Sassen (1999) claims that European states have basically developed two types of policy responses: regularization of the illegal population, predicated on a series of conditions to be met by the immigrant; and punitive responses, including deportation of illegal immigrants and penalties for employers of such immigrants. (p. 104) Refugee and migrant camps today serve as a temporary deterrent of mass migrations into a given country by placing them in a no-man’s land. Sally Clark in the text Australia’s Extraterritorial Asylum Policies and the Making of Transit Sites (2018) claims that: Developed nation-states are pursuing aggressive border security policies designed to exclude forced migrants from territories where the rights of

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asylum are enshrined. In many instances these policies reach beyond the sovereign state into extra-territorial regions, blurring the traditional and functional elements of the national borders they seek to protect (p. 143) These policies, she continues, contribute to the creation of transit zones for asylum seeker or, more specifically, camps. The contemporary crisis of migrations became recognisable in part due to the visually striking birth of large refugee camps from Greece and Italy to the south, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the east, and France to the north. One of the larger camps was in France, in the town of Calais, the so-called Calais Jungle. A refugee camp existed from early 2015 towards the end of 2016 and hosted between 3000 and 8000 people with hopes of travelling to the UK or staying in France. The Calais Jungle was mostly seen as a result of new migrant routes in the twenty-first century and as a synecdoche for new challenges that globalisation affords. But as Eva Kuhn (2010) shows us, not only is the refugee problem a historical constant, but the very town of Calais was in the centre of similar migrations at the turn of the millennium. In Border:The Videographic Traces by Laura Waddington as a Cinematographic Memorial, Kuhn analyses refugee crisis in the town Sangatte, a small town a few kilometres to the south of Calais that hosted the largest refugee camp in France. From its opening in 1999 to its closure in 2002, more than 70,000 people stayed in the camp, and during that time, more than 85% of those refugees succeeded in reaching the UK, presumably illegally (Kuhn 2010, p. 132). Going back to the beginning of the chapter, it is important to note such historical conjectures in order to understand global movements and migrations in a wider political and historical context. Today, one of those refugee and migrant spaces is located along Croatian and Bosnian and Herzegovinian border in Lohovo. This is part of the so-called Balkan corridor that was used from autumn 2015 until spring 2016 for the passage of migrants travelling from Turkey (not their necessary starting point) and Greece through North Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, and Slovenia towards countries in western Europe (mainly Germany). Milica Trakilović (2020) writes that the termination of this unofficial and de iure illegal route was conducted on 18 March 2016 by the introduction of the EU–Turkey statement ‘effectively shutting down the migration route through the Western Balkans and the Balkan corridor as such’ (p. 49). Even though the corridor is not officially used for transportation of migrants anymore, it is a well-known route for undocumented passengers that result in the emergence of camps from where they start their attempts of crossing into Schengen area or places where they are (mostly illegally) returned to by the police (so-called expulsion). There are numerous testimonies of mistreatment in the camps, but for this chapter I manifest how the logic of necropolitics is specifically embedded in the living (and dying) conditions of migrants in those permanent transit zones. Migrants from these routes upload numerous photographs to (mostly closed) Facebook private groups every day, some describing themselves as Harragas. Harraga is a term that originates from an Arabic-Moroccan dialect meaning ‘those who

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burn,’ which refers to migrants seeking entry into Europe who often burn their passports or immigration papers as a sign of protest and an effort to stall extradition processes. Facebook features some private groups designed for sharing the best routes of passages over borders and dangers on the road or were used to communicate with families. These groups’ members often post selfies made in camps, forbidden bordering regions, or boats in the Mediterranean. The second genre of images found are ‘motivational,’ made by migrants that arrived in Europe and are posting regular updates on their situation. Those groups underline the importance of digital media in representing those who have no other means of making themselves visible. Appadurai in his seminal book from 1996 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization called that the ‘diasporic public sphere’ that uses digital technologies to create personal and collective narrative, a place for dialogue and an archive of memories. Alice Cati (2019) claims that: it is clear that the camera phone has today become an instrument of survival for migrant subjects as it helps to secure safe conditions during navigation; it is also an instrument of hope as it allows migrants to maintain contact with the loved ones they have left behind in their homelands. (p. 58) Cati (2019) asserts that recording and sharing images and videos provide a means of finding a voice and a subjectivity to became a ‘political actor of a countermemory that opposes the flattening of the dominant discourse’ (p. 60). Even though these images are hardly understandable per se as they lack context and recognition, they require an engagement from the viewer on the one hand, but also can produce affective bond on the other. Zizi Papacharissi calls the process ‘affective attunement,’ developing Raymond Williams’ concept of ‘structure of feeling’ and translating it into digital. She claims that digital media feed can function as affect modulator for people using it to connect with others and express their understanding of a particular issue. For Papacharissi (2014), this attunement is a sort of an emotional gateway into political life: these practices [engaging, rebroadcasting, liking…] permit people to tune into an issue or a particular problem of the times but also to affectively attune with it, that is, to develop a sense for their own place within this particular structure of feeling. (p. 118) This can be seen in dense communication with the ‘harragas’ online not only by migrants but by people wishing them safe passage and sharing their stories. The images we see are usually not intended for western media audiences, but for the migrants themselves – on a personal level as an archive of travels, or on a collective level as a message on Facebook that they are safe. Continuing on the notion of ‘affective attunement,’ I claim that for us, the spectators, those images can create a

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different kind of engagement with the issues of migration: understanding of the layers and fragments of political subjectivities instead of generalised portrayals of the threat they supposedly bring. The usage of online communicational technologies is mostly reserved for the research of dominant media outlets. Forums, private Facebook groups, or other non-dominant ways of using digital platforms by migrants is still not a mainstream topic for scholarly research. This analysis shows that ‘in the context of migration, the availability of distance-shrinking communication technologies becomes crucial in terms of creating and maintaining links between sites of being and sites of belonging’ (Gkeschke 2015, p. 280). In this case, technology is used to map and counter-survey state or non-state actors. Such cases are a clear sign of the possibility to, at least temporarily, invert Zuboff ’s separation on those who survey and the surveyed. Small pocket cameras are now used, much like in Black Lives Matter instances, as potential evidence for violation of human rights. For example, the film Midnight Traveller (Fazili, 2019) was shot entirely on three mobile phones, depicting the events that started in March 2015 when the Taliban put out a call for the filmmaker’s death. He and his family fled to Tajikistan in search of asylum. After 14 months of waiting and subsequent denial of request, they are deported back to Afghanistan.The film starts at that moment, documenting the escape of the family from Afghanistan, through Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, and finally Hungary. Even though these images are outside of the economy of online sharing, they possess the same formal qualities:The film is shot in first person point of view which enables us to experience their fear of being sold by smugglers, of being robbed, beaten, or kept waiting in illegal camps or detention centres for years without the resolution of their request. Similar to images shared online, the film sometimes includes images without clear context, mostly without a narrator, while the picture quality is mediocre at best.Those images serve as an important example of a counter-narrative: opposite from what the news usually report, migrant stories underline that which is not seen: individual struggles and the human condition in those migrations.The production of amateur video footage is here seen as a way to underline ‘an asymmetric, neo-Orientalist power relationship between those who watch and those who suffer’ (Chaudhuri 2018, p. 32) (Figure 6.1). Those images are crucial for understanding, teaching, and acting on the maltreatment of migrants entering Europe from Asia and Africa. Research from elsewhere also confirms media bias in reporting on the issue, as already stated in the first part of the chapter. For example, Bleiker et al., in the study ‘The Visual Dehumanisation of Refugees,’ research ways in which asylum seekers were visually portrayed in two newspapers in Australia in 2001 and from 2009 to 2011. They found that in 66% of all images ‘asylum seekers were primarily represented as medium and large groups’ while only 2% depicted ‘individual asylum seekers with clearly recognizable facial features’ (2013, p. 399) concluding that in Australia in a politically sensitive time, media images played a crucial role in framing the refugee discourse and in dictating political debates.6 For example, they found only 2% of images depicted a singular refugee in close-up, while ‘42 per cent of all images of asylum seekers have no visible facial features at all’ (p. 411).

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Figure 6.1.   M igrants at the Croatian border being beaten and expulsed by unidentified men in uniform. Image copyright by No Name Kitchen.

Pamela C. Scorzin in Voice-over image studies audio-visual media coverage of undocumented migrants in overcrowded vessels travelling mostly from North Africa and notes the impact of what she calls iconic images of those people. Scorzin (2010) contends that those images ‘are not only taken and used to report and to document, but above all to emotionalise, and this in a disconcerting way, insofar as they produce and demonstrate an extreme paradox in the visual documentary’ (p. 102). The paradox is that those depictions of migrants can serve as an argument towards the representational visibility of their struggle/presence, while at the same time, the form of that representation cannot be taken as viable enough to learn something from the image as it is generalised, as I already displayed.That generality seemingly enables a complete visibility, while rendering the subjects transparent. The visibility ‘given’ is often stereotypical: They are seen as hungry, desperate, or threatening, en masse. The visibility of those generalities is a guarantee for their actual and affective invisibility in a particular and political sense: The image of hunger in place of economic depravity; the image en masse in place of their individual subjectivities and aspirations; the image of despair in place of the EU’s unwillingness to politically address the twenty-first century issue par excellence. In short, I call this the paradox of transparency in the etymological sense of the word. The transparency of the ‘illegal immigrant’ means that he is omnipresent, known, seen via drone footage, Frontex high-tech cameras, border police monitoring, or journalist reports from the camps. But that visibility is one that makes him seethrough. To be transparent, thus, means to be seen in the absence of content; to be visible by being invisible, having no content to your visibility. My analysis is therefore aimed at addressing those issues by including images that personalise, individualise, subjectivise, teach, and produce affective response in a

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psychological sense. Paul Slovic (2007) in his text ‘If I look at the mass I will never act: Psychic numbing and genocide’ presents us with research and statistics on human emotional response to singular emotional shocks and mass shocks, such as genocide. It seems as though our capacity to feel empathy diminishes as the shocks become bigger: Our cognitive and perceptual systems seem to be designed to sensitize us to small changes in our environment, possibly at the expense of making us less able to detect and respond to large changes. As the psychophysical research indicates, constant increases in the magnitude of a stimulus typically evoke smaller and smaller changes in response. (Slovic 2007, p. 85) In short, he claims that the strategies of generalised display of human atrocities fail to produce intensive affective responses in viewers. My argument precisely follows his research in claiming that the reason behind media consumer’s lack of empathy in the weak sense and activity in the strong sense is a result of specific media strategies of generalising migrant issues (as shown in the examples), rendering a subject unable to affectively contribute to the issue in question. Another important research by Kogut and Ritov take my argument even further, claiming that being able to identify victims elicit much stronger responses to intervene in test groups than of unidentified victims: ‘it appears that the identified single victim effect may at least partly be due to the fact that a single identified victim evokes particularly strong feelings of distress in the perceiver’ (Kogut and Ritov 2005, p.163). That means that the so called ‘willingness to contribute’ in test groups is almost 70% higher for identified subjects on screen than those not identified or displayed in groups: ‘A single identified victim elicited higher contributions than a non-identified individual’ (p. 164).This research has been devoted to images that are identifiable, singular in the display of their subjects precisely to argue about their importance in eliciting strong responses from the viewers, in contrast to the generalised images in the media. Images like these are sometimes without context, and hard to understand completely:They function outside the mainstream in what Bishop calls ‘outlaw discourses’ that refute stereotypes. For a spectator watching them, the look can be described as ‘persistent looking.’ Mirzoeff (2020) writes that persistent looking means a refusal to look away from what is kept out of sight, off stage, and out of view. This look is sustained by long histories of resistance. It is comprised of a set of grounded, distributed, repeated but not traumatic actions, whose persistence is enabled in part by social media. (p. 13)

Pedagogy of the oppressed, psychology of the witness I argue that stories made by migrants can be politically and pedagogically significant because a close-up and identification can have a concrete psychological effect of compassion in viewers, unlike images of groups made from a distance. When I

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study violence towards migrants, I refer to the documented sites of police brutality. In Croatia specifically, for example, in June 2020 the European Commission sent officials to monitor developments on Croatian border to oversee the allegations of torture of migrants and asylum seekers. Most allegations usually revolve around ‘masked men’ dressed in black without any visible insignia that beat, rob, and then transfer the migrants in vans to the Bosnian border (Nielsen 2020). There are numerous visual accounts of those events, most of them unofficial, that can be found on migrants’ mobile phones (recordings of the mistreatment) or from the activists in the region. Other accounts include humiliation and beatings in various forms, from spraying crosses on migrants’ heads as documented by the Danish Refugee Council (Tondo 2020) to videos of those ‘men in black’ overseeing the departure of beaten or extremely maltreated migrants (Amnesty International UK 2020). However hard it may be to legally prove a direct perpetrator in these instances, mounting visual evidence from NGOs, informal groups, and migrants themselves is proving to be crucial. In a recent case, a report of forced expulsions of migrants from July 2020 resulted in the administrative Court in Slovenia ruling that the country: has violated the Applicant’s right to asylum (Article 18 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights), the prohibition of collective expulsions (Article 19 § 1) and the principle of non-refoulement (Article 19 § 2). That no one shall be removed, expelled or extradited to a State in which he or she is in serious danger of being subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. (Border Violence 2020) In all of those cases, images of migrants prove to be crucial in a double sense: They can be used as evidence for reports of mistreatment and violation of human rights as well as provide an insight into a subjective world of stories we usually often hear only by narrativisation of hegemonic media discourses. In the following pages, I use that ‘disobedient gaze’ to prove its pedagogical and emancipatory role in much needed rearticulation of migrations today. Paulo Freire wrote his highly influential book Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968, amidst the decolonisation processes. The book famously posits the two propositions of what would be later known as critical pedagogy: First, oppression exists, and second, transformation of the oppressed is possible. Freire’s central argument is that historically one can dehumanise the other (as well as humanise them) though injustice, violence, and oppression. The task is to liberate oneself from injustice and oppression that is, for Freire, the result of rejecting one’s humanity (Freire 2000b). The ‘critical’ in the pedagogy is indebted to Freire’s historic embeddedness in the processes of decolonisation (a project which was never complete) as part of his pedagogical theory. The pedagogy of the oppressed, for him, helped us to counter internalised oppression (from the coloniser). His insights are equally important to lecturers, students, and Higher Education institutions. He sees education as a critique and intervention in the world by presenting itself not as a neutral discipline but always either as a part of

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the dominant ideology on the one side or the intervention in it on the other. The examples discussed in this chapter have shown how visual images can be used to negotiate with or oppose dominant ways of representing those who have almost no means of controlling their representation. These examples show how it is possible to counter the objectivisation and depersonalisation of images, and how to understand the underlying mechanisms of affective involvement in images that objectify and subjectify the victims. Linking critical pedagogy as liberation from oppression with the migrant images means to affectively learn, as a viewer, what it means to direct a gaze towards that which is usually invisible, but also to articulate thinking in social, cultural, and political terms ‘in classrooms, the arts, popular cultures, and mass media, in all sorts of conversations […]’ (Grossberg 2019, p. 19). To reiterate, I argue that through counter-visual and self-representational approach, a pedagogy of epistemic liberation is possible. I refer here to Giroux’s idea of pedagogy of multiculturalism in which ‘relations of power and racialised identities become paramount as part of a language of critique and possibility’ (Giroux 1997, p. 235). Giroux argues that: educators need to rethink the politics of multiculturalism as part of a broader attempt to engage the world of public and global politics. This suggests challenging the narratives of national identity culture, and ethnicity as part of a pedagogical effort to provide dominant groups with the knowledge and histories to examine, acknowledge, and unlearn their own privilege. (p. 236) This means that the pedagogy of multiculturalism can be achieved not by highlighting subordination of such groups but by questioning how is that subordination produced historically and culturally. In this chapter, I wanted to highlight those practices that challenge the usual hierarchies of watching and seeing, which are also part of pedagogies of teaching. In the visual domain the question seems to be how to make visible the undocumented migrant, taking into account that ‘the question of politics is not based on the matters of representation, but of visibility and expressibility’ (Dousson 2010, p. 144). Just as the visibility is a political act, so is teaching about those who aren’t seen a political act of reworked hierarchies.

Conclusion In conclusion, it can be said that we are witnessing both a surge in the number of irregular or undocumented migrants crossing borders and a significant increase in the efforts by governments worldwide to regulate and control the flow of migrants. The aim of this chapter was to offer a reading of migrant existence in parts of south-eastern Europe beyond the usual depictions. I’ve shown that migrant stories and their visual appearance is almost non-existent in all statistical data.They do not talk, they do not appear before us, they do not have a power of discourse, yet they are a highly traded media story.

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Yet, it is not possible to provide a universal guide for implementing critical pedagogies in the educational system regarding migrant and refugee representations because those strategies should be adjusted to specific experiences, knowledge, and background of the students as well as lecturers. For example, Bajaj, Argenal, and Canlas (2017) claim that sociopolitically relevant pedagogy should not only give opportunity to oppose dominant paradigms but also take into account personal experiences in the classroom and outside: ‘Such strategic learning offers students a chance to understand inequalities on a global scale […] and to historicize their realities in ways that suggest opportunities for solidarity with other immigrants and communities of color’ (p. 260). Following their examples, nurturing critical consciousness means raising awareness of our own divergent identities that inform the ways we see and talk about the Other. Nevertheless, it seems that in order to implement critical pedagogy as a broad framework, a student must carry out critical engagement with formal dominant systems of representation by exposing himself to images that decentre his or her notions of subject–object relations. Moreover, lecturers should not only teach about the psychological effects of visual objectification of migrants in reducing the affective responses and willingness to contribute to the victims of the spectators, but also try to work with local NGOs and similar organisations and persons. That way, the distribution of knowledge is diversified, as shown in the examples I analysed throughout the chapter. Finally, I have argued for political engagement with the migration discourse, which can provide a useful and important pedagogy. By studying individual instances of representation of the other, one can transform the teaching process in the classroom specifically: by teaching not only about the oppressed but in using the imaginary of the other to open a discourse of what it means to be undocumented or a refugee. If the migrant today is the fundamental category through which to rethink the meaning of citizenship, non-citizenship, management of life and of death, I believe those unseen images and stories are crucial to the understanding of the political complexity of the world that surrounds us.

Notes 1 Such as an influx of refugees from the Balkans, namely Yugoslavia. 2 There are a large number of reports every month by NGOs, individuals, and European bodies that can attest to those accusations (see Watch The Med, Bellingcat, Aegean Boat Report, Border Violence Monitoring, Transbalkanska solidarnost, Infokolpa, Centar za mirovne studije…). 3 Dublin Regulation is a law that obligates countries which signed the Regulation (EU) to examine asylum applications under specific directives which determines the host county (responsible for the seeker) in every claim. It was (and still is) criticised by both the signatories such as Hungary for uneven responsibility in countries closer to the Schengen border to accept refugees and by NGOs for inability to access the asylum due to tedious and process of application and the lack of support and protection for refugees. 4 There is a growing amount of research that investigates the rhetoric and metaphors used in the media to describe undocumented migrants in which they are referred to as ‘flow,’ ‘tsunami,’ ‘flood,’ etc. (see:Vezovnik, 2017). My research includes visual metaphors that are prevalent in the media.

108  Boris Ružic´ 5 For more details, see Kynsilehto, Solidarities in Migration (2018, pp. 186–187). 6 Among other examples, they analyse the 2001 affair of alleged refugee child drowning by the hands of the refugees themselves to gain public attention. The authors analyse the angered and heated response of Australian top politicians to the alleged drowning that was being backed only by ‘photographs of children in the water being rescued by the Australian navy.’ The emotional and dismissive response of the politicians to the false accusations (no children were thrown overboard) proves the assertion of media playing an important role in framing the discourses around migration to help the populist policies.

References Amnesty International UK. (2020) ‘Croatia: Shocking Evidence of Police Torture of Migrants,’ Available   at:  https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/croatia-shocking-evidencepolice-torture-migrants Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press. Bajaj, M., Argenal, A., and Canlas, M. (2017) ‘Socio-Politically Relevant Pedagogy for Immigrant and Refugee Youth,’ Equity & Excellence in Education, 50(3), pp. 258-274, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/10665684.2017.1336499 Benhabib, S. (2004) The Rights of Others:Aliens, Residents and Citizens, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. Bleiker, R., Campbell, D., Hutchison, E., and Nicholson, X. (2013) ‘The Visual Dehumanisation of Refugees,’ Australian Journal of Political Science. 48(4), pp. 398-416. Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10361146.2013.840769 Border Violence Monitoring Network. (2020) Press Kit for Foreign Media. Available from: https://www.border violence.eu/wp-content/uploads/PRESS-KIT-FORINTERNATIONAL-MEDIA.pdf Casas-Cortes, M., Cobarrubias S., De Genova, N., Garelli, G., Grappi, G., Heller, C. Hess, S. Kasparek, B., Mezzadra, S., Neilson, B., Peano, I., Pezzani, L., Pickles, J., Rahola, F., Riedner, L., Scheel, S., and Tazzioli, M. (2015) ‘New Keywords: Migration and Borders,’ Cultural Studies 29(1), pp. 55-87, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2014.891630 Cati, A. (2019) ‘The Vulnerable Gaze of the Migrant: Eye-Witnessing and Drifting Subjectivity in Documentary Web Series,’ Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media 18, pp. 54-69. Available from: doi: 10.33178/alpha.18.05 Chaudhuri, S. (2018) ‘The Alterity of the Image: The Distant Spectator and Films about the Syrian Revolution and War,’ Transnational Cinemas, 9(1), pp. 31-46, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/20403526.2018.1444929 Christides, G. and Lüdke, S. (2020) ‘Greece Suspected of Abandoning Refugees at Sea,’ Der Spiegel, Available from: https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/videos-andeyewitness-accounts-greece-apparently-abandoning-refugees-at-sea-a-84c06c61-7f114e83-ae70-3905017b49d5?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter#ref=rss Clark, S. (2018) ‘Australia’s Extraterritorial Asylum Policies and The Making of Transit Sites,’ In: Karakoulaki, M., Southgate, L., and Steiner, J. (eds.) Critical Perspectives on Migration in the Twenty-First Century, Bristol: E-International Relations, pp. 143–162. Dousson, L. (2010) ‘Politics, Representation, Visibility: Bruno Serralongue at the Cité Nationale de l’Historie de l’Immigration,’ In: Bischoff, C., Falk, F., and Kafehsy, S. (eds.) Images of Illegalized Migration: Towards of Critical Iconology of Politics, Bielefeld: Verlag, pp. 143–155.

Counter-visual analysis  109 ECCHR, Push-back. Available from: https://www.ecchr.eu/en/glossary/push-back/#:~: text=Push%2Dbacks%20are%20a%20set,arguments%20against%20the%20measures%20 taken Falk, F. (2010) ‘Invasion, Infection, Invisibility: An Iconology of Illegalized Immigration,’ In: Bischoff, C., Falk, F., and Kafehsy, S. (eds.) Images of Illegalized Migration: Towards of Critical Iconology of Politics, Bielefeld:Verlag, pp. 83–101. Foucault, M. (1990) The History of Sexuality,Vol. 1: An Introduction, New York:Vintage Books. Freire, P. (2000a) Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy, and Civic Courage, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Freire, P. (2000b) Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York, London:The Continuum International Publishing. Giroux, H. (1997) Pedagogy and the Politics of Hope: Theory, Culture, and Schooling, Colorado: Westview Press. Gkeschke, H. M. (2015) ‘Does lt Matter Where You Are?- Transnational Migration, Internet Usage and the Emergence of Global Togetherness,’ In: Anghel, E. G., Gerharz, E., Rescher, G., and Salzbrunn, M. (eds.) The Making of World Society, Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, pp. 275–290, Available from: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839408353-012 Grossberg, L. (2019) ‘What Did You Learn in School Today? Cultural Studies as Pedagogy,’ In: Aksikas, J., Andrews, S., and Hedrick, D. (eds) Cultural Studies in the Classroom and Beyond. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 19–55, Available from: https://doi. org/10.1007/978-3-030-25393-6_2 Gržinić, M. (2018) ‘Introduction: From Border Thinking to Striking the Border,’ In: Gržinić, M. (ed.) Border Thinking: Disassembling Histories of Racialized Violence, Berlin: Sternberg Press, pp. 12–34. Hardt, M. and Negri, A. (2005) Multitude:War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, New York: Penguin Books. Jones, R. (2016) Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move, London, UK, Brooklyn, NY: Verso. Kogut, T. and Ritov, I. (2005) ‘The “identified victim” Effect: An Identified Group, or Just a Single Individual?’ Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 18, pp. 157–167. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1002/bdm.492. Kuhn, E. (2010) ‘Border:TheVideographic Traces by Laura Waddington as a Cinematographic Memorial,’ In: Bischoff, C., Falk, F., and Kafehsy, S. (eds.) Images of Illegalized Migration: Towards of Critical Iconology of Politics, Bielefeld:Verlag, pp. 129–143. Mbembe, A. (2019) Necropolitics, Durham and London: Duke UP. McLaren, P. (2020) ‘The Future of Critical Pedagogy,’ Educational Philosophy and Theory 52(12), pp. 1243–1248, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2019.1686963. Mirzoeff, N. (2020) ‘Persistent Looking in the Space Of Appearance #BlackLivesMatter,’ In: Buikema, R., Buyse, A., and Robben, C.G.M.A. (eds.) Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 11–31. Naughton, J. (2019) ‘“The Goal Is to Automate Us”: Welcome to the Age of Surveillance Capitalism,’ The Guardian, Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ 2019/jan/20/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism-google-facebook Nielsen, N. (2020) ‘EU Commission to Probe Croat Border Attacks on Migrants,’ EU Observer, Available from: https://euobserver.com/migration/148639 Papacharissi, Z. (2014) Affective Publics: Sentiment, Technology and Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

110  Boris Ružic´ Pierigh, F. and Speicher, S. (2017) ‘Changing the Narrative: Media Representation of Refugees and Migrants in Europe,’ Refugees Reporting:A Project of the World Association for Christian Communication - Europe Region and the Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe. Available from: http://www.refugeesreporting.eu/report/ Sassen, S. (1999) Guests and Aliens, New York: The New York Press. Sassen, S. (2006) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Scorzin, C. Pamela. (2010) ‘Voice-Over Image,’ In: Bischoff, C., Falk, F., and Kafehsy, S. (eds.) Images of Illegalized Migration: Towards of Critical Iconology of Politics, Bielefeld, Verlag, pp. 47–57. Slovic, P. (2007) ‘If I Look at the Mass I Will Never Act: Psychic Numbing and Genocide,’ Judgment and Decision Making, 2(2), pp. 79–95. Available from: jdm7303a.pdf (sjdm.org) Tondo, L. (2020) ‘Crosses on Our Heads to ‘cure’ Covid-19: Refugees Report Abuse by Croatian Police,’ The Guardian, Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/globaldevelopment/2020/may/28/they-made-crosses-on-our-heads-refugees-reportabuse-by-croatian-police Trakilović, M. (2020) ‘“On this path to Europe” – the Symbolic Role of the ‘Balkan corridor’ in the European Migration Debate,’ In: Buikema, R., Buyse, A., and Robben, C.G.M.A. (eds.) Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights, London and New York: Routledge, pp. 19–64. United Nations. UNHCR. (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Available from: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Documents/UDHR_Translations/eng.pdf Vezovnik, A. (2017) ‘Securitizing Migration in Slovenia: A Discourse Analysis of the Slovenian Refugee Situation,’ Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, 16(1–2), pp. 39–56. Available from: DOI: 10.1080/15562948.2017.1282576 Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, New York: PublicAffairs.

Chapter 7

Playing difference Towards a games of colour pedagogy Edmond Y. Chang, Kishonna L. Gray, and Ashlee Bird

Video games are here.Video gamers are everywhere.They are in our homes, in our lives, in our workplaces, and even in our classrooms.According to the Entertainment Software Association’s ‘2020 Essential Facts about the Video Game Industry,’ there are more than 214 million video game players across the United States, 75 per cent of all US households have at least one person who plays video games, the average age of a video game player is between 35 and 44, and the gender breakdown is 59 per cent men and 41 per cent women (ESA, 2020). According to some studies, 83 per cent of African American teens report playing video games compared to 71 per cent of White teens, and youth of colour tend to play for longer roughly 30 minutes more per day than White players of a similar age (Packwood, 2018).Yet much of game development, marketing, and gaming culture continues to maintain and privilege the fantasy of the idealised gamer subject, the default user who is White, adolescent, cisgender, heterosexual, able-bodied, affluent, and young. As gaming communities, industry, even scholars, and teachers attempt to address the need for diversity and inclusion in games, how might we locate, include, theorise, and teach ‘games of colour’ and games that embrace difference? Specifically, how might we look at the representation and algorithmic underpinnings of racialised and marginalised identities, narratives, bodies, and cultures in games? Much has been made of gaming’s potential for education, learning, training for twenty-first century vocations, and even social change from oft-cited James Paul Gee (2003, p. 7), who argues in What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy that ‘the theory of learning in good video games fits better with the modern, high-tech, global world today’s children and teenagers live in than do the theories (and practices) of learning that they see in school’ to Jane McGonigal (2011, p. 14), whose Reality is Broken:Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World which imagines a world that takes ‘everything game developers have learned about optimizing human experience and organizing collaborative communities and apply it to real life’ in order to make games that ‘that tackle real dilemmas and improve real lives.’ However, rather than rehearse the long-standing debates over the utility and efficacy of video games in teaching and learning, the focus should instead be on the need for critical interventions and medium-specific pedagogies to address the fact that games are embedded in the fabric of everyday DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-8

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life and more importantly embedded with the norms, values, promises, and problems of the culture at large. Moreover, instead of looking to mainstream video games for which there is already a growing body of interventions, a games of colour pedagogy centres writers, artists, creators, and developers of colour and texts and titles that foreground Black, brown, and Indigenous characters, narratives, and visions. Given that video games, in the words of Alexander Galloway (2006, p. 17), ‘render social realities into playable form,’ a games of colour pedagogy recognises that for gamers of colour most games are not made for them, most fandoms are colour-blind, genderblind, and queer blind to their difference, and most game design and game studies programmes lack an attention to diversity and intersectionality. As Kishonna L. Gray (2020) argues, Because women and people of colour are not recognised as legitimate participants in virtual spaces, disparaging realities are rampant, leading to exclusion and limited participation…No matter the content, the dominant culture of digital gaming dictates who is legitimate and who is not, creating conditions of real and symbolic exclusion in everyday gaming practices. (p. 28) Finally, a games of colour pedagogy draws deeply from the wells of intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches and perspectives. It embraces recent developments in game studies or as Lisa Nakamura (2017) outlines: This is precisely the moment for games scholarship in originating from ethnic studies, women’s studies, queer studies, film studies, and cultural studies to intervene in this ongoing conversation, and to strategise about the future of race, gender, sexuality, and digital media. (p. 249) In other words, there is need for nuanced, medium-aware, and critical habits of play, study, and analysis that interrogate the co-constitutive and intertwined nature of representation, mechanics, and community in gaming. One such pedagogical intervention is through the interdisciplinary practice of ‘close playing.’ Though close playing is inspired by literary and textual studies, it is a mode of inquiry and investigation that invites other analytical perspectives and methodologies from feminist media studies to computer science, from education to critical ethnography. According to Edmond Y. Chang, close playing, like close reading, requires careful and critical attention to how the game is played (or not played), to what kind of game it is, to what the game looks like or sounds like, to what the game world is like, to what choices are offered (or not offered) to the player, to what the goals of the game are, to how the game interacts with and addresses the player, to how the game fits into the real world, and so on. (2008)

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Close playing expands the notion of close reading though to encompass both diegetic and non-diegetic parts of the game, both narrative and mechanics, both onscreen and offscreen worlds, and the interactions among game, player, and context, across for example, what Michael Nitsche (2008, pp. 15–16) calls the five conceptual planes of gaming: rules-based space (platform, code), mediated space (graphics, simulation), fictional space (narrative, character), play space (interaction), and social space (playing with others). Close playing invites players to engage with games with an attention to detail but also a critical distance that shuttles back and forth between these analytical planes so as to not get caught up in the flow and engrossment of play. Video games, like any other technology, are never neutral, and there are no digital natives because players and developers learn from, interact with, and even imbue these designed characters, worlds, and experiences with norms, values, and biases in implicit and explicit ways.There is a growing body of art, scholarship, and games that engage with the ways that race, gender, sexuality, ability, and other identities and embodiments are embedded in algorithms, code, and design. From Safia Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression to Jennifer Malkowski and TreaAndrea Russworm’s edited collection Gaming Representation to Tara Fickle’s The Race Card, these and other perspectives reveal the ways that digital ‘artifacts are actively imbued with the political values [and] political characteristics held by those who construct them’ and that ‘technologies can have race, and technology creators in turn can perpetuate racial bias’ (Hankerson et al., 2016, p. 474). Games are pedagogical. Everything about a game is designed to instruct and inform the player including interface, menus, help screens, in-game narratives, mechanics, music, sound effects, cutscenes, visual design as well as paratexts like user’s manuals, walkthroughs, cheat codes, fan websites, and so on. Ultimately, what is most important is to acknowledge and address that games, as Gray and Leonard (2018) argue in the introduction of Woke Gaming, are often problematically pedagogical in the naturalised ways they ‘provide opportunities to both learn and share the language of racism and sexism, and the grammar of empire, all while perpetuating cultures of violence and privilege’ (pp. 6–7). The potential for video games to teach, the desire to teach with video games, and the necessity for games (and gaming communities and industry) to address racism, sexism, phobia, and other oppressions cannot begin without reckoning with the above concerns and questions. To develop a games of colour pedagogy, what follows are three practical interventions into these fraught languages, grammars, algorithms, and experiences: The first engages Blackness and Hair Nah, the second considers the importance of Indigenous gaming, and the last considers games and Asian American identity.

Kishonna L. Gray on Hair Nah (Momo Pixel 2017) Video games present a complex and imperfect way to explore Blackness in educational ways. Video games offer sometimes complex narratives and visions of ahistorical pasts and speculative futures.While they can be seen through educational lenses, it must not always be expected that any actual experiences and realities

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about Blackness can be delivered through a White institutional medium. As scholars have previously noted, video games are a medium that sustain White supremacist thinking (Gray, 2014). So, the purpose of this section is to explore video games and reimagine Blackness when created by Black people for Black people. Hair Nah offers such an example to extrapolate a Black digital praxis. Hair Nah allows players to customise an avatar who can ‘smack away as many white hands’ as possible as they attempt to touch locs, twists, braids, and relaxed Black hair (Callahan, 2017). Hair Nah, as an educational tool, fits within a ‘critical tradition’ (Apple et al., 2009, p. 3) of education, the goal of which can be understood as ‘a shared consciousness of oppression, leading to a shared sense of knowledge, and a shared commitment to…finding [a] path to liberation’ (Jackson, 1997, p. 464). Also building upon Allan Luke’s discussion of critical education: ‘we can think of the critical…in at least two ways—as an intellectual, textual, and cognitive analytic task, and as a form of embodied political…action…[as] lived…embodied, experience’ (2004, p. 26). As Amber Rambharose (2017) explains, Hair Nah is a video game for women growing tired of saying ‘don’t touch my hair.’ Hair Nah creator Momo Pixel (cited in Rambharose 2017) designed the game from her own experiences. When she moved to Portland, she continually experienced her personal space being invaded by others wanting to touch her hair. She explains what she experienced in Portland below: Once I moved here—my gawd! It was like every other day! Once it was 10 times in a day. After that, I was like nah…hell nah…Hair Nah! I needed to do something or say something so that people would stop doing it. Because it’s not OK and I’m not OK with being violated. As Gray and Leonard explore, Hair Nah ‘is disruptive in itself as it illustrates the power and potential to use video games, online technology, and game culture to give voice to the experience of Black women and other marginalised communities, resisting and otherwise challenging dehumanizing representations,’ in other words, an alternative to the hegemonic gaze (2018, p. 4). Theorist bell hooks’ work on the oppositional gaze provides a way for minoritised people to resist the dominant images and messages that communicate their devalued status (1992, p. 131). As previous research has revealed, video games are a site of hegemonic ideology leading to the devaluation of women and people of colour (Gray, 2012). The ‘gaze’ serves as a site of resistance. We can explore Hair Nah through a lens of oppositional gaze because of the critical way the game interrogates Black subjugation, white power, and the ways Black women in particular are punished and policed. Black women learn through experience and relations to power that there is a critical gaze, one that ‘looks’ to document and one that is oppositional (hooks, 1992, p. 116). Hair Nah exists as a critical Black feminist text that looks at power and attempts to disrupt that power. So, what does Hair Nah look like in the classroom? I first used Hair Nah in the classroom in Spring 2018 in my Games as Social Technology course. The focus of this

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course was to explore how games as networked and collaborative technologies facilitate community formation, interaction, and development. Hair Nah embodied this pedagogical imperative because of its virality and community resonance. The simple mechanic of swatting hands at first did not generate any conversation. It was this mechanic coupled with power and agency (not afforded Black women in traditional settings), however, that invigorated the discussion. White students focus was truly on mastering game play and uncovering ways to complete the task.They also remarked in disbelief at seeing such a game in existence. For the Black students who played this game, their faces lit up in sheer joy at seeing themselves on screen and then that energy shifted quickly to humour and comedy as they laughed while the Black woman smacked away White hands. The game provided so much to explore around how gaming technologies can be utilised for communicative practices. The notion of communication is value laden, rooted in hegemonic histories privileging particular ways of knowing, being, thinking, creating, and so on. Video games serve as ‘purveyors of sociocultural knowledge’ (Brown, 2012, p. 28) and they act as socialising agents in that they often communicate, replicate, and reproduce the norms of dominant society (Giroux, 1983). In the case of Blackness, video games reproduce and reinforce the undervalued and oppressed status of Black people through the many stereotypical depictions and limited portrayals. The pedagogical potential of Hair Nah exists because of this speculative reimagining of space, autonomy, and Black women’s relationships with both. Because Black women and girls are historically constructed as the ‘Other,’ there are few examples offered to provide a nuanced account of their lived experiences. Momo Pixel provides just that. While this is a small example, its power cannot be underestimated. The reception to this video game is powerful and cathartic with many commenting their disbelief that our stories can be told through these animated, cinematic, and digital lenses.

Ashlee Bird on Portal (Valve, 2007) and Never Alone (Upper One Games, 2014) Video games teach us.This is not to say that all video games are educational or that all games made for educational purposes are successful in that mission, but games, by their nature, teach their players. Whether they like it or not, or even whether they know it or not, these ‘lessons’ that video games impart on their players have trained them how to behave within digital worlds. I make this point very clear to my students in the course ‘Video Games and Culture: Metagaming,’ when we discuss Valve’s 2007 subversion of the first-person shooter, Portal. Portal follows the escape of the protagonist, an anonymous female test subject, from a series of test chambers and the maniacal AI that presides over them. While this game has all of the visual (and most of the mechanical) trappings of a standard first-person shooter, the game is ultimately not about violence. Instead, Portal utilises the ‘shooting’ mechanic to allow the player to place orange and blue portals around the world in order to solve physics puzzles that stand between the player and the end of the

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level. As the narrative of the game refers to these levels as ‘test chambers’ and features narration in the form of GLaDOS – the AI system documenting the player’s progression through the chambers – there are subsequently cameras located throughout the levels that help her do so. These cameras pose no threat to the player and at no point are players told through any narrative exposition or mechanical impetus that they should engage with them in any way. However, when I polled my students and asked, ‘Raise your hand if you play a lot of firstperson shooters,’ and then, ‘Keep your hands up if you shot all of the cameras in Portal,’ every hand stayed in the air. The students looked at as if I had been spying on each of their individual playthroughs. I smiled and told them that this was standard practice. This same question, and this same response, happen in this class every year, and it is because throughout their lives playing first-person shooters, these games have trained their brains. They have been trained to shoot something, anything, within these spaces, because that is what the first-person shooter genre of game necessitates. While shooting cameras in Portal may be a harmless manifestation of this type of mechanical conditioning that video games have on their player base, there are much more problematic types of conditioning at play. One such type of conditioning is in the manner in which players are encouraged to engage with avatars of other races, genders, sexualities, and other differences. Native American characters that are represented in the digital space of games are especially prone to encourage problematic player response (Bird, 2021b). Historically, as John Wills (2019) details, in the case of Native American characters who have been primarily featured in the genre of Western games, this training has been one founded upon violence: The Wild West of gamic America emerged as a place structured and given meaning by violence…Unlike dime novels and Hollywood Westerns, in which immersion derived mostly from consumers’ imagination and observation, the digital West allowed physical interaction from its visitors. Although Western movies inspired children to play cowboys and Indians in school yards, with the video game, the audience became truly active participants in the unfolding drama. (p. 65) A prime exemplar of this culture of participatory violence and one of the foundational instances of the ways in which Natives would be represented in video games is Mystique’s 1982 game Custer’s Revenge, released for the Atari 2600. This game’s protagonist is a nude General Custer with an erection, whose entire objective is to traverse the screen whilst dodging arrows in order to reach Revenge, the Native woman tied to the cactus on the other side, and rape her (Bird, 2021b). While now almost 40 years old, this game has sadly yet to disappear. In 2008, an updated version of this game surfaced on the internet, and the new edition …features modernised graphics along with the introduction of new game mechanics and characters. A repeated wave of scantily clad white women

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wielding scissors now appear in the game, attempting to make their way towards Custer and relieve him of his weapon. However, it should be noted that at no point do these white, female NPCs make any attempt to utilise their scissors in order to free Revenge. Additionally, Custer now has the ability to shoot ejaculate at the descending arrows to knock them aside, as well as at the white women attempting to castrate him. (Bird, 2021b) However, not only did Custer’s Revenge itself persist in game circles but so did the narrative of violence towards Indigenous peoples in video games that it forwarded. Many modern games, such as Techland’s Call of Juarez series, have fallen prey to similar iterations of violent behaviour towards Native avatars. In the 2013 game, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Native representation is scant, and Indigenous avatars are featured largely as faceless waves of Apache braves for the player to dispatch in pursuit of their medicine man. These Apache characters, unlike the White enemies in the game who talk to each other as well as the player, are completely silenced other than their ability to war whoop.They do not speak to the player character or each other, not in English or Apache, but exist audibly only in cries of violence. In 2015’s Mortal Kombat X, NetherRealm Studios added another villain to their roster in the form of the hyper-violent, blood-drinking, macuahuitl-wielding Kotal Kahn, a ‘Mayan deity’ and ruler of Outworld.The list of these types of representations of Indigenous characters as the recipients of violence in video games is unfortunately long. However, what is more troubling is the response these histories of violent engagement with Native characters have trained into players, and how they are compelled to perpetuate them, even when the game is discouraging it. Rockstar’s 2018 game Red Dead Redemption II notably features a Native American reservation on the game’s expansive map. Outlined in white, the Wapiti reservation stands apart from the other towns for one unique reason: The player character is unable to draw his weapon within the bounds of the reservation. The developers instituted this mechanic due to the fact that Wapiti, unlike the rest of the towns in the game, features no in-game law enforcement, and players would subsequently be able to completely decimate the reservation with no prevention or repercussions. And with a player base that has been historically conditioned to respond with violence towards Native characters, especially within the space of the Western, this response would be inevitable. However, the developers could not allow this, as the Wapiti plays a significant role in the game’s story in the latter chapters. Unfortunately, this preventative measure did not only go unnoticed by player communities but was outright reviled. Players were so furious that they had been denied the ability to engage violently with the Wapiti, that many found ways around the mechanical safeguard instituted by Rockstar (Bird, 2021b). In a Reddit post entitled ‘Why can’t you kill Indians?’ the poster complains about the mechanic and that there are no ‘Indians’ outside the reservation for you to kill and that it is not fair that you may kill everyone but them. However, the poster didn’t have to complain for long, as fellow players happily provided solutions. Skaggs Jimmy (2018) replied:

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You can. It just takes a lot of time. You can ‘lock on’ and ‘Greet’ them. Then just keep the ‘Aim’ button pushed and continuously run into them. You’ll knock them over and eventually, they’ll die. Not my proudest moment, but you can kill Indians (and others, for that matter) by running into them… A lot. Another user, Cott3ntree (2018), responded to Skaggs Jimmy on the same post with an easier method: ‘Easier way it’s to climb up on the nearby mountain and snipe. It’s far enough away it doesn’t prevent you from aiming. Just takes some good navigating to climb it.’ The implications of Rockstar’s design choice and player responses to it are clear: Players have been trained by a history of violent engagement with Indigenous avatars in video games and will attempt to perpetuate these responses, even when it is unwarranted or prohibited. However, as the surprised response of my students when questioned about their Portal play habits indicated, most players do not even realise that these responses are being programmed into them through experiences of play. In his essay, ‘Not a Hater, Just Keepin’ It Real: The Importance of Race- and Gender-Based Game Studies,’ David J. Leonard (2006) notes, As of yet, the conspicuous study of games regarding race and gender has not moved beyond simple discussions of stereotypes; there has been limited analysis of issues of power, privilege, or racial common sense. More surprisingly, there has been little theoretical or ethnographic work regarding the allure of “virtual cross dressing”. (p. 86) Leonard illustrates the unique deficit that media studies finds itself in, acknowledging that there are gender, sexual, and racial discrepancies and stereotypes within video games, but forgoing attempts to delve deeper into why these problems have taken such a firm hold of the industry. Therefore, when we teach video games, it is not only our job to make students aware what and how games are teaching them, but to provide them with games that ‘teach’ them in ways that counter these violent, colonial, racist, and misogynistic messages they have been previously exposed to. By teaching games in this manner, we provide students with the tools to read games on their own, to question what they are consuming, to see beyond the ‘fun,’ and to ask more of the media they are consuming. This is why I teach Never Alone or . Published in 2014 by E-Line Media and Upper One Games as a collaborative video game project with the Cook Inlet Tribal Council of the Iñupiaq community of Alaska, this community-led design makes it clear that it is ‘teaching’ you through play and why it is teaching you by connecting this game to a larger ethnohistorical project. Never Alone is a platformer that finds the player swapping between two characters in order to utilise different skills and complete levels: a young girl named Nuna and her friend, an arctic fox.The game is entirely narrated in the Iñupiaq language and accompanied by English subtitles in order to allow access to a community of players outside the Iñupiaq community as well as to

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promote language learning within (Bird, 2021a p. 13–14). The game features a unique component called ‘Cultural Insights,’ mini-documentaries that are unlocked through gameplay and feature lessons from knowledge keepers within the community. Not only are the ‘Cultural Insights’ educational on the whole, but they are specifically tied to the events and mechanics occurring within the game. In fact, the lessons imparted via the ‘Cultural Insights’ are so essential to success within the game that watching one is the first prompt players are given before even beginning the campaign of the game itself. For example, the ‘Cultural Insight’ regarding the Bola, a traditional Iñupiaq hunting tool, not only teaches the player the purpose of the Bola and how best to mechanically utilise it via gameplay, but it also grounds the mechanic in its cultural significance. The game forces the player to become invested in what the game is teaching them, to enact and embody cultural values and knowledge in order to succeed in play (Bird, 2021a, p. 14). So, why is it important that we are selective about the games that we teach our students and to teach our students how to read games? First and foremost, games create a relationship between the player and the game, or in the case of a digital ethnohistory, between the player and the community who has developed the game/ethnohistory. The players are compelled to embody the knowledge gained from the ethnohistory through play; whether that is positive or negative information, however, is completely subject to the particular ethnohistory. Furthermore, video games can encapsulate a variety of media that can be an incredibly powerful combination for players to experience. Games can feature language, music, dance, art, storytelling, and knowledge all compiled in one medium.Video games, as Jane McGonigal attests in her work, Reality Is Broken, can be incredibly powerful tools for learning: We are intensely engaged, and this puts us in precisely the right frame of mind and physical condition to generate all kinds of positive emotions and experiences. All of the neurological and physiological systems that underlie happiness—our attention systems, our reward centre, our motivation systems, our emotion and memory centres—are fully activated by gameplay. (2011, p. 28) Finally, games and ethnohistories, methodologically and theoretically, are not that dissimilar. Anna Anthropy (2012), in her book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People likeYou Are Taking Back an Art Form, states ‘that’s what games are good at—exploring dynamics, relationships, and systems’ and, to a large extent, these are also the functions of a successful ethnohistory (p. 33). Ethnohistories, both written and digital, explore the dynamics of language, culture, and the environment. They explore and seek to understand the relationships within and without of Indigenous communities, they interrogate the relationships between the government and Indigenous people, and they explore those between Indigenous people and the land. Ethnohistories also evaluate systems: the systems of government, the systems of academia, systems of gender, systems of law and treaty making, systems of kinship,

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systems of sexuality.While Portal is not a digital ethnohistory, the game’s mechanics and subversion of the first-person shooter seek to help players unlearn the violent reactions trained by that genre. Never Alone’s structure as a digital ethnohistory not only teaches players new ways to think about Indigenous characters (not as the enemy type, but the hero), about their relationship to land in games, and the significance of relationship building, it is also literally teaching them about a vibrant community and culture they may never have been exposed to before. Therefore, written and digital ethnohistories sharing many similarities, digital ethnohistories, specifically in the form of video games, are doing double the work. Digital ethnohistories, specifically video game ethnohistories, are doing two different forms of work. Not only are these digital ethnohistories engaging with dynamics, systems, and relationship, but they are also working to decolonise their fields: both of ethnohistory and video game/media studies. One of the first critical steps that needs to be taken to decolonise the video game industry is to decolonise not just the field of media studies but also the practice that comes from media studies: How players engage with and read games.The utilisation of Sandy Grande’s (2014, p. 3) ‘Red Pedagogy: The Un-Methodology’ is essential to this process. Media Studies, classes regarding video games, and therefore player interaction with the media, should become ‘a space of engagement.’ In her fourth tenet of Red Pedagogy, Grande (2014) explicitly states, ‘In this sense, an education for decolonization makes no claim to political neutrality but rather engages a method of analysis and social inquiry that troubles the capitalist-imperialist aims of unfettered competition, accumulation, and exploitation’ (p. 26). This pedagogical approach facilitates the exact counter of the pervasive problems plaguing video games that Leonard has previously outlined and proposes an open discussion of the ‘capitalistimperialist’ motives that dictate the representation and consumption of many games. Furthermore, the decolonisation of the game industry must be undertaken through the shifting of the very specific audience that games are geared towards as well.

Edmond Y. Chang on Yellow Face (Mike Ren 2019) Whenever I teach a games studies class (or even if I invite a game into a more traditional literature course), I stress a few ground rules: Mastery of a game or beating a game is not the goal, playing a game is in itself a form of critique, and turning play into analysis requires breaking the game down into useful and understandable parts. One of the ways I help both novice and expert gamers to close play a game is through an assignment called ‘plogs’ or ‘play logs.’ I draw on students’ previous experiences from their composition and literature classes to transfer what they know about ‘close reading’ a text, about getting between the words and lines, and about getting past the symbolic or the thematic to apply that practice to playing a game. The ‘plog’ prompt reads: Therefore, as you play and think and ‘plog’ about the games this semester, tell us about what you are paying attention to, what you are noticing, and most

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importantly, what connections you are making between the game and the real world, between the game and class discussion, and between the game and the readings. No detail is too small or inconsequential. The whole point of close playing is to aggregate analytical and interpretative data that can be then used to make an argument about the games and the culture that made and play them. In other words, if you had to write a paper about the game, based on the kinds of analytics we will be talking about in class, how would you use the game itself and your playing of the game as evidence? That kind of detail and analysis is what close playing is all about. I have students pay attention to four categories, ways of organising their observations and experience: narrative, mise en scene, mechanics, and connections to the cultural/ social. Granted, these are not the only ways to think about games, but they offer handholds, scaffolding that students can easily identify, arrange, and hopefully, make connections across things they see, hear, feel, and experience. I offer the following definitions in the ‘plog’ exercise: • • • •

Narrative (the game’s story, themes, characters, dialogues) Mise en scene (visuals, representations, sounds, items, settings) Mechanics (controls, actions, interface, rules, exploits) Cultural/Social (contexts, race, gender, sexuality, class, disability, connections to player communities, non-gaming communities, news, laws and policies, different disciplines)

To start, particularly for short games, I encourage students to play the game once all the way through just to familiarise themselves with the interface and the overall story and feel. Then they should play the game again for close reading and close playing, making observations, taking notes using the schematic above, much like annotating a print text. When possible, I try to assign short games and games that are free to download or web-based games because they are more accessible and mindful of students’ time, resources, and computing power. While I have taught mainstream, commercially popular games, I think turning to independent games, particularly games made by creators from underrepresented or marginalised communities, introduces students to identities, representations, perspectives, and possibilities in gaming they may not be familiar with as well as denaturalising the gaming experience for would-be ‘hardcore’ or long-time players as about more than the usual tropes, goals, mechanics, and norms. For example, a five-minute game that brings together narrative, design, and issues about race is Yellow Face by Mike Ren Yi, a Chinese-American game maker currently living in Shanghai, China. Yellow Face is a mostly text game published in 2019 for the web and mobile devices. According to the game’s description, it is ‘an interactive game about being Asian in America’ and is ‘based on a true story’; the game is in part inspired by David Henry Hwang’s play of the same name.The game begins with two faces in profile facing each other. The left face is white, and the right profile is pale yellow.Text bubbles appear whenever one of the characters talk,

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response choices appear just below the dialogue, and finally, a curious ‘American/ Asian’ metre is at the top of the game screen. The plog exercise then asks students to walk through different aspects as they play. Narrative and mise en scene: The start screen sets the scene, ‘A college house party in America, 2009,’ as music plays and people chatter in the background. Then the first dialogue begins when the white avatar named ‘Party Guy’ asks, ‘Where are you from?’ The player then has two choices: ‘North Carolina’ and ‘China.’ Clicking ‘North Carolina’ elicits the stereotypical and problematic next question, ‘No I mean where are you REALLY from?’ On the other hand, clicking ‘China’ first yields the reaction, ‘Oh Wow! Your English is so good.’ The remainder of the game moves through a few other characters including a White ‘Party Girl’ and an Asian girl named ‘Anna.’ Different conversation paths reveal further colour-blind and Orientalist replies from ‘Chinese culture is so zen’ to ‘I’m not trying to be racist’ to ‘I’m not into Asian guys.’ Mechanics: Playing the game is simply a matter of navigating various dialogue choices, often deciding between ignoring the problematic assumptions made by the non-player characters or trying to call them out as racist. Perhaps the most important part of the game’s mechanics is when the player realises there is no good response, no good choice in response, which is signalled in the game by ellipses, and by silence. Furthermore, the player must ascertain what the meter at the top of the screen is in fact measuring, and how certain responses increase or decrease the ‘American’ or ‘Asian’ bar. Cultural/Social: Finally, the player must explicate game play, their experience, and what the game is doing, dramatising, or arguing, both implicitly and explicitly. Clearly, Yellow Face is a game about the main character’s everyday experience with racist microaggressions, but even that experience can be further unpacked in terms of tropes about Asian American men, masculinity, sexuality, what it means to go to college or to a party, genre norms, Asian Americans in popular culture, what it means to centre Asian American experience in games, and so on. In the end, once the students have played and recorded their observations, the assignment follows up with a post to the class’s learning management system or a short response paper asking them to synthesise, analyse, and make connections between the game’s narrative, mise en scene, mechanics, and social or cultural critique. In the case of Yellow Face, they might consider how the game imagines, enacts, and attempts to challenge what Tara Fickle (2019) calls ‘ludoOrientalism’ or how the ‘design, marketing, and rhetoric of games shape how Asians as well as East-West relations are imagined and where notions of foreignness and racial hierarchies get reinforced’ (p. 3). As Mike Ren Yi said in a recent interview: I think these games are about how I see the world…I try to put players into a unique perspective…The unique perspective stems from my own experiences, but I am really drawn to projects in which underrepresented characters take the forefront in the storytelling. (cited in Patterson, 2020)

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Teaching with games of colour philosophy As exemplified above, teaching games and teaching with video games offers unique pedagogical opportunities and medium-specific challenges. Teaching video games requires particular attention to reading and playing proficiencies, to how games are framed and included in the classroom, and more importantly, to student equity and access to time, resources, and technology. Developing a teaching with games philosophy helps crystalise and consolidate the rationale for video games as part of a class, workshop, assignment, or syllabus much in the same way a lesson, text, or topic is intentionally scaffolded and integrated into a course or curriculum. For example, Chang’s teaching with games philosophy in part reads: Video games cannot be a gimmick or dangling digital carrot, but rather video games must be the artifacts and occasions for study, investigation, discussion, and interrogation. To assume that students, even students born in the 21st Century, are ready to read and think and write critically about digital media naturalises these technologies in problematic ways. It gives students the false impression that they have nothing to learn about their own relationship to the technology they have, use, buy, abuse, play, or ignore. Familiarity with gaming is not the same as facility; acceptance of gaming is not the same thing as acumen. As another example, Tanner Higgin (2009) in teaching the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft discusses the problematic figure of Leeroy Jenkins, a popular meme about a racially coded avatar that chaotically disrupts (ostensibly comically) a group’s attempt at an in-game challenge; Higgin reads Jenkins as a ‘bumbling fool that is trying to fit into the predominantly white MMO space but ultimately screws it up for everyone…[he] is an example of the Zip Coon minstrel archetype.’ Higgin reports that some students are resistant to unpacking race or racism in game spaces, or more problematically, they dismiss the critiques with the common sidesteps, ‘It’s just a game’ or ‘It was not the developers’ intention.’ But applying pressure to these colour-blind views of digital technologies is often the first step in denaturalising students’ relationship to video games, especially the fantasy that games are circumscribed by the ‘magic circle’ and therefore not subject to real world concerns or critiques. Higgin continues: I point out that even with these options available MMORPGs are predominantly whitewashed environments where blackness is viewed as abnormal and when black or brown avatars are present in MMORPG space they are often lampooned as incongruent with fantasy or sci-fi convention. (But that does not mean blackness is not of central importance to the game itself since high fantasy is obsessed with racial others.) Our goal in discussing character creation is to expose the inherent problems of liberal multiculturalism since it understands social equity to be achieved through visibility and not deeper structural changes. (2009)

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Therefore, a games of colour teaching philosophy foregrounds is not just about diversity, inclusion, and equity but is intentionally anti-racist. When asked about the role of technology in education, Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, answers, I don’t think we should just assume that anything is, quote, ‘neutral.’ If we start from there—that we eliminate the construct—even AI is not neutral. And why is it not neutral? Because humans create it. And I think if we start there, then that allows us to assess: Is this new technology creating more inequity or equity? Is this new technology allowing me to create, or spread, or build an antiracist learning environment?…We shouldn’t assume that a new technology is going to do that, because chances are if we make that assumption, then it won’t. (cited in Koenig, 2020) Teaching with games must, in the words of David J. Leonard, ‘move beyond simply studying games to begin to offer insight and analysis into the importance of race and racialised tropes within virtual reality and the larger implications of racist pedagogies in the advancement of White supremacy’ (cited in Acosta and Denham, 2018, p. 349). To that end, here are suggestions, best practices, cautions, and possibilities for teaching with games, teaching about difference through games, and teaching with technology more generally. Much of this is common sense, things common to thoughtful and critically minded pedagogy, but developed to be medium specific: •

Be Selective: Not all games are created equal nor are they equally teachable. Much like choosing any other text for a class, the decision to include a video game should be based on how well it befits a particular need, theme, or analytical goal and not on how it is well-known or popular or well-reviewed. Even a ‘bad’ game can be illustrative, critically useful. As suggested by Melanie M. Acosta and Andre R. Denham (2018, p. 359), Teachers must use a critical eye to evaluate digital games and this includes the legitimacy of the game. Questions teachers can ask during this critical assessment include: who is this game designed for? From what perspective was this game developed? Who is present in this game and who is missing? What racial, ethnic, gender, class, and/or language stereotypes are played out in this game? What am I learning about myself from this game? What am I learning about my world from this game?

•

Indie Games of Colour: Much in the same vein of expanding literary or historical canons, the foregrounding of games created by BIPOC developers, designers, and artists not only enacts diversity and inclusion but also challenges the fantasy that game histories, communities, and development are or have always been white spaces. Many independent games are web-based, often free to play or try, or relatively inexpensive through platforms like Steam , Itch.io , Humble Bundle , or Kongregate . Moreover, there are websites and resources like imagineNATIVE https://imaginenative.org/>, IndieCade , Games for Change , Centre for Games & Impact , Gamers for Good , and others whose missions are about diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice in and through games. Short Is Sometimes Better: The teaching of shorter games allows for flexibility, a range of options, and is mindful of students’ time, attention, and access. Short games can range from five minutes to a few hours. Shorter games also allow for in-class close playing, demonstration, and discussion. Mastery Is Not the Same as Analysis: Rather than focus on winning, finishing, or beating game, encourage students to explore, observe, experiment, question, and discuss. The process of play is more important than the result. Students newer to video games and students with disabilities will appreciate the focus on practice and exploration. Students who are proficient with games can be called upon to guide and collaborate with novice or struggling players. Moreover, sometimes new players will notice things that experienced players take for granted, particularly in terms of interface, mechanics, and gamic conventions. There is No Magic Circle: The ‘magic circle’ of play, a concept from philosopher Johan Huizinga, is the idea that games are not the same as and separate from real life, from the real world. Even if players do not invoke the term, they use this idea when they insist, ‘It’s just a game!’ in order to sidestep or defend against the critique of a game. As discussed above, technologies are never neutral. Therefore, video games, gaming, and playing are not neutral. As Mia Consalva (2009, p. 415) argues, ‘[P]layers never play a new game or fail to bring outside knowledge about games and gameplay into their gaming situations. The event is ‘tainted’ perhaps by prior knowledge. There is no innocent gaming.’ Understanding and insisting that games are not separate from the real world and the ‘magic circle’ is imperfect and permeable, makes plain that ‘much of the pleasure of videogames comes at the expense of women and people of colour, both literally and figuratively’ (Nakamura, 2013, p. 9). Paired or Group Play: Where and when possible, encourage students to play with a partner or in a small group be it in class, during lab time, in their dorm, or at home. One person plays while the others observe, respond, and log their observations. Paired playing brings a different set of eyes and ears to play. The burden of trying to pay attention to details while playing is lifted from the player and given to the critical observer. Players play through a section of the game and then switch places: The player becomes the peer observer and the observer becomes the player. Paired playing allows for conversation, discussion, cooperation, and collaboration in both navigating and analysing the game. Moreover, students with limited access to games might be paired up with others with the game or platform (Chang and Welsh, 2012).

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•

Paper Prototype a Game: A useful activity to include alongside playing games is to have students in pairs of small groups prototype on paper an idea for a game of their own. Paper prototypes are 1) quick and easy to make, 2) require no technical or programming skill, and 3) are easy to test and change. Prototypes try to answer:What is the game about? How is the game played? What are the mechanics? What are the goals? What does the game look like, sound like, feel like? How might the game be used to teach race, gender, sexuality, and so on? According to one game design expert: If a picture is worth a thousand words, a good prototype can be worth far more. Prototypes of video games can communicate ideas and mechanics much more efficiently than meetings or a design document. Prototypes also save time, money, and unnecessary frustration during the design process. (Marmura, 2008) Once developed, groups can present their prototypes and ideas.

•

Analysis is Fun: Students and players who are resistant to analysis of and challenges to video games often complain that their fun and entertainment is being ruined or that critical approaches are ‘overthinking’ or ‘reading too much’ into the games. It is important to encourage students to see that gaming and critique, playing and analysis as are not diametrically opposed. Rather, developing critical thinking practices and skills might deepen their pleasure and engagement with something they see superficially as leisure or fun. Close playing, analysis, and critical engagement with real-world issues in a way can be seen as a kind of play of interactivity between player and game.

References Acosta, M.M. and Denham, A.R.. (2018) ‘Simulating Oppression: Digital Gaming, Race, and the Education of African American Children,’ The Urban Review pp. 345–362. Anthropy, A. (2012) Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Dropouts, Queers, Housewives, and People like You Are Taking Back an Art Form, New York: Seven Stories. Apple, M. W., Au, W. & Gandin, L. A. (2009) ‘Mapping Critical Education,’ in The Routledge International Handbook of Critical Education, London: Routledge. Bird, A. (2021a) ‘Digital Dispossessions: The Importance of Regional Specificity and Sovereign Spaces to Video Game Representations of Native American Cultural Heritage,’ Studia Neophilologica, forthcoming. Bird, A. (2021b) ‘Synthetic Spaces and Indigenous Identity: Decolonizing Video Games and Reclaiming Representation’, in C.E. Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke, K.H.J. Boom, B. van den Hout, A.A.A. Mol and A. Politopoulos (eds.), Return to the Interactive Past:The Interplay of Video Games and Histories, forthcoming from Sidestone Press. Brown, E. (2012) ‘It’s About Race … No, It Isn’t!’ Negotiating Race and Social Class:Youth Identities at Anderson School in 2005,’ in D.T. Slaughter-Defoe, H.C. Stevenson, E.G. Arrington and D.J. Johnson (eds.), Black Educational Choice: Assessing the Private and Public Alternatives to Traditional K-12 Public Schools, Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, pp. 28–48.

Playing difference  127 Callahan, Y. (2017) ‘If You’re a Black Woman Who’s Tired of White People Touching Your Hair, There’s a Game for That,’ The Root, accessed 2 Jan. 2021. Available from: https:// theg rapevine.theroot.com/if-youre-a-black-woman-whos-tired-of-whitepeople-askin-1820505693 Chang, E.Y. (2008) ‘Gaming as Writing, or, World of Warcraft as World of Wordcraft,’ Computers and Composition Online, viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: http://cconlinejournal. org/gaming_issue_2008/Chang_Gaming_as_writing/index.html Chang, E. Y. and Welsh, T. (2012) ‘Close Playing, Paired Playing,’ Paper Presented at Modern Language Association Annual Convention, Seattle, WA. Consalvo, M. (2009) ‘There Is No Magic Circle,’ Games and Culture 4(4), pp. 408–417. Entertainmnent Software Association. (2020) ‘2020 Essential Facts about the Video Game Industry,’ viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: https://www.theesa.com/ esa-research/2020-essential-facts-about-the-video-game-industry/. Fickle,T. (2019) The Race Card: From Gaming Technologies to Model Minorities, New York: New York University Press. Galloway, A. (2006) Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Gee, J. P. (2003) What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, New York: Palgrave. Giroux, H. A. (1983), Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition, Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey. Grande, S. (2014) ‘Red Pedagogy: The Un-Methodology,’ in N.K. Denzin,Y.S. Lincoln, and L.T. Smith (eds.), Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, SAGE Publications, pp. 233–254. Gray, K.L. (2012) ‘Deviant Bodies, Stigmatised Identities, and Racist Acts: Examining the Experiences of African-American Gamers in Xbox Live,’ New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 18(4), pp. 261–276. Gray, K.L. (2014) Race, Gender, and Deviance in Xbox Live: Theoretical Perspectives from the Virtual Margins, London: Routledge. Gray, K.L. (2020) Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Gaming, Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press. Gray, K.L. and Leonard, D.J. (2018) ‘Introduction: Not a Post-Racism and Post-Misogyny Promised Land:Video Games as Instruments of (In)justice,’ in K. L. Gray and D. J. Leonard (eds.), Woke Gaming: Digital Challenges to Oppression and Social Injustice, Seattle: University of Washington Press, pp. 3–23. Hankerson, D., Marshall, A.R., Booker, J, El Mimouni, H., Walker, I. and Rode, J.A. (2016) ‘Does Technology Have Race?,’ CHI EA ‘16: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 473–486. Higgin,T. (2009) ‘How I Use Leeroy Jenkins to Teach Race in Videogames,’ viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: https://www.tannerhiggin.com/2009/09/how-i-use-leeroyjenkins-to-teach-race-in-videogames/ hooks, b. (1992) ‘The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,’ in Black Looks: Race and Representation, London: Routledge, pp. 115–131. Jackson, S. (1997) ‘Crossing Borders and Changing Pedagogies: From Giroux and Freire to Feminist Theories of Education,’ Gender and Education, 9(4): pp. 457–468. Koenig, R. (2020) ‘How to Be an Antiracist Educator: An Interview With Ibram X. Kendi,’ EdSurge, viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: https://www.edsurge.com/ news/2020-12-01-how-to-be-an-antiracist-educator-an-interview-with-ibram-x-kendi

128  Edmond Y. Chang et al. Leonard, D. J. (2006) ‘Nota a Hater, Just Keepin’ It Real: The Importance of Race-and Gender-Based Game Studies,’ Games and Culture, 1(1), pp. 83–88. Luke, A. (2004) ‘Two Takes on the Critical,’ in B. Norton and K. Toohey (eds.), Critical Pedagogies and Language Learning, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, pp. 21–29. Marmura, R. (2008) ‘Paper Prototyping: 5 Facts for Designing in Low-Tech,’ Game Career Guide, viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: https://gamecareerguide.com/features/622/ paper_prototyping_5_facts_for_.php McGonigal, J. (2011) Reality Is Broken:Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World, New York: Penguin. Momo Pixel. (2017) Hair Nah. Available from: http://hairnah.com/ Nakamura, L. (2013) ‘It’s a Nigger in Here! Kill the Nigger!’ User-Generated Media Campaigns Against Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in Digital Games,’ in K. Gates (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies, Hoboken, NJ: Blackwell Publishing, pp. 1–15. Nakamura, L. (2017) ‘Afterword,’ in J. Malkowski and T. Russworm (eds.), Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games, Bloomington, IA: Indiana UP, pp. 245–250. Nitsche, M. (2008) Video Game Spaces: Image, Play, and Structure in 3D Game Worlds, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Packwood, D. (2018) ‘The Era of White Male Games for White Male Gamers is Ending,’ Quartz, viewed 16 Nov. 2020. Available from: https://qz.com/1433085/the-eraof-white-male-games-for-white-male-gamers-is-ending/ Patterson, C. (2020) ‘Interview: Mike Ren Yi,’ First Person Scholar, viewed 15 Nov. 2020. Available from: http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/interview-mike-ren-yi/ Rambharose, A. (2017) ‘Hair Nah Is a Video Game for Women Sick of Saying ‘Don’t Touch My Hair,’ Glamour, viewed 2 Jan. 2021. Available from: https://www.glamour.com/story/ hair-nah-is-a-video-game-for-women-sick-of-saying-dont-touch-my-hair Ren, M. (2019) Yellow Face. Available from: http://mikeyren.com/yellowface/ SkaggsJimmy and Cott3ntree. (2018) ‘Why Can’t You Kill Indians?’ in subreddit ‘r/reddeadredemption.’ Reddit, viewed 29 Jan. 2021. Available from: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddeadredemption/comments/9sskub/why_cant_you_kill_indians/ Valve. (2007) Portal. Available from: https://www.thinkwithportals.com/ Wills, J. (2019) Gamer Nation:Video Games & American Culture, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP.

Chapter 8

Reading and writing to reclaim humanity Centring the ongoing history of Asian exclusion in America in the (digital) age of COVID-19 Kathleen Tamayo Alves As an immigrant, Filipinx-American woman in a mixed-race family, I rest on an axis of several intersecting identities.This intersectional axis governs my worldviews, and consequently, my pedagogy. Endowed with what W E B Dubois has called ‘double-consciousness’ (2018, p. 6), I am never allowed to forget my race and gender, especially in predominantly White male academic spaces. I teach at Queensborough Community College, one of 25 campuses in The City University of NewYork, a public institution with one of the most diverse campuses nationwide, and with a significant Asian student population. Aligning my own interests in racial discourses with my own students’ racial positionings, I decentre Whiteness and foreground Critical Race Theory as the major anti-racist framework in my pedagogy. I introduce Kimberlé Crenshaw’s (1991) work on intersectionality early in the course and continually engage with intersectional methodology throughout the semester with texts and theories that centre Black and Asian experiences. With the unrelenting barrage of anti-Asian footage in the present age of COVID-19, my double-consciousness has been heightened from a quiet buzz to a cacophonous roar. With Governor Andrew Cuomo’s order of shelter-in-place as the pandemic swept through New York City this past spring, my students concurrently worked on course material and consumed viral content on their social media timelines. Reading and writing about Celeste Ng’s novel of a mixedrace Chinese–American family reckoning with their race and place in 1970s Ohio, Everything I Never Told You (2014), students frequently incorporated the past and present climate of anti-Asian discrimination into their understanding of the Asian experience in America. They witnessed, over and over again on their screens, theory in praxis: Asians – or anyone who looked remotely ‘Chinese’ – brutally victimised as scapegoats for the virus. In this chapter, I describe my experience in teaching Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You in the age of COVID-19, and how the dissemination of anti-Asian discrimination in popular media such as the news and Twitter is evident of the forgotten or erased history of Asian exclusion in America, a violent history still felt and ongoing. While the world around us can so easily foster racial pessimism, that any hope of racial unity is futile, our sustained engagement with reading and writing about race, place, and national belonging through this novel offers hope for the possibilities of positive change. DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-9

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Theorising the history of Asian exclusion in America The scapegoating of Asians as vectors of contagious disease has a long history, perhaps beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century when agricultural, mining, and railroad corporations brought over Asian immigrants as cheap labour. Asian workers were cast as the community to blame for smallpox and bubonic plague outbreaks. Anti-Asian xenophobia manifested in the racist ideology of perceiving Asian persons and countries as the ‘yellow peril’ that threatened to contaminate Europe and the US. The racist fear of the ‘Oriental other’ culminated in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act that banned immigration from Asia and the Pacific Islands, the first ban on immigration based on nationality. Race science, politics, and popular culture contribute to the racial project of categorising Asians as foreign contaminants on American soil. Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994) describe ‘racial formation’ as an ongoing and dynamic historical process in which several ‘racial projects’ shape, express, and organise human bodies in specific times and places (pp. 55–56). Not simply an effect of bigotry or prejudice, racism in American history has been an ‘unavoidable outcome of patterns of socialisation which were ‘bred in the bone,’ affecting not only whites but even minorities themselves,’ and that inequality and injustice have been ‘a structural feature of the U.S. society, the product of centuries of systematic exclusion, exploitation, and disregard of racially defined minorities’ (Omi and Winant, 1994, p. 69). But what renders Asian nationals and Asian-Americans differently in the national imagination is their perpetual foreignness as part of the American ‘racial project.’ Gary Okihoro (1999) explains that ‘Asians in America, historically and within our time, have been and are rendered perpetual aliens, strangers in the land of their birth and adoption’ (p. 41). Furthermore, Lisa Lowe (1996) claims that ‘the American of Asian descent remains the symbolic “alien”, the metonym for Asia who by definition cannot be imagined as sharing in America’ (p. 6). Cathy Park Hong (2020), writing on the ‘minority feelings’ of Asian persons in America, declares, Even if we’ve been here for four generations, our status here remains conditional; belonging is always promised and just out of reach so that we behave, whether it’s the insatiable acquisition of material belongings or belonging as a peace of mind where we are absorbed into mainstream society. (p. 202) Ironically, Asians are (wrongly) held up as the ‘model minority,’ and yet, we are pushed onto the sacrificial pyre for the sake of national security with alarming readiness and willingness.

The reawakening of Sinophobia in the digital age The arrival and spread of COVID-19 in America reawakened nineteenth century racist nationalism and anti-Asian violence became a common performance in the national theatre. The Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council documented over

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1,000 reports of hate crimes on Asian peoples from 19 March to 1 April in 2020 alone (Jeung, 2020). Sara Ahmed (2004), in theorising the cultural politics of hate, explains that the ‘role of hate [shapes] bodies and worlds through the way hate generates its object as a defence against injury’ (p. 42). Hate narratives operate by creating a subject that is threatened by imagined others whose proximity endangers to take away something from the subject (in this case, health and life), and this hatred is in alliance with nationhood or citizenship. The past histories of Asian exclusion along with the ongoing perception of Asians as perpetual foreigners and as vectors of disease laid the groundwork for the resurgence of overt discrimination and racist abuse. As we live and struggle to survive this pandemic, history is happening, as history happens to and through certain bodies. Even as we hunker down in the relative safety of our homes, Asian peoples are keenly aware of the violence awaiting them outside. Writing on classroom ecologies, Asao B. Inoue (2015) argues that instructors must consider students’ environments as inseparable from their learning and writing. Quarantined in their homes, sick or not, students could only turn to their screens for access to the outside, an outside full of hate against Asian nationals and Asian-Americans. When we officially pivoted online under statewide lockdown in late March, not only was New York City experiencing the worst outbreak, Queens was the epicentre of infections and deaths. Hospitals were so overburdened with deaths that the Federal Emergency Management Agency sent refrigerated trucks to Elmhurst Hospital, a mere eight miles away from campus, to serve as temporary morgues. While many students were forced to learn completely online for the first time, ambulance sirens roared outside their homes with the miasma of death hung around them. While New Yorkers sheltered in place, a steady stream of anti-Asian hate crimes flooded their screens. From major and local newspaper headlines to viral videos on social media, Americans consumed digital narratives that represented Asians as victims of hate crimes, and media users publicly commented on these hate crimes with horror, disgust, sympathy, but sometimes with support. Ironically, this representation and the responses of this representation from users and witnesses reproduce and recirculate the politics of representation which render Asians as perpetually foreign. Myria Georgiou asserts (2020), ‘media have been studied for effectively exercising symbolic power, precisely by representing minorities as the enemy within, not least through the racialization, pathologisation, and criminalization of ethnic minorities’ (p. 2382). In their analysis of racism in this digital era, Brian TaeHyuk Keum and Matthew Miller (2017) argue that the relentless pipeline of online racism has radically changed the way people of colour experience racism, in the same ways in which the 24-hour news cycle has changed the way in which the public consumes news events (Lin and Atkin, 2014). Online racism is more pervasive and explicit than offline racism (Bonilla and Rosa, 2015; Kirkpatrick, 2011), and users of colour can easily or inadvertently encounter this content. For example, Jamie Bartlett et al. (2014) document thousands of Twitter posts with derogatory racial slurs each day. The resurgence of White nationalism is attributed to online spaces in which users become radicalised (Morgan, 2016) and

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the 45th president of the US himself follows and reposts comments by users associated with White supremacy (Kharakh and Primack, 2016).What’s more, the ‘growing universe of racism’ (Keum and Miller, 2017, p. 311) is consumed in real time by people of colour, and people of colour reexperience and relive racial trauma through others’ retweeting or repeated sharing of trending or viral content. Truly, online racism is a major chronic stressor for people of colour in today’s digital age, and even more so when race relations continue to become more tense while the nation is still at the mercy of COVID-19. As an Asian national myself, born and raised in the Philippines, I worried deeply for myself, my children, and my students. Sheltering in place an hour away from New York City in Westchester County, I fell into a chasm of despair from endless doomscrolling. I felt my mental and emotional health dangerously declining, but I could not help the masochistic practice of staying abreast of the news, which inevitably included anti-Asian hate crimes replaying over and over on social media. This fear and anxiety hung like a metal cloak as I pantomimed normalcy in parenting and professing. I made sure to keep my own children ignorant. Our smart home devices played meditation music, not broadcast news. Our television aired children’s programming, not street violence. Still, the sheer volume of antiAsian violence I was exposed to became a powerful stressor, as vicarious racism can result in the user’s feelings of anger and helplessness (Harrell et al. 2000). Keum and Miller (2017) state that sustained negative responses over time can be particularly harmful, especially for frequent users: factors that seemed more personally relevant (personal experience and vicarious exposure factors) were the major predictors of mental health outcomes whereas online-mediated exposure factor was minimally significant. This suggests that users may experience greater distress when the racist contents are more personally relevant. (p. 321) Truly, months and months of consuming violence against people who looked like me took a serious emotional toll. Even at night, there was no escape as the images on my screen played over again in my dreams. Except this time, the victim was me.

Online classroom ecology Coincidentally, my students in my Introduction to Literature course were reading Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You. For most of my students, not only is this novel their first encounter with reading a text by an Asian-American writer about Asian-Americans, it is also their first contact with the histories of Asian exclusion in the US. Before they read the book, I give students both historical and theoretical contexts for the Asian-American experience. I begin with how national racialisation policies have been informed by the scientific racism in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, particularly the taxonomies of Carl Linneaus and Johann Blumenbach which shaped western hegemonic discourses that centred on the assumption of racial hierarchy with European Whiteness as the most superior.

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Then, I introduce theory on the monoracial Asian and half white-half Asian experience, particularly work by Omi and Winant, Okihiro, and Hong, that give nuance on how Asians and mixed-race Asians are racialised in the US. This specifically gives theoretical context for understanding the novel’s characters: James Lee, a monoracial Chinese-American, and his children, Nath, Lydia, and Hanna, half-White, half-Asian-Americans. Although my students are first-year college writers and readers with varying academic backgrounds and experiences, I find it worthwhile to include Critical Race Theory in my teaching as an anti-racist practice. Theorist bell hooks (2003) observes, ‘When we take the theory, the explanations, and apply them concretely to our daily lives, to our experiences, we further and deepen the practice of anti-racist transformation’ (p. 36). Rather than students experiencing theory in the abstract, when instructors apply theory to narratives, narratives that explore what it means to be human with both specificity and in the universal, students can find language that helps explain their own subject formations as they analyse characters with more consideration and nuance. Furthermore, when my students became virtual witnesses to anti-Asian hate crimes, Critical Race Theory provided another urgent layer of understanding the racialisation of Asian nationals and Asian-Americans. Their virtual experience became part of their writing ecology. Inoue (2015) argues, writing and what writers do during writing cannot be artificially separated from the social-rhetorical situations in which writing gets done, from the conditions that enable writers to do what they do, and from the motives writers have for doing what they do. (p. 159) Judging from my students’ writing responses for the novel, especially from my Asian students, they bore witness to the resurgence of the old-fashioned racist ideologies in the 1960s setting of the novel with the violence inflicted on AsianAmericans in 2020.

In their own words One Asian student, in answering a question asking her to reflect on how learning the history of Asian exclusion in America has changed the way she sees the AsianAmerican experience, brings her attention to current xenophobic violence: …when there is something wrong, people are always blaming the immigrants, and it is happening to us right now. I personally feel confus[ed] and a little scared during this time, but I believe what we can do is get educated, [gain] knowledge and be moral, [to change] the bias surrounding you, and then go on the bigger stage and make a large impact on society. We have to stay safe and go through this period. I hope the exclusion will not happen again, but it seems like there are people [that] are trying to guide this to happen. People should say their words carefully especially the people who will impact a large number of people.

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While she notes the historical patterns of cultural xenophobia towards Asian immigrant communities, she insists on persevering through the struggle as others have before her. She uses ‘people’ to refer to those with public platforms who disseminate misinformation and disinformation. She is keenly aware of the impact of racist rhetoric in the public sphere, but she places her hopes on education and compassionate ethics as a way to eradicate racist thinking in the public imagination. Other students expressed outrage and dismay with the erasure of Asian-American history in education. One student, a Black woman, noted that the curriculum made space for Black history because ‘they have the month and it was learned every year’ while she doesn’t ‘ever remember learning about Asian exclusion.’ This observation underscores how history curriculums have not been inclusive of nonWhite histories in this country as well as the relegation of Black history into a single month. Another student, a Black man, expressed surprise in how capitalism is tied with foreign policy, but ultimately categorises Asian exclusion as a general practice of global exploitation of non-White peoples: I learned that the Chinese Exclusion Act restricted Chinese immigration for 60 years. This surprised me because I never knew the U.S could keep people out of the country for so many years…I found it interesting how you can see a pattern [of] American companies recruit[ing] workers from the east for cheap labor and then years later, America restricts those same people they hired as workers…. I would always think that African Americans were enslaved to build the Transcontinental Railroad; however, Asians were a part of…building the railroad. This has changed my view of Asian-Americans because I never knew they went through this kind of labor and discrimination in the past. Now I know that Asian-Americans were not left out in the terrible trauma of the world’s history. Another student, a Hispanic man, makes a similar observation that the robust capitalist economy in America has been built on the backs of exploited peoples: This [knowledge has] changed my view of the Asian-American experience and now I see their hardships [have] led American companies to thrive. This has also changed my point of view because I noticed America has tried to take advantage of multiple types of people in the past to build this country. Students independently connect this new knowledge with histories they already knew, the histories of exploitation in a country driven by global capitalism. Another student reacted angrily, and as a Mexican immigrant, ties Asian contribution to nation-building with her own understanding of nation: Seeing the history of Asian exclusion makes me realise that they have not been given enough credit for everything Asians have done for this country. They literally built this country and far from receiving gratitude, they are denied the right to even set foot in the country [and] I find it deplorable. In Mexico, people used to say that ‘the land belongs to the person who works it’ and

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honestly [Asians] have a right in this country. It is totally new to me what they did to the Chinese immigrants detained on Angel Island where they were humiliated. I just hope that one day their contributions will be recognized. For this student, labour put into nation-building is synonymous with national belonging, a ‘right’ long denied to Asian nationals and Asian-Americans. White students confessed their ignorance of Asian histories, but once equipped with this knowledge, they advocated for equity. One White woman said, This has changed my view on the Asian-American experience. I didn’t know Asian-Americans struggled fitting into society in America. I didn’t realize that people saw all Asian people as foreigners just because they looked different and had their own traditions and customs. Asian-Americans didn’t deserve the treatment they were receiving from Americans just because of their race or appearance… Asian-Americans shouldn’t be classified as foreigners. AsianAmericans are Americans and deserve the same respect, equal rights, job opportunities, and more just like any other American person. This student’s move to action demonstrates the importance of decentring Whiteness in teaching. For most students, they will only know the histories taught to them. Once they are equipped with the counter-narratives that demystify American exceptionalism, they become more invested in social justice for peoples outside of themselves. Some students saw a reflection of themselves. One student, an Asian immigrant himself, wrote: I learned several Asian races battled for labor in the US. Also, the TydingsMcDuffie Act of 1935 seemed surreal [that] only 50 people a year [were allowed to immigrate to the United States] compared [with] today. It is night and day.This gave me an insight into how competitive and difficult the lives of early Asian-Americans were. Many young men had to leave their families behind for an uncertain future. Homesickness is probably just a tip of the iceberg of hardships they faced. Working conditions during the 1880s and 1920s probably cost many Asian American lives. This young man shared with me that having immigrated to New York recently, he related deeply to the loneliness and homesickness of the Asian male workers split from their families in the late nineteenth century and travelling great distances to a country that was (and continues to be) hostile to them. A 100-year span between then and now, between them and him, and yet, he feels a closeness and a kinship to their struggles today.

Pedagogy of hope in isolation How does one create a hopeful classroom environment when everything feels so hopeless? How do we build community when we are physically separated? It is difficult to build a classroom community in isolation and even more difficult to

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focus on schoolwork when students’ mental health suffers. Students are experiencing increasing levels of stress and anxiety from the pandemic (Son et al., 2020). There are alarming rates of reported increases in depressive thoughts (44%) and suicidal ideation (8%) (Son et al., 2020). And unfortunately, students do not seek help because of their low trust of counselling services (Martin, 2010). Although teachers are not ‘therapists,’ hooks (2003) emphasises the importance of ‘conscious teaching’: ‘teaching with love…brings us the insight that we will not be able to have a meaningful experience in the classroom without reading the emotional climate of our students and attending to it’ (p. 133).When we only focus on the violence from difference without exploring the possibility of change, we risk demoralising ourselves and our students, which would only deepen systems of domination. Theorist hooks (2003) argues, ‘When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus on resolution, we take away hope. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture’ (p. xiv). Instructors must move beyond merely naming the problem; we must offer ways or examples in which we can feel hopeful for positive transformation not only for our students, but also for ourselves.What we do in the classroom (virtual or otherwise) does not occur outside of us. Though we are apart, we are all still linked in the online classroom ecology. Robert Yagelski (2011) suggests a radical reframing of the classroom space from traditionally transactional to a living ecology: ‘we promote an idea of community as a collection of discrete, autonomous individuals rather than a complex network of beings who are inherently interconnected and inextricably part of the ecosystems on which all life depends’ (p. 17). It is only through community that we can confront the feelings of loss and repair our human connections, to find solace and comfort together. By chance, my students were reading about a family in dire need of repair in Everything I Never Told You. The Lee family’s refusal to be honest with themselves and each other govern their destructive actions and solipsistic thinking in the novel. The White mother, Marilyn, and the Chinese-American father, James, thought love would be enough without making space to talk about their past and present experiences of sexist and racist trauma.These insecurities manifest into fear, physical violence, and neglect of their children. Lydia, the child who approximates Whiteness the most with her blue eyes, becomes the centre of both parents’ attention. Fearful of disappointing her mother and of abandonment, she lives a life of deception that ultimately culminates in her death by drowning in the neighbourhood lake. Nath reminds James so much of himself, a self that he has learned to hate through the projection of the White gaze that the father rejects opportunities for honest connection with his son time and time again. Hong (2020) explains the development of this self-hatred as an Asian person: ‘Racial selfhatred is seeing yourself the way whites see you, which turns you into your own worst enemy. Your only defense is to be hard on yourself, which becomes compulsive, and therefore a comfort, to peck yourself to death’ (pp. 9–10). Racial self-hatred is a psychic death, a legacy James almost passes on to his children. Through the lives of these characters, students learn about the possible consequences

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of familial and communal isolation, the failures of honest communication, and the silent denial of racial difference. Through short-answer reading responses, I invite students to think about race in the novel in three ways: How does negative racialisation impact a person? How does that person’s racial trauma govern their parenting? How is the mixed-race experience different from the monoracial experience? Students noted how James is seen as a perpetual foreigner, regardless of his status as an American-born citizen: ‘[James] has to constantly defend himself as an American; people only see whiteness as American,’ ‘[James is] seen to outsiders as a foreigner…he would forget that he was Asian until someone on the outside would bring it to his attention,’ and ‘[James is] seen as different despite having American roots and questioned by people constantly.’ They also observed the lingering pain of his trauma rooted in his childhood from school bullies. One student wrote, ‘James lives in the world of denial, pretending that the racism he receives from other people does not bother him and that what he lived in his life as a child did not affect him or generate any trauma.’ Another student observed that James pretends a comfort that he simply does not feel. He tries to belong to society, he pretends to be like the others, but the more he pretends, the situation overwhelms him even more to the degree of feeling pain for being so different. Ultimately, students perceive how a parent’s refusal to face the reality of his past trauma can damage their child’s sense of racial identity: ‘James understand the Chinese culture, and he knows the background, but he rejects it. He refuses to speak Chinese because he doesn’t want to have an accent… his children know nothing about the Chinese culture which makes them very confused.’ As students think through the ways in which James’ racialisation and fractured sense of identity determine his parenting, they can see the failure of Asians’ reliance on the wider and whiter community to validate national belonging, especially when this belonging purportedly confirms one’s selfhood. They see how the centring of Whiteness in the self and the family is exclusionary, and how children inherit the legacy of racial self-hatred. And equipped with the knowledge of the history of Asian exclusion in the US, students notice how James’ racial self-hatred is a manifestation of systemic racism towards Asians with roots as far back as the nineteenth century. While Everything I Never Told You’s violence on the self and others from difference can be palpably felt by students (many of them relate to the characters’ experiences), I selected this text for its possibilities of hope and resolution. As hooks argues, focusing only on the violence without examining the possibility of transformation can be demoralising to instructors and students. It is then critical to choose texts with hope. Even as the Lee family is on the brink of irredeemably splintering, withdrawing more and more into themselves, the final chapters offer a painful solution.We must be honest with ourselves and each other in the acknowledgement of difference and past traumas. This process is painful and long, but only

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then can we begin to bridge an understanding of each other, to cultivate communal emotional intelligence, and to heal: How long it will be before [James] speaks to his son without flint in his voice; how long it will be before Nath no longer flinches when his father speaks. For the rest of the summer, and for years after that, they will grope for the words that say what they mean: to Nath, to Hannah, to each other. There is so much they need to say. (Ng, 2014 pp. 282–283) Students found the power of truth in building community. One student wrote, ‘By accepting reality, facing weaknesses and communicating their defeats and sorrows… [the family’s] healing can begin.’ Another student underscored the importance of facing reality: The central tensions of the novel resolved in the end when each family member realizes that they have always lived a lie and that they have always tried to hide the reality of their lives, especially both parents who were always reflected in a certain way in [their children], trying to modify them to fit in the society…In the end the rest of the family set out to improve as a family by improving communication failures and anxiety. Speaking from a place of honesty is hard and painful for most people, but students can see how honest communication – especially about one’s own experience with race, which can be especially uncomfortable and fraught – can lead to a transformative and positive experience for all. Removed from the space of the classroom, we were all reading and writing from different spaces and different times. I could no longer see or even hear most of my students, though they could see me delivering lectures on YouTube. Still, I could feel a sense of community as we all read and thought through the same ideas and texts. I imagined my students reading the novel in their bedrooms or at the kitchen table. I imagined them writing their reading responses with their laptops propped on their laps or on a desk shared with another household member or otherwise. I imagined them reading my feedback on their written work and applying the changes necessary for their essay. My students hung like spectres in my imagination, their presence manifesting as the writing on my laptop screen. I know they are there, and they know I am here. While my students and I find some comfort and solidarity in understanding our histories and realities through Critical Race Theory, this pedagogical approach has been scrutinised as anti-American by the current presidential administration. The Associated Press (2020) reported that in September of this year, President Trump signed an executive order that prohibits federal recipients from offering diversity training based on Critical Race Theory which he argues ‘teach[es] people to hate our country.’ This is clearly a misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the purpose of Critical Race Theory and his remarks demonstrate the urgent need for

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meaningful conversations about race and systemic social injustice.The escalation of anti-Asian discrimination is not the only consequence of this pandemic. Racial inequities have widened regarding health care outcomes, food insecurity, education, incarceration, housing, and unemployment. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have been disproportionately impacted in the climate of COVID-19 emergency and now, more than ever, is the time to address the enduring legacy of structural racism in this country – in our classrooms, our homes, and our workplaces. I have taught Everything I Never ToldYou in past terms, but my students have never experienced a collective virtual witnessing of anti-Asian xenophobia as they did in the spring term of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic provided this generation’s watershed moment of unresolved racial reckoning. They beheld, either first-hand or through viral cell phone videos or news headlines, how the virus’ ‘attack’ on the nation and the political demagoguery blaming the virus’ wide transmission on Asians can rekindle xenophobic impulses and biases. Learning about the history of anti-Asian exclusion and Critical Race Theory helped them think through why this racist ideology exists, but witnessing hate crimes, again and again, made this experience real and urgent. Many, if not all, advocated for structural social change. My students did not just passively absorb historical or theoretical information; they repeatedly applied theoretical lenses in their readings and made connections with the current cultural moment. They felt compelled to take action, whether to write to their representatives or to share the information from the course with their family and friends. In my estimation, the course’s framework and delivery not only decentre Whiteness, but the anti-racist energy also moved beyond the borders of the page, the classroom, and the screen. In ways big and small, my students worked to reclaim the humanity of a historically marginalised people and to find meaning in their collective suffering and pain.

References Ahmed, Sara. 2014 (2004). The Cultural Poetics of Emotion. 2nd ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Associated Press. (2020).‘Trump’s order against “anti-American” diversity training faces lawsuit.’ Los Angeles Times 12 Nov. Bartlett, Jamie, Jeremy Reffin, Noelle Rumball, and Sarah Williamson. (2014) Anti-Social Media. London: Demos. Available from: https://www.demos.co.uk/files/DEMOS_ Anti-social_Media.pdf. Bonilla,Y. and J. Rosa (2015) # Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States. American Ethnologist, 42, pp. 4–17. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12112 Crenshaw, Kimberlé. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), pp. 1241–1299. Available from: doi:10.2307/1229039 Dubois, W.E.B. (2018) The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Penguin. Georgiou, Myria. (2020) ‘Racism, postracialism and why media matter.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies, 43(13), pp. 2379–2385, Available from: DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1784450. Harrell, S. P., M. A. Merchant, and S. A.Young (2000) Psychometric Properties of the Racism and Life Experiences Scales (RaLES). Unpublished manuscript.

140  Kathleen Tamayo Alves Hong, Cathy Park. (2020) Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. New York: One World. hooks, bell. (2003) Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope. New York and London: Psychology Press. Inoue, Asao B. (2015) Antiracist Writing Assessment Ecologies:Teaching and Assessing Writing for a Socially Just Future. Jeung, R. (April 3, 2020) Incidents of coronavirus discrimination: March 25 e April 1, 2020. Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council. Available from: http://www.asianpacificpolicyandplanningcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/Stop_AAPI_Hate_Weekly_ Report_4_3_20.pdf Keum, Brian TaeHyuk and Matthew J. Miller. (2017) ‘University racism in digital era: Development and initial validation of the perceived online racism scale.’ Journal of Counseling Psychology, 64(3), pp. 310–324. Kharakh, Ben and Dan Primack. (2016) ‘Donald Trump’s social media ties to White supremacists.’ Fortune 22 March. Available from: http://fortune.com/ donald-trump-white-supremacist-genocide/. Kirkpatrick, D. (2011) The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that Is Connecting the World. New York: Simon & Schuster. Lin, C. A. and D. J. Atkin (Eds.). (2014) Communication Technology and Social Change: Theory and Implications. New York: Routledge. Lowe, Lisa. (1996) Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics. Durham, NC: Duke UP. Martin, J.M. (2010 Jun) ‘Stigma and student mental health in higher education.’ Higher Education Research Development 29(3), pp. 259–274. Morgan, Jonathon. (2016) ‘These charts show exactly how racist and radical the alt-right has gotten this year.’ Washington Post 26 Sept. Available from: https://www.washingtonpost. com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/09/26/these-charts-show-exactly-how-racistand-radical-the-alt-right-has-gotten-this-year/. Ng, Celeste. (2014) Everything I Never Told You. New York: Penguin Books. Okihoro, Gary. (1999) ‘Commentary.’ In Locating American Studies:The Evolution of a Discipline, ed. Lucy Maddox. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP. Omi, M. and H. Winant (1994) Racial formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. (2nd ed). New York: Routledge. Son, C., S. Hegde, A. Smith, X. Wang, and F. Sasangohar. (2020) ‘Effects of COVID-19 on college students’ mental health in the United States: Interview survey study.’ Journal of Medical Internet Research 22(9): e21279. Available from: DOI: 10.2196/21279 Yagelski, R. P. (2011) Writing as a Way of Being:Writing Instruction, Nonduality, and the Crisis of Sustainability. New York: Hampton Press.

Chapter 9

Whose Bollywood is this anyway? Exploring critical frameworks for studying popular Hindi cinema Shweta Rao Garg

Introduction Although the Hindi film industry is seen outside India as an all-encompassing, overarching cinema, representative of India in its entirety, it is far from being so. The chapter intends to analyse the representational politics of Bollywood and to generate discussions on the same in classrooms engaging with Bollywood films. After briefly examining a few existing critical frameworks for studying Bollywood, the chapter goes on to explore the politics of representation in Bollywood through select films. The Bombay film industry strives to present a homogenised idea of India, and this it does through clichéd representations of different identities. A cursory look at Bollywood films reveals that it is punctuated with appearance bias, racism, sexism, casteism, colourism, and provincial bias. But paradoxically, despite these shortcomings, or rather because of it, Bollywood manages to reach out to its diverse viewership consisting of astronomical figures. With a selection of films that are self-confessedly inclusive and aware of ethnic prejudices and racial discrimination in India, the chapter explores the problematic representations while sharing the author’s critical pedagogic practices. Reading and teaching films as a cultural text is a fairly well-accepted pedagogic practice. Henry Giroux (2001) delineates how incorporating the complex and polyvalent Hollywood films as class texts encourage students to function as critical agents empowered to understand, engage, and transform cultural discourse (p. 586). Critical pedagogy aids students to see how ‘film functions as a social practice that influences their everyday lives and positions them within existing social, cultural, and institutional machineries of power’ (p. 588). By recognising the overpowering influence of Bollywood films in Indian students’ understanding of racial, ethnical, and cultural identities of India, I co-opt filmic texts in my courses. Their own familiarity with these films enables me to participate in a shared context. My critical interventions in the class coax critiques from them. Through discussions, debates, and readings, they quickly unlearn some of their assumptions. This pedagogic practice is intended to make students open to diversity as well as to make them question problematic representations of identities not only in Bollywood but in the broader sociocultural context in India. DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-10

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The chapter proposes employing broad overlapping categories, however perfunctory, to study identities represented in Bollywood. These categories are overrepresented, misrepresented, and under-represented identities. For instance, one can consider Punjab as an imagined culture that seems to be over-represented; people from states like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, even Kashmir are usually misrepresented, while the communities from the North East are under-represented. In addition to these three categories, there persists a fourth one, the category of the abject, which can be defined as the unrepresentable. This category may consist of the communities that defy narrativisation either because these communities are unreachable or because their very existence could be too confronting for the audience and prove abrasive to the idea of the nation at large.The ethnic minorities, Dalit or tribal communities, are some other categories that are vastly underrepresented. And if all they are portrayed, the film is explicit in its agenda, or socially conscious parallel cinema, made for the elite and sensitised audience. To complicate the matter, films about class conflict has a vexed history of overwriting the thematic of caste in Bollywood. Moreover, none of these representational categories are static. In this chapter, most of the discussions are around the representation of the normative Punjabi identity vis a vis that of the North Eastern.

Reading Bollywood For the uninitiated, viewing Bollywood could be ridden with confusion. Most of the films are marred with loose plots, weak character arcs, regular interludes of songs and dance, blurring of genres, and overtly emotional and simplistic treatment of complex subjects. The carnivalesque of Bollywood is deemed to mitigate the sordid reality of lived experiences in the third world. A widespread understanding of Bollywood cinema is that of escape in a Colerigean sense that necessitates a willing suspension of disbelief. In the last few decades, there has been an increased interest in Bollywood globally owing to the visibility of the South Asian diaspora and Bollywood’s conscious repackaging to reach out to the diaspora. It is now a foregone conclusion that Bollywood is indeed an object of scholarly investigation in disciplines such as film studies, popular culture studies, and South Asian area studies, to name a few. Courses in university departments that engage with South Asian contemporary culture or immigrant experience in South Asia, Europe, Americas, Australia, etc., have been including Bollywood films as course text. I would like to present some crucial interventions that have informed the trends in the scholarly engagement of Bollywood. Vinay Lal and Ashis Nandy critique studies that regard Bollywood as an inferior form of cinema. Scholars seem to denounce the poetics and politics of Bollywood without really viewing it with the lens required to analyse it, something which they attribute as elitism. They both set out to study Hindi films as a mass popular cultural form of South Asia.They posit that there could be two ways of countering the somewhat elitist engagement and the eventual rejection of Bollywood as a cinematic form. The first means could ‘self consciously shift the emphasis from the

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thematic concerns, cinematic language, and style…to the varied reactions and exegetic manoeuvres of the audience’ and the second means could be to ‘opt for frames of analysis and models of interpretation closer to the viewers’ (2006, p. xvii). Vijay Mishra, not unlike Lal and Nandy, concedes that the form, as well as the reception of Bombay cinema, needs to be taken into consideration while analysing it (2002, p. xviii). Mishra, in his Bollywood Cinema: Temples of Desire (2002), studies Bollywood as the cinema of desire. He sees Bollywood accommodating desires of a wide range of people, from uneducated workers to sophisticated city dwellers. Mishra thinks of cinema as being mediated by myriad influences. Some of these are the epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, traditional theatrical forms and stylistic conventions, punctuated by colonial European proscenium theatre, Raja Ravi Varma’s mass-produced art, and Phalke’s cinema which, in turn, was inspired by Varma’ oeuvre amongst many others (2002, p. 4). He further reads Bollywood as a ‘sentimental melodramatic romance,’ which is expansive and encyclopaedic in form, eliciting a wide range of responses from a diverse audience. It is synchronic and rooted in the Indian aesthetic framework of ‘rasa’ (2002, pp. 13–14). Philip Lutgendorf asks a pertinent question: ‘Is there an Indian Way of Filmmaking?’. Lutgendorf draws upon the broad kinds of approaches that scholars have used to study Bollywood. He delineates – Cultural-historical, Technological, Psychological/Mythic, and Political-economic as categories that are not exhaustive (2006, pp. 228–229). He concedes that these approaches are not independent of each other either. He goes on to explore the mythical approach to study Hindi film cinema further. He anchors the act of viewing by the Indian audience with the religious and cultural practice of ‘darshan,’ communion, or intercourse with the idol of the deity in a Hindu temple (2006, p. 232).Thus, the cinephilia of the viewers is, in fact, rooted in a much older and traditional phenomenon. The idols are now made of celluloid. The diversity of influences has struck many observers of Bollywood as unique. Genre films in Bollywood derive from the global cinema only to subvert it with its own aesthetics of stylistic interruptions. Lalitha Gopalan (2002) observes that the action genre in Bollywood is not only ‘structured around spatial and temporal discontinuities, but also celebrates them’ (p. 180). It is characterised by ‘spectacular excess’ in terms of songs, dance, dramatic cuts, sudden endings, etc.While doing so, it also navigates through a unique relationship it has with power structure like the government and its regulatory body. It creates its own version on a well-recognised global genre and appropriates it for the local sensibilities of its audience. Based on Gopalan’s idea of cinema as being sight created by interruptions of various media, and by Deleuze, Amit Rai reads cinema as media assemblage, which has the movements of matter, of sensation, and of excess. He also focuses on the actual experiences of cinema viewing and distinguishes talkies and multiplexes as being different technologies. He theorises a loiterer, a sort of an intended viewer for the form that itself loiters and swerves across media, of the films in talkies, ‘a male, urban, working-class, and often from subaltern castes’ (2009, p. 35). Audience sensibilities are crucial for many. For instance, Nandy does not flinch from dubbing Bombay cinema as a low brow cinema of mass entertainment (1998).

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He argues that ‘the popular cinema is the slum’s point of view of Indian politics and society and, for that matter, the world’ (1998, p. 7). He exploits the metaphor of slums to understand Hindi cinema. He goes on to say that slum dwellers are uprooted and are rendered bereft of tradition and culture that they originally identified with. However, they are resilient to this erasure and are able to access traditions by reconstructing the image of the village as well as the community life. Slum also invent its culture through its interpretations of their exposure to history, exotic alien communities, institutions etc. He concludes that it could be the reason: …why the popular film ideally has to have everything - from the classical to the folk, from the sublime to the ridiculous, and from the plots within the plots that never get resolved to the cameo roles and stereotypical characters that never get developed. (1998, p. 7) It is imperative to note that Bollywood cinema is part of the Indian mass popular culture. It is a form that presents complexities that are not easy to define.Yet, it is not mimetic, nor is it revolutionary. It may have concerns that can appeal to the transnational population, but its make-believe is mediated through its very own limited representational aesthetics and politics. Creating, even celebrating otherness, is something that Bollywood does routinely. A deep-rooted, nuanced representation is not the intention of these films.Though it may aspire to be a global cinema, it operates within the narrow local contexts, however much these contexts are constructed through the production of signs that may not have an equivalence in reality. While discussing Bollywood texts in class, the origins and brief history of the cinematic form need to be addressed. Also, placing the film closer to the framework of the intended viewership is essential. As this chapter intends to look into the representational politics of Bollywood, the audience’s perception gives us more insights into understanding the inclusions, exclusions, and misrepresentation of identities.

Notes from the classroom In almost every undergraduate discussion I have had in public and private institutes of Higher Education in India, I have always come across a few students who think Bollywood does not deserve any serious thought. When asked if they regularly watch these films, the answer is mostly in the affirmative.The reasons for this embarrassment are many – Bollywood is trivial in its subject matter and style. Bollywood films are musicals: They are far too simplistic, imperfect ‘copies’ of Hollywood. Moreover, in every Gender Sensitisation session I have conducted in the last decade, I find students recognise Bollywood films as being one of the most decisive factors in their understanding of gender, sexuality, gender relations, and identity issues in India. Moreover, the influence of Bollywood films on young undergraduates is immense, though I do not have any verifiable empirical data on it. I would like to mention here that my students in my classes are Indian; a majority are from Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, etc. Also,

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I have used Bollywood films to discuss broader themes of gender, culture, and identities in different courses. Some of these courses are Women’s Writings, Narratology, Language and Literature. I have interacted with Undergraduates and Postgraduates students alike, both from STEM background and those studying in the English departments. Whenever I pose the question of race in India, students initially respond that India has no racism, as all Indians are one race, except for the North Easterners. This, in itself, is a flawed notion, as India has several races corresponding to several ethnicities. Further, ‘North East’ is a carefully constructed heterogeneous category in terms of race, language, culture, and ethnicity. Their notion of culture is also to view India with a monolithic culture. Like Debotri Dhar mentions about her American classroom, the same can be said of my class which is far more homogeneous, that it also struggles with ‘pedagogic framing of culture as nonessentialist’ (2019, p. 157). Bollywood films are the only constant source of education most of the students have had about the diversity in India. They are understandably attached to the form. In my class, I encourage the students to watch Bollywood films not to merely denounce it but as an affective practice. Affect is important in studying Bollywood not only because stylistically these films tend to be sentimental but also because the only way to respond to films is through emotions. Filmic text is a ‘site of affective investment, mobilising a range of desires while invoking the incidental, visceral, and transitory’ (Giroux, 2001, p. 586). Students’ emotional responses need to be acknowledged, just as their critical ones, for many a time, the former informs the latter. I usually find that confessing about my feelings about the film creates the space for students to do the same. Bollywood film may espouse slum aesthetics, but students in institutes of Higher Education in India subscribe to that aesthetics. As an instructor, I have to be sensitive to students’ internalised beliefs on race and identity constructed by Bollywood, making the students aware of the same. It is important to remember that pleasure is the basis of Bollywood and to invoke Nandy, Lutgendorf, Mishra, Rai et al. – students need to be encouraged to see Bollywood in the proper context, beyond the binaries, as a fluid form that popular culture is. This approach upholds the subjectivities of the students as viewers. It does not invalidate the experience of the students but uses their reactions and responses as viewers into the understanding of Bollywood. The class readings and discussions gradually make them build on their understanding without alienating them. The student is made to recognise Bollywood as the cinema of desires. Power, sex, fantasy, belonging, affluence, etc., is a promise offered in each masala Bollywood film. The students are asked why does a particular film resonate with them? What ethos, fears, and/or aspirations do they see in a film that responds to them? Do they find themselves at odds when they enjoy a film despite it being against their own sensibilities and value systems? The twin objective of pleasure, along with critical engagement, is sought. I use films like Chak De! India (2007), Mary Kom (2014), and so on, that overtly claim to be inclusive and integrate different identities into the process of

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constructing the nation. These films, my students invariably point out, are successful in doing so.Yet, as the excesses in Hindi cinema seem to undercut what it sets out to do, the students soon see that the politics of liberation is only a spectacle. That Bollywood eludes its own critiques just as well as it eludes its own stated agenda. It is so censured by excesses, its unique swerving slippery quality, that it resists any easy conclusions. Student viewers are told that the dual act of viewing for pleasure and of critiquing Bollywood could be complimentary. The students are trained to be cinephilic cine critics, based on the Sanskrit aesthetics notion of ‘sahrdaya,’ as a viewer who has a similarity of taste and one who empathises with the alleged slum aesthetics of Hindi cinema.They are not to destroy but to joyfully deconstruct and, in doing so, reinterpret the film. The students are asked to focus on representation. The over-represented, the misrepresented, and the under-represented are discussed at length. The represen­ tational model may be far from being efficient, but it turns out to be a handy tool for my classes. Just as the Bechdel test facilitated inquiry into gender representation in Hollywood, the following questions may pave a way towards doing something similar for identity representation in Bollywood: i) Out of the categories of over-represented, under-represented, or misrepresented identities, which one do the main characters belong to? ii) Do the actors playing those characters actually belong to those ethnic or racial groups? iii) How do these categories come together to construct the overt agenda of the film, and how do they undercut the same? This inquiry gets the students to come face to face with the construction of the ‘normal’ in Bollywood. The students begin to understand that there seems to be a created consensus about the regional and ethnical identities that get to be represented in the films. Bollywood predetermines the physical features and accent of actors deemed suitable to be on screen. Consequently, these representations then circulate in popular culture and create an image of India that the students, as average viewers, uncritically consume.

Deconstructing the over-representation of Punjab Though Bollywood is situated in Mumbai, Maharashtra, the identities that are showcased are usually the North Indian native speakers of Hindi. If we were to look at any top-grossing Bollywood films in the last 10 or even 20 years, we could see a common trend. The Bollywood, to borrow the terms from several film journalists, has had a complete ‘Punjabification.’ This means, the characters, setting, song, or story is steeped in Punjabi cultural, to be precise, Bollywood’s version of Punjabi culture. The journalist, Anna Vetticad (2020), delineates how powerful actors like Prithviraj Kapoor, Raj Kapoor, and his descendants, producers–directors like Ramesh Sippy,Yash Chopra, Aditya Chopra, and Karan Johan proliferated the Punjabi predilection in Hindi cinema. The success of some of the early films with

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Punjabi characters, catchphrases, songs, and dance became an indubitable formula for success. Different filmmakers have different reasons for this phenomenon, according to the film producer Rhea Kapoor, who has produced films like Aisha (2010) and Veere di Wedding (2018): They’ll (Punjabis) spread themselves more than they have, they like to eat well, drink well, live life to the fullest each day. Their life is basically a roadmap for escapism and that’s the kind of film I make — films you can escape into, that are larger than life. (Vetticad, 2020) The Punjabi culture creates the vibrancy associated with fun masala films of Bollywood. Vetticad, in her article, also reached out to Shakun Batra, the director of Kapoor & Sons (2016). Not surprisingly, for the film set in Tamil Nadu, there isn’t a single character from the state. He doesn’t provide any rationale for the omission either. Batra responds, ‘It’s like for the longest time Hollywood had white actors, till they consciously decided to diversify’ (in Vetticad, 2020). He hopes that awareness alone will lead to diversity. Kapoor & Sons is not an exception insofar as creating a setting as a mere space to unfurl the simulation of Punjab. It is interesting to note that, on the one hand, filmmakers seek a distinct appreciation for Bollywood from Hollywood and, on the other hand, look towards the latter for keeping up with the trend. The ‘normal’ Indian, as far as Bollywood is concerned, is a tall, well-built, fairskinned male or female from Punjab. They speak Hindi with words and phrases that are now understood by the country with vast linguistic diversity. These ‘normal’ beings live in their photo finished looking cities, wear boutique ready bright clothes, dance at the slightest of provocation, and are always boisterous. Every time they fall in love, they visit Switzerland for a dance sequence. The Bollywood Punjabi is also patriotic and steeped in Indian culture, even as they are non-resident Indian. The Punjabification of Bollywood is supposed to appeal to the diasporic Indian communities, mostly from Punjab. As the films find themselves are being situated overseas, the Punjabi individual easily transcends regional identity owing to his appearance that can pass as a cosmopolitan. Makarand Paranjape (2010) writes about how he observed young men fashion themselves like actors such as Shah Rukh and Saif Ali Khan in Australia and abroad. He remarks on their confidence that they seem to derive from Bollywood. Paranjape (2010) writes: I would like to suggest that Bollywood not only produces images, but also produces subjects and subjectivities. In today’s context, the latter are not just defined by regions or nations: they have become transnational. Bollywood gives these Indians an identity and a means to define themselves; almost, it gives them access to a wider world.Their passport may be Indian but their visa is stamped in Bollywood. (p. 88)

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But not all stories get visas to travel in Bollywood. There is a Punjab, a cinematic trope that unfolds masala movie and then there is a Punjab with historical, sociopolitical contexts. The latter Punjab with its blood bath of the Khalistan movement, of counterinsurgency, the anti-Sikh riots at the wake of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by her Sikh bodyguard, the constant tension with the border, etc., are hardly considered in mainstream popular Bollywood. Even as around half the population of Punjab are Sikhs, the representation of Sikhs is itself sparse. The main characters are Hindus from Punjab. These Hindus are always suvarnas, meaning belonging to upper castes, with surnames like ‘Sharma,’ ‘Khanna,’ ‘Malhotra,’ or ‘Kapoor.’ To say that all stories are of Punjab and of Punjabis would be inaccurate. North Indian characters set in small towns from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are often projected. The recent examples of these films are Omkara (2006), Tanu Weds Manu (2011), and Bareilly ki Barfi (2017), etc. This trend seems to be on the rise. Nevertheless, a majority of the films utilise the culture of the setting to the extent of it becoming a mere mise en scène. The ‘normal’ becomes one more photographic filter in the glossy and bright picture that Bollywood provides. The simulated image of the state needs no reference point in the real world. So, the filmic representation of ludic Punjab and Punjabis as the obvious, the normal, and the average Indian can go on forever.

Constructing the North East and its under-representation After examining the category of normal representation, it is only natural to proceed to look at misrepresentations and under-representations in Bollywood. If the Punjabi identity is the norm, then the North Eastern one is, in some way, opposite to it – it is all that is against the norm. According to Dowerah and Nath (2017), even in a sporadic case of Bollywood films depicting people from the North East, they end up constructing their identities as the Other, despite belonging to the same country. To continue our discussion on the portrayal, or lack thereof, of the people from North Eastern in Bollywood – Danny Denzongpa, the actor from Sikkim, who played roles of villain or supporting roles in the films since the 1970s, is the only popular and successful actor from the North East. Misrepresentation is done by erasures and whitewashes. Moreover, Denzongpa has been given roles that barely touched upon his racial or ethnic identity. He was usually passed as a mainland Indian. His glamorous cosmo look, almost ‘normal’ Indian accent, and some exotic appeal explain his popularity with the audience of different generations. In recent times, the only other prominent face in popular media which has features of otherness is Meiyang Chang, an Indian Chinese actor, singer, and TV show host. In April 2020, Chang posted a video on the internet reporting that on his morning walk, two bikers abused him, calling him ‘coronavirus.’ He confessed that the incident angered him; he also shared many incidents of racial violence meted out on people in India who look different, especially those from the North East, in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.The title of the video is quite evocative. Chang

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called the video, My Name is Chang and I am not Coronavirus, recreating the famous film dialogue, ‘My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist.’ The latter is from the 2010 film, My Name is Khan, which went on to counter the rhetoric of Islamophobia in India, the US, the UK, and other countries. The parallels between the two are far too many for us to miss. Xenophobia, discrimination, and targeted violence are common factors, to name a few. The contexts may be different, but both these communities have been at the receiving end of hate crimes, as Muslims are seen as infesting terror while Chinese, or those mistaken for Chinese, as infesting disease. In both cases, Bollywood provides a conduit to articulate the experience of being othered. Muslim representation in Bollywood has its problems, but the commercially successful triumvirate of Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, and Aamir Khan bring narratives of the minority communities to the fore, both on and offscreen. That cannot be said of the North Eastern communities. Yet, it made sense for Chang, the Other, to build upon and rewrite his own experiences on the filmic palimpsest of Bollywood. Wouters and Subba (2013) write that the North Eastern face is not part of the discursive category of Indian face, though the latter is plural and inclusive of different faces. The North Eastern face with Mongoloid phenotypes is considered either foreign or as lesser Indian. It is always seen as situated in China, Thailand, Nepal, and other countries, and not India by Indians. They are thus relegated to the positions of non-Indians or lesser Indians. Wouters and Subba go on to define the category of North Eastern vis à vis the mainland Indians and especially the national capital. The heterogeneity in the communities residing the seven state defies easy categorisation, yet North East is a created category in the imagination of power structures operating by New Delhi ‘through administrative conceptions of order and institutionalised discursive spaces’ (2013, p. 131). The authors point out ironically that the substantial section of the ‘North East’ is the South East of Delhi. The authors conclude that despite multiculturalism being part of the constitution and the right to the culture being recognised for all citizens of India, people from the North East are policed for their cultural and gastronomical practices, just as North Eastern women are morally policed for their sartorial choices. The film Axone, released in India on the online streaming platform Netflix in June 2020, brought to the fore the discussions on race in Hindi cinema for the reasons discussed above. The film is about a group of young North Easterners living in New Delhi. Axone, though produced by a Bollywood production house, is not a mainstream Bollywood film. Nicholas Kharkongor, who is from the North East himself, created this film on a limited budget. The film is about a culinary adventure of a group of friends wanting to prepare a savoury, albeit intensely fragrant fermented pork dish – the eponymous Axone – for a friend’s wedding feast. While the mainstream film critics touted the film (Sharma, 2020) (Rosario, 2020) for daring to venture into a terrain where no other film had gone before, few reviewers from the North East (Deka, 2020) (Kikon, 2020) used their own lived experiences as insiders and objected to the boutique treatment of the North Eastern culture. Also, there were sharp reactions to the problematic portrayal of

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casual racism, blatant sexism, and its passive acceptance by the characters from the North East. My students, none of whom were from the North East, did not see the victims’ gaslighting until they were pointed out. They seem to agree that making people watch the film would be a great ‘service to the North Eastern communities and the nation.’ Mary Kom (2014) is another film that I discuss in my class. It is a sports biopic based on the life of the Indian world boxing champion Mary Kom from Manipur, a state in the North East. The film catapulted Kom into the national imaginary as a sports star. According to McDuie-Ra, this adulation is problematic, as Kom’s popularity in the mainstream culture as a well-integrated Indian subject is used to disprove that racism against the North Eastern communities even exists. It is also a useful ploy by the power centre to divert the attention away from the atrocities faced by the people of the North East (2015). The first issue many of my students have with the films is its cross-racial casting. Mary Kom is played by Priyanka Chopra, a Bollywood elite who is also a Punjabi Hindu. Many of my students retort that the selection of the lead actor undercuts the very intention of the film, which is to celebrate a marginalised hero. Others note that casting is a ‘business decision.’ Unless commercial films on marginal stories are successful, there would not be an incentive for filmmakers to create diverse films. Instead of being repulsed by it, one needs to see past failures in authentic representation. The accent of the actors also generated debate. Isn’t it offensive to mimic to speak like the racial other? Was it not demeaning to individuals from the North East? Many students felt that it was. A student shared how, in the theatre, while watching the film, some members of the audience mocked the folk dance featuring Kom’s community. One of the students explained that the laughter could have been because of the unfamiliarity of folk dance form to a mainstream audience, which may render the practice strange. He was reminded that Garba from Gujarat, or Bhangra from Punjab, are folk dances too.Why don’t these dances provoke laughter? The obvious answer was that overrepresentation has made these dance forms familiar. The solution, as far as some students are concerned, is simple; the more films there are on marginalised subjects, the more familiar will the audience be with under-represented cultures.

Chak De! Diversity I would like to discuss how a text that students think espouses inclusivity and diversity actually subverts those very values. Chak De! India (2007) is a saga of nationalism through sports. Even though cricket has national attention, it is hockey that is the official national sport of India. Post Lagaan (2001), there has been a new trend of the sports genre. Chak De! India, like many Bollywood sports genres, underscores the themes of nationalism in the film. The film is about a disgraced Hockey team captain, Kabir Khan, who coaches the Indian Field Hockey team into becoming world champions. His integrity is questioned by media that misconstrue an innocuous handshake with the captain of the victorious Pakistani Hockey team. As a matter of fact, Indian Muslims are routinely subjected to

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suspicion owing to their perceived sympathy towards the ‘enemy’ state, Pakistan. Kabir Khan is played by the superstar Shah Rukh Khan who is a Muslim in real life. To invoke Vijay Mishra’s phrase ‘actor as parallel text’ (2002, p. 125), Khan, in his own life he has been repeatedly scrutinised for being a Muslim in India. A minority in India is only as Indian as they are perceived to be. The burden of proof of national allegiance, if not nationality per se, lies with the individual of minority communities. A minority, in this case, a Muslim, could be a patriot only through ostensible acts of patriotism. These patriotic acts almost become spectator sports. In the case of Khan, his identity as a ‘gaddar,’ or ‘traitor,’ is literally written over his identity as a sportsperson representing team India. His taking on coaching the infamous and ever so defiant Indian women’s hockey is his act of being reinstated as not only a sportsperson but also a patriot. The writing on the wall of his home shall come off only when he earns the public perception of being a patriotic Indian. The individuals from the majority communities are never shown to share this struggle. The film was extolled for representing the Indian national women’s hockey team as inclusive of regional diversity.The film itself upholds the theme of diversity as one of the characters in the film, the Hockey Association official, jokes that even if the players are selected after scourging the vast expanse of the nation, the women will ultimately work in kitchens and not play on the field. At first glance, the team seems to be inclusive. Khan trains the players, and a large part of the film is about the players responding to Khan’s training in different ways. These players have hierarchies and prejudices and are as divided as the nation is.The team functions as the perfect allegory of the nation, that falls when it is divided, and when united, it goes on to become the world champion defeating Australia on its own turf. Until the players from rural Haryana and from urban Chandigarh do not give away their rivalry, the team’s fortunes are fettered. Beneath the seeming celebration of unity lay the cracks. Twice in the event of the film are the players Mary Ralte from Mizoram and Molly Zimik from Manipur ‘eve-teased,’ to use the much-abhorred South Asian euphemism for sexual harassment. These incidents are shown to emphasise how routinely women from the North-Eastern state are harassed because of their race. They are welcomed as guests at the registration desk by an official. The two women are quick to ask why are they being welcomed into their own country, highlighting their marginalised positions racially as well as geographically. My students are usually quick to note that it is a cat-calling incident and fight that makes the players come together and stand up against a group of men in a restaurant.The incident that turns around the film and the fortunes of the Women’s Hockey team actually depend on the sexualisation of the women from the North East. But very few students cringed at the inadvertent insensitivity in the movie. The film’s apparent intent is to create a narrative about the diversity of players, focus rather too heavily on their perceived differences, racial and ethnic stereotypes. The talking roles go to those players that have what we had previously distinguished as ‘normal.’ The under-represented identities are not usually shown; we never hear from those characters.

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The film uses pre-existing stereotypes against the very purported message. For instance, the player from Punjab, Balbir Kaur, is approached by the coach to play aggressively against the Australians. The narrative logic behind Kaur’s aggression is, as a student pointed out, her being from rural Punjab.The aggressiveness of Punjab is the answer to the aggressive game plan by the Aussie team to win against India. Players from Haryana and Chandigarh get to partake in the final goal. The focalisation of the film is invariably on the players who are North Indian, Hindi speaking, with the accepted accent and a skin tone. The women players from the North East are rendered flat, tokenistic representations of their race. Kabir himself is from Delhi, who is forced to evict his house as his neighbours accuse him of being unpatriotic and corrupt. He returns after getting the victory for the Field Hockey team. A kid scratches off ‘traitor’ from the wall outside Khan’s house.That is the final homecoming, the final ending, of the film.The game, when played with faith and intention, becomes the arbiter of justice.Thus, not only is the team an allegory for the nation, the game is like Bollywood because it delivers satisfactory resolutions. Khan, the character, as well as Khan, the actor, on behalf of the Muslims in India, gets redeemed in the eyes of the public. Most of my students extolled the apparent feminism and racial inclusivity that the film espoused. Khan, when warding off an attack on his team member, says to a man with a cricket bat in his hand that a true man attacks from the front, not back. (Chak De! India). He goes for the figurative jugular when he says that there is no place in the Indian Women’s Hockey team for a ‘chakka’ (Chak De! India). The latter is a derogatory slang for transgenders. The cinematic avatar of feminist and nationalist inclusivity seems to come at the cost of trans-inclusivity. The film intends to break some stereotypes by banking on many more. The films which tend to uphold diversity sometimes slip away and undermine their purported identity politics. These inclusive films have been known to replace one set of prejudices with another. Regardless of the above-mentioned fact, it does bring the stories of the marginalised to the forefront of the national imagination. Based on students’ feedback, Bollywood seems both to marginalise and to provide space and means to resist the marginalisation. The students, in light of the class discussions, are made to see these unwitting contradictions and aporias in the films without diminishing their pleasure of viewing. Awareness of the representation of race in Bollywood makes students realise how racism is internalised in India. Critical pedagogy enables students to participate, critique, and re-ascribe meaning into their reception of Bollywood films.

Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge the roles of my cinephile father, Namdev Rao, my professors at JNU, New Delhi, and my students from DA-IICT, Gandhinagar, whose insights about Bollywood I may have drawn from in this chapter. I thank Amandeep Sandhu, writer of Panjab: Journeys through Faultlines, for sharing articles on the Punjabi influences on Bollywood.

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References Aisha. (2010) Directed by Rajshree Ojha. India: PVR Pictures, Anil Kapoor Films Company and MAD Entertainment. Axone. (2020) Directed by Nicholas Kharkongor. India: Saregama India. Bareilly ki Barfi. (2017) Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari. India: Junglee Pictures and BR Studios. Chak De! India. (2007) Directed by Shimit Amin. India:Yash Raj Films. Chang, M. (2020) My Name Is Chang and I am not Coronavirus. Available at: https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=-vPobLxwShE (Accessed: 10 April 2020). Deka, K. (2020) ‘Axone Is a Story of Racism Told From the Eyes of the Privileged,’ The Wire 20 June 2020. Available at: https://thewire.in/film/axone-movie-review-racism-privilege (Accessed: 21 June 2020). Dhar, D. (2019) ‘Teaching Culture in a Globalised Era: Strategies from a Postcolonial Feminist Classroom,’ Transformations:The Journal of Inclusive Scholarship and Pedagogy 29(2), pp. 153–165. Available at: doi:10.1353/tnf.2019.0013. Dowerah, S. and Debarshi Prasad Nath. (2017) ‘Cinematic Regimes of Otherness: India and its Northeast,’ Media Asia 44(2), pp. 121–133. Available at: doi: 10.1080/01296612. 2017.1374626. Giroux, H. (2001) ‘Breaking into the Movies: Pedagogy and the Politics of Film,’ JAC 21(3), pp. 583–598. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20866426 Gopalan, L. (2002) Cinema of Interruptions: Action Genres in Contemporary Indian Cinema, New Delhi: Oxford UP. Kapoor & Sons. (2016) Directed by Shakun Batra. India: Dharma Production. Kikon, D. (2020) ‘Axone Is a Story of Racism Told From the Eyes of the Privileged,’ The Indian Express 29 June. Available at: https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/ northeast-indian-people-racism-films-dolly-kikon-6480699/ (Accessed: 30 June 2020). Lagaan. (2001) Directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar. India: Amir Khan Productions. Lal,V. and Ashis Nandy. (ed.) (2006) Fingerprinting Popular Culture:The Mythic and the Iconic in Indian Cinema. New Delhi: Oxford UP. Lutgendorf, Philip. (2006) ‘Is There an Indian Way of Filmmaking?,’ International Journal of Hindu Studies 10(3), pp. 227–256. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20106974 Mary Kom. (2014) Directed by Omung Kumar. India: Bhansali Production & Viacom18 Motion Pictures. McDuie-Ra, Duncan (2015) ‘“Is India Racist?”: Murder, Migration and Mary Kom,’ South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 38(2), pp. 304–319. Available at: doi: 10.1080/ 00856401.2014.992508 Mishra,Vijay. (2002) Bollywood Cinema:Temples of Desire, London: Routledge. My Name is Khan. (2010) Directed by Karan Johar. India, US, Hong Kong: Fox Search Light, Dharma Production and Red Chillies Entertainment. Nandy, Ashis. (1998) ‘Introduction: Popular Cinema and the Slums’s Eye View of Indian Politcs,’ in Nandy, Ashis. (ed.) The Secret Politics of our Desires: Innocence, Culpability and Indian Popular Cinema, New Delhi: ZED Books. Omkara. (2006) Directed by Vishal Bharadwaj. India: Eros Entertainment and Big Screen Entertainment Pvt. ltd. Paranjape, Makarand. (2010) ‘Chak De! Australia: Bollywood Down Under,’ in Hassam, Andrew and Makarand Paranjape. (eds.) Bollywood in Australia: Transnationalism & Cultural Production, Crawley: UWA Publishing.

154  Shweta Rao Garg Rai, Amit. (2009) Untimely Bollywood: Globalisation and India’s New Media Assemblage, New Delhi: OUP. Rosario, Kennith. (2020) ‘“Axone” Movie Review: Witty and Culturally-Rooted,’ The Hindu 13 June. Available at: https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/axonemovie-review-witty-and-culturally-rooted/article31819108.ece. (Accessed: 15 June 2020) Sharma, Devesh. (2020), ‘Axone Movie Review: A Clever Yet Meandering Satire on Discrimination against Northeast Migrants in Delhi,’ Firstpost 12 June. Available at: https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/axone-movie-review-a-clever-yetmeandering-satire-on-discrimination-against-northeast-migrants-in-delhi-8463831. html (Accessed: 15 June 2020) Tanu weds Manu. (2011) Directed by Anand L. Rai. India:Viacom18 Motion Pictures. Veere di Weeding. (2018) Directed by Shashanka Ghosh. India: Balaji Motion Pictures, Anil Kapoor Films Company and Saffron Broadcast media. Vetticad, Anna M.M. (2020) ‘Punjab, Punjabi, Punjabis: Bollywood Just Cannot Get Enough of the Vibrant North Indian State, Its Language, Culture and People,’ Tribune India 7 June. Available at: https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/features/punjab-punjabi-punjabis95750?fbclid=IwAR1sYHQdKM9tr29k59uRsvYdfTctuSKLlqVg9tti_ CrlIRGixEcnIWwyUnI (Accessed: 20 November 2020). Wouters, Jelle J.P and Tanka B. Subba. (2013) ‘“The Indian Face,” Indian’s Northeast, and “The idea of India”,’ Asian Anthropology 12(2), 126–140. Available at: DOI: 10.1080/ 1683478X.2013.849484.

Chapter 10

Tribal ways How to teach Indigenous studies without textbooks Brian Wright-McLeod

Introduction There are no standard textbooks for my courses, and those current volumes that exist barely touch upon the calibre of the subject matter that I teach to various age groups. The information is delivered and processed through my own knowledge based on practical experiences as an activist, ceremonial participant, public speaker, journalist/broadcaster, and educator. All of these experiences have built the foundation for the courses that I teach.The dissemination of the lessons is relatively easy, but the compiling and sorting of information into a cohesive form is a challenge due in part to the immense amount of information on all aspects of Indigenous culture that are available to me in my archives, as a professor of Indigenous Studies (history, culture, politics), Indigenous Music (traditional to current movements), Indigenous Communications (origin stories to contemporary journalism), and graphic novels based on my published work. More specifically, my courses include Indigenous Music in Culture in the Music Industry Arts and Performance programme at Centennial College, Indigenous Studies at George Brown College, and Indigenous Media at York University. What has transpired over the past decade in post-secondary academia is the willingness on behalf of the institutions to actively include and engage Indigenous professors teaching Indigenous courses. The education landscape in Canada has been rendered unique due to recent political achievements derived from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which I discuss later. Much of what is taught to my college students is derived from practical experience, traditional teachings, and academic research; here, the merging of two world philosophies becomes inclusive for students. For the most part, many class members are unfamiliar with the Indigenous world, apart from stereotype, rumour, and scant exposure to the history. The awareness is further lacking in international students who hail from all parts of the globe. Many enter the courses with the impression that Indigenous culture is mysterious and inaccessible. After the course is completed, the students emerge with confidence in their circumspect exposure and knowledge that they had not previously known.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-11

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My college music courses, and special classes presented to primary schools, present all genres and regions of music both historically and contemporarily.   A portion of active teaching encompasses the old show-and-tell format. I utilise album covers as an example of the artistic and cultural qualities of representation from the 1960s and 1970s.We examine the album, Pepper’s Powwow, by jazz saxophonist Jim Pepper, which is his first solo recording. The gatefold album jacket, with a dye-cut hole in the centre, opens to reveal a double-sided graphic featuring Jim and his father who wears a powwow outfit. It’s an interesting discussion point for people who have never seen or realised that such artistic pieces exist for a music recording. With respect to the Pepper’s Powwow, many of the songs were derived from traditional chants set to jazz, most notably the 1969 hit single ‘Witchi Tai To.’ Additionally, traditional instruments and live in-class presentations of drum songs and dances by guest speakers offer a level of physical inclusion on the part of my Centennial College music class. An almost festive mood prevails in the classroom as the engagement of students with songs brings a special spirit to life. Some instances offer an opportunity to quell stereotypes and misunderstandings of those looking at the culture from the outside. For example, I bring to class in all courses I instruct, one of our most sacred items, the sacred ceremonial pipe (powogan in the Ojibway language), which has been maligned and misunderstood. One of the most speculative points and questions asked by students: what is smoked in the pipe? In the north, we use a mixture known as kinnikinnik that is comprised of various herbs and plants such as lovage, sumac, bear berry, spearmint, peppermint, and red willow that are gathered and mixed in a ceremonial manner. It is rarely if ever, inhaled when used in the pipe. There is traditional tobacco grown from seeds in gardens that can be used but more as offerings to ancestor spirits. Clarification offers an open road for curious minds. PowerPoint slide shows comprise the major delivery point for information supported by audio samples of Indigenous music (both traditional, contemporary, and spoken word), videos and documentaries in tandem with a lecture style and reading list. A few of the college music course readings include Bloechl’s (2008) Native American Song at the Frontiers of Early Modern Music, Diamond et al.’s (1994) Visions of Sound Musical Instruments of First Nations Communities in Northeastern America, Hoefnagels et al.’s (2012) Aboriginal Music in Contemporary Canada, and Nakai et al.’s (1996) The Art of the Native American Flute. The readings are discussed with students in class who also delve into the material on their own time. Historical, contemporary, and cultural information is new to the students who are guided by lectures and related video material that supports the points being taught from the readings. However, given the nature of online platforms, attention spans and information volume are designed to change, and tailored to the requirements of students with relatively short attention spans. This method is appreciated by most learners. Through the methods used to disseminate the information another tool is the use of personality; the direct experience of the instructor in order to convey understanding of the topic to the learner. The results can spark many points of inspiration within the class. Students develop an affinity with the teacher and topics. In particular, Ryerson University, based in downtown Toronto, used to host

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an annual fall powwow. Organised by the Indigenous students organisation, the three-day weekend event was always well-attended by students from primary to high school, college and university, along with local residents and Indigenous vendors. The George Brown Indigenous Studies class that I was teaching occurred on a Friday, the same day as the opening of the Ryerson Powwow and one of my students asked if we could attend. The event became a field trip to an inner-city powwow.Volunteers, elders, and experts were on-site to guide onlookers through the process of the event. Additionally, static and live displays of hide tanning, medicine workshops, and a sacred fire introduced the class to a living experience that no book or PowerPoint presentation could tell. The student’s experience was one of amazement. Students are appreciative of the experiences, sending cards at semester’s end which saying for example, ‘You really helped me understand the indigenous studies by giving a visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning style which helps me a lot… The powwow was an excellent thing to be a part of.’ Students from South Korea, Japan, and other Southeast Asian countries bowed as they presented their papers and assignments, a formal show of respect in their culture. Maybe it’s the vintage three-piece suits and watch chain I wear but respect and gentleness were mutual aspects shared by all. Human interaction is crucial to these types of teaching and learning styles. Currently, considering the lockdown, platforms such as Zoom, are somewhat less engaging on personal levels, but retains a circumspect, yet condensed version of visual and audio transference of information. It only stands to reason that such delivery methods will become common place. I can’t say that the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown has made teaching more difficult but it certainly has presented limitations. Having a radio or television background may ease the discomfort of online teaching, but a broad familiarity with the platforms and technology can render the teaching delivery process more inventive.There are also many appendages and tools the instructor can use within these mediums. Lessons and materials are delivered a more abbreviated manner to allow for the internet method of teaching and learning, which comes back to student attention spans and abilities to absorb the material in prescribed dosages. The intent is to eliminate boredom but also gives the student more responsibility in examining the topical material on their own time and merit, both during and after class. Much of what we utilise at this point would undoubtedly advance to a more interactive degree. Bearing those possibilities in mind, then interactive communications will become more sophisticated. It leads to the question: how do Indigenous people fit into this? Why wouldn’t we? Indigenous people are and have always been an adaptable and sophisticated people since time immemorial, regardless of stereotypes derived from imperialistic tendencies of conquest, where the conquered must be dehumanised in order to justify the inhuman aspects of conquest and colonialism. I find myself correcting student work, especially when they confuse imperialism with colonialism. Both are expansionist weapons that have been delivered by many empires on other cultures the world over since recorded history began. It is not an experience unique to North America at the hands of Europeans.

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The visual material and instruction style have been greatly and openly appreciated by the majority of students in all the courses that I teach. Why is this? Visual transformation is the primary form of communication from images to glyphs and pictographs to computer-generated subject matter. Imagery and audio/visual stimuli are always used at the college/university level and from grade two to high school, and alternative school levels. Words cannot accurately convey the complex objects and depictions of an entire culture and its history without such aids. Oral traditions are fundamental to Indigenous culture as a traditional form of teaching. Employing this cultural view of learning, the experience for many college students is unique to them. The Centennial College music course description outlines a ‘non-traditional instructional method.’ For university and college, my class preparation time can become an all-consuming exercise in research and assembling components. Selected readings are provided to the students in the form of PDF, video links, websites, e-books, and other sources. The feedback has been tremendously positive from a diverse student body that represents populations from around the world and Indigenous pupils. At the high school level, there are youth undergoing gender transition. Grade two and three classes carry the fondest memories for me. In those situations, I avoid any disheartening or harsh realities in the way material is delivered to a more mature student body found in post-secondary levels. By refining information, one learns the material in a more effective way. With respect to youth in transition attending alternative schools, the only delicate point would be gender identification, which I substitute for more generic terms that can be applied to anyone. During a threeday graphic novel workshop with trans-students, I was absorbed by a small group of students who allowed me into their world. We casually sat and discussed many things about art and life. Moreover, they opened up to me about their experiences they endure during their transition. For myself, I hold to the Indigenous philosophy that we are all related, and I treat them as relatives. Students who want to learn just as much as anyone else. And they deserve our guidance and respect. In a grade two music class, as part of the introduction to Indigenous culture and history, I showed a map of colonial expansionism and the anger filled some of the faces.The reaction was balanced by the delight and wonder of being introduced to traditional instruments unknown to them before. Traditional music is counterbalanced with contemporary artists which generates levels of excitement. During the same class, I presented audio samples of traditional music with accompanying slides of the instruments. The children stirred excitedly at the objects and urged their teachers to try to obtain some of the stringed instruments for their music class. One girl sat with head in hand, almost expressionless, yet enthralled. Her passive engagement did not change her demeanour at all when the energetic pace of the cast iron peyote drum, which is played at about 140 beats per minute, issued from the speakers (Wright-McLeod, 2005, p. 285). At the moment that the drum was struck and the song began to play, the entire class started to drum along by slapping their desks with their hands to keep time with the cadence. The little girl remained unmoved except for her hand beating along with the rhythm. I can only say that it was as amusing as it

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was interesting in the positive and energetic manner in which they responded and with such personality. The age level can also add a profound source of reflection. Of course, one must take care not to traumatise anyone, especially young children, but gently bring them to a place of understanding. They wildly responded to the well-known sounds and images of Jimi Hendrix, who had Cherokee ancestry. Equally, they displayed exuberant interest in the days of early jazz with Mildred Bailey and Kay Starr from the 1940s. Examples of current jazz singers such as Métis singer Andrea Menard and Nez Perce performer Julia Keefe prompted one boy to ask with bold curiosity: ‘Is she dead?’ Maybe there was a bit of information overload, but I reassured him that both Andrea and Julia are very much alive. Additional images included singer/songwriter Rita Coolidge who appeared on the Muppet Show and Indigenous Canadian singer Buffy Sainte-Marie who was a regular on Sesame Street. Those photos produced loud gasps and cheers from the students. Equally, similar responses exuded from students in my Centennial College music course.The work by Indigenous artists who have been engaged in children’s television programming over the years remains to be a perennial source of surprise and joy for all. Popular culture offers numerous opportunities and examples for learning about the impact Indigenous people have made, particularly in music, since the sounds are more available and featured on various platforms and mediums such as film and television. The interest amongst college music students and primary grades is a better fit for this method due to the immediacy of the art form. For other post-secondary courses, such information has to be presented in a different context outside of entertainment fields engaged by Indigenous people to fit within a course syllabus on Indigenous studies which has a different focus. A desired outcome would be more useful to breaking down stereotypes of Indigenous artists and their influence on society. More information can be conveyed in tandem with visuals by including various forms of Indigenous music from across the continent. Our music is the voice of the land, and both have been transformed over time, which ushers in contemporary artists and modern instruments that serve to expand the learning experience of development of lands, nations, and peoples within a changing natural environment. Visual imagery immediately conveys what words cannot, although verbal interpretation enhances the understanding of what is being taught. Combining that experience with music or video footage transposes indelible information that is often being received for the first time by the majority of students.The complexity and diverse nature of Indigenous nations can be understood through visual presentation, but how it is interpreted by the learner can only be guided by the professor who delivers information rather than indoctrination or propaganda.

Past is prologue The circumspect view of Indigenous peoples in Canada can only be understood in the context of pre-colonial North America and embraced in a modern complex world as unique. We are not specimens frozen in time, either in our personal lives

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as individuals or nations of first peoples. We evolve with the times and are affected by emerging technologies and new ideas. In almost every class and course, contributions to the world made by Indigenous peoples, should be included because they are valuable. It is an eye-opening, almost transformative experience to students since this type of knowledge is hardly ever transmitted through the educational system. Learners gain a sense of common pride in knowing that Indigenous cultures have given to the world such things as lacrosse, canoes, snowshoes, kayaks, food, hygiene, medicine, and technologies (Keoke and Porterfield, 2003). Diplomacy, for example, includes the US Constitution derived from the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy that spans northern New York State into the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario. In 1982, US President Ronald Reagan sent a letter to the Confederacy to thank and acknowledge their contribution in establishing the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights (Jake Swamp, no date available). The current atmosphere in education is one of confusion and seemingly deliberate demoralisation of Caucasians. The word ‘settler’ is becoming commonplace in identifying Canadians and Americans of White ancestry, regardless of the generational presence in North America. This agenda ignores other cultures who arrived in the early to mid-1800s: Chinese ‘coolies’ who built the railroads and populated major cities, began to arrive prior to Canadian Confederation in 1867 (Chan, 2019). Other examples of settlers include immigrants from the Middle East, primarily Syria, who farmed the prairies since 1882 (Abu-Laban, 2018). Are they not settlers? Yet, it seems that their descendants escape the minimalisation issued upon their White counterparts. It appears that the demonisation of White people is an attempt to overwrite history with a race-based agenda that diminishes us all. I encourage students to identify themselves by their nation affiliation: Ojibway, Mohawk or Canadian, American, Mexican, etc., recognising that none of these identities are races but nationalities. If we are indeed citizens of the world who look forward to building a better world, then we need to be confident in ourselves and in each other without hesitation or apology. It is necessary in order for humanity to move forward together. By no means should the governments and churches escape accountability for past and ongoing transgressions and crimes. It was not and is not ordinary everyday people who are the assailants. The residential school system in Canada began in 1831. In Brantford, Ontario, the Mohawk Indian Industrial School also known as the Mohawk Institute served as the model for the other schools that opened across the country until the last school, the Gordon Residential School in Punnichy, Saskatchewan, closed in 1996 (Brissenden, Loyie, & Spear, 2014). The goal of the 130 government-sponsored Church-run residential schools was to assimilate Indigenous children into mainstream Euro-Canadian culture through stern discipline and strict rules that forbade any traces of Indigenous culture, especially language. More than 150,000 Indian, Métis, and Inuit children were affected mentality and spiritually and physically ruptured by the experience. It is estimated

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that approximately 6,000 children died or disappeared during the operation of these schools (Miller, 2012). The residential school experience was compounded by The Sixties Scoop whereby Indigenous children were physically removed from their families and put up for adoption into non-Indigenous homes. The government policy was finally challenged by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) led by Justice Murray Sinclair from 2007 to 2015. Sinclair, an Indigenous magistrate, travelled the country over five years to compile testimonies from residential school survivors with acknowledgement of the damage issued by the forced adoption policies of the Sixties Scoop. I am a product of the Sixties Scoop and adopted by a mixed working-class family in 1958; I found myself being raised in a rural setting by loving and protective people. In the early 1980s, an adoption search was engaged to look for my natural parents. It wasn’t until 1991 that I received a phone call from the Child Welfare Services. After confirming my identity, the voice on the phone said: ‘Brace yourself, I think we found your mother.’ Indeed, they had. But it was a short-lived reunion, since she passed away a few years later. We never met physically, but through one phone call and a few letters, I established some sense of grounding, and a confirmation of my identity.Years later, by pure chance, I met a long-lost niece while I was employed at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, a lively cultural and social community hub. In quick succession, I was reunited with my siblings, a few of whom I socialise with regularly as others are strewn across the country in relative anonymity. This aspect of Indigenous Studies includes detailing the official policy and legal responses from the Indigenous community at large. Combining recorded testimony and background of these initiatives assist greatly in conveying such critical information. There have been official government apologies and small financial compensation designated for those who apply for what amounts to survival benefits: a one-time payment. Is this justice? Can it ever replace what has been lost or mend what’s been done? I look to international law to place this experience in perspective. These callous government actions are in violation of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Chapter IV, The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article II: In the present Convention, ‘genocide’ means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Derived from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC), 2012, Winnipeg, Manitoba, the TRC identified 94 Calls to Action that the Canadian Government recognised and sometimes acted upon in various

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forms including Education for Reconciliation (62 to 66) and Media and Reconciliation (84 to 86). The latter has been embraced by numerous school boards and institutions across the country to some degree. New courses in colleges and universities strive to disseminate information on history, culture, current events, and modern life within Indigenous communities and society at large. More Indigenous instructors with experience in many areas, conduct classes and courses desired by educational institutions that place the first nations voice at the head of the class.These courses, though common in Indigenous-run colleges, are becoming more widespread at all levels of education with new curriculum and source material created by Indigenous people. One contentious action that is both embraced and criticised by Indigenous people is the Land Acknowledgement. The exercise has become a primary pronouncement spoken at the opening of various meetings and gatherings of nonIndigenous people, generally in academia or government. Here is an example used by Centennial College in Toronto, Ontario, that proudly states: Centennial College is proud to be a part of a rich history of education in this province and in this city. We acknowledge that we are on the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and pay tribute to their legacy and the legacy of all First Peoples of Canada, as we strengthen ties with the communities we serve and build the future through learning and through our graduates. We honour and pay tribute to their citizens and ancestors for the spirit and energy that allows Centennial College to provide the educational opportunity for all their relations. The Mississauga nation has a strong story about their heritage and history. Like them, we are a nation of stories, and these stories are our legacy. Melanie Fernandez, Chair, School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, Story Arts Centre, Toronto, Ontario, 2020. While current efforts attempt to address some form of reconciliation, there still exist government policies that continue to oppress the physical and the conscious being of Indigenous people. The Indian Act, introduced in 1867 under Prime Minister Sir John A. MacDonald, sought to suppress all independence of Indians who fell under the treaty process. Known as status Indians, treaty Indians, and nonstatus, the Act created a multi-tiered bureaucracy of enfranchisement and political and physical subjugations that continues to this day. In an effort to understand the past, additional curriculum includes the study of early contact to colonialism, the Indian Wars that led to the Royal Proclamation of 1763, the British North America Act, the establishment of treaty areas and reserves, pass laws, and the banning of ceremonies, and the current and pressing issues of poverty, high incarceration rates, and murdered and missing Indigenous people combined with the ongoing medical crime of sterilisation of Indigenous women. The complicated aspects of Indigenous identity can be outlined in terminology: Status Indians (federally recognised under the Indian Act), Treaty Indians, Nonstatus Indians, Inuit, and Métis. The latter two groups are not recognised under the

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Indian Act. An introduction to nation names such as Chippewa or Ojibway (with various spellings) would be Anishinaabe, and colloquial terms ‘Nish and Niji’. Keeping in mind that the following examples represent a much larger lexicon of identities that include: Aboriginal: definition of aboriginal peoples in the Canadian Constitution, 1982 (section 35–02) Indigenous: people’s ancestry belonging to the land that transcends colonialism Native: avoids restrictions of legal definitions First Nations: sociopolitical collectives identified as ‘bands’ and their reserve lands Words First: An Evolving Terminology Relating to Aboriginal Peoples in Canada; Communications Branch, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, October 2002. In Canada, Indian is regarded as a misnomer, an insult, or it’s embraced. It is, however, gradually being phased out. In 1980, American Indian Movement spokesman Russell Means stated at the 1980 Black Hills Gathering in South Dakota, ‘When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492 and looked upon the natural state in which the ancestor people existed, he said: Corpus du indio. (in the image of God)’ (Black Hills Survival Gathering, South Dakota, 1980). Red Indian is a term common among many people from Europe, Africa, and other parts of the world. The term is perhaps derived from ‘redskin’ which has an interesting history aside from evolving into a perceived insult. We consider the historical depictions of our ancestors by artists such Karl Bodmer (1809–1893) who created many works during his visits amongst Indigenous people to produce many portraits. The faces and bodies were painted with red clay paint that we still use in ceremonies. I have two kinds: one from Arizona and the other from South Dakota. In my experience, the Navajo shepherds apply the colour under their eyes or on their noses to prevent sunburn.We use it in our sun dance ceremonies along with the spiritual meaning that is connected to the red paint. In some ways, it is the original sun screen and nothing to be ashamed of. Something that carries such deep spiritual meaning with practical use is hardly an insult, but I understand the shivers experienced amongst those who are not educated in the traditional ways of our people – including many Indigenous people who do not carry these teachings or who are simply unaware. No matter what has happened, the culture still lives on. One of the more profound traditional Indigenous teachings is the Seven Grandfather Teachings of the Ojibway. I often share the 11-minute YouTube video with students in the Indigenous Studies course. Presented by Manitoba-based Ojibway elder Dave Courchene, he explains the origins and lessons of the Teachings. Throughout the presentation, he mentions the lessons of the Buffalo Spirit (respect), the Eagle Spirit (love), the Bear Spirit (courage), the Sasquatch Spirit (honesty), the Beaver Spirit (wisdom), the Wolf Spirit (humility), and the Turtle Spirit (truth). The first teaching is the Buffalo Spirit, which signifies respect – to know respect is really to know how to give. The Buffalo Spirit represents respect as the buffalo gave every part of its being so that the people could survive. The second teaching is the Eagle Spirit, which stands for love. The eagle is believed to signify love because the eagle has always been understood as the essence and the spirit that is

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within each of us, it carries the energy and the spirit of love and is created through the unconditional love of the Great Spirit.The third teaching is the Bear Spirit, which symbolises courage. The Bear Spirit lays the foundation of having a good life and to really live and walk the teachings of your people.The bear chooses the path of doing the right thing, and to have courage, you must do the right thing as there are many ways to do the wrong thing but only one way to do the right thing.The fourth teaching is the Sasquatch Spirit, which embodies honesty. Sasquatch wisely directs us to learn to speak from our hearts, to stay true to our word, and to get out of our head and mind because the mind often leads us opposite of what the heart is looking to express. For this likely reason, there is no specific need for agreements on paper since the fundamental truth was spoken from their heart. The fifth teaching is the Beaver Spirit, which symbolises wisdom. To know wisdom is to recognise the Great Spirit’s gift that you keep on your life path, and if we genuinely want to sufficiently establish a more divine life, we must employ the gifts that we naturally have. Everyone is provided a gift but to know wisdom is to know your gift and serve that gift to your people and communities. If the beaver did not use the gift of his pointed teeth to build and cut wood, he would die because the teeth of the beaver would grow long. Therefore, if we do not use our gifts given to us by the Creator, then we lose them and suffer for the loss.The sixth teaching is the Wolf Spirit, which stands for humility. To genuinely enjoy a humble life is to gratefully acknowledge there is a higher power spirit and to think of your fellow human being before you think of yourself. For instance, wolves carefully lower their noble heads when initially approaching any being as he is humbled by the visible presence of the human. Lastly, the seventh teaching is the Turtle Spirit, which depicts truth. We cannot experience truth until we are capable to understand and live the teachings.The turtle carries all the six other teachings on its back and provides a path for us to follow (SagkeengCFS, 2014). The Seven Grandfather Teachings motivate students who were previously unaware of these ways in non-Indigenous life. They become more appreciative of Indigenous culture, specifically the profound aspects of the Seven Grandfather Teachings that can be embraced by students and applied in their daily lives. Origin stories can empower everyone when students first hear or read and then begin to understand with a degree of acceptance. The Iroquois legend of Sky Woman or the Lakota story of the White Buffalo Calf Woman appeals to the students in certain courses that I teach. Equally, the philosophy of Father Sky, Mother Earth, Grandfather Sun, and Grandmother Moon are counter-intuitive to current political efforts that seek to demonise, if not eliminate the nuclear family. The latter is the backbone of our nations. It seems at times that the war on our culture has not let up and continues unabated with new weapons deployed through legislation. Those actions appeal to and serve a narrow segment of society that seeks to control our culture and determine our future. Madonna Gilbert (Lakota), of Women of All Red Nations founded in South Dakota in 1978, said: The founding of the organization was not to separate Indian men from Indian women… we do not believe in separating, and we haven’t done it in the

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past… we don’t have a separate heading for the youth – we consider them young adults on the way, and we need their help. We do not need special contingencies for the elderly. We do not want to separate our people. Time is too short.The family is what is important, and our men know this, and the women know it. (Weyler, 1982) As Tulalip elder Janet McLoud, stated at the 1980 Black Hills Survival Gathering in South Dakota, ‘A nation is not conquered until the hearts of its women are on the ground.’

The medium is the massage Combining my work in radio, print, film and television, graphic novels, various methods and media from within the Indigenous experience represents practical knowledge that dovetails with elements of instructing students to learn in new and expanding ways. The diverse mediums have contributed to the information and teaching style I employ. As an introvert, it was the years of work in radio and public speaking through activism with the American Indian Movement and other organisations that pushed me to the fore as a speaker. Campus/community radio offered a platform for self-produced, free-wheeling programming called Renegade Radio. For a small two-hour weekly show, it made an impression on the listening audience that still reverberates long after CKLN 88.1 FM closed in 2009. In addition to showcasing and interviewing local talent, international guests flew in from as far away as Los Angles, California, Peru, or New Zealand with live in-studio performances by contemporary and traditional artists. Additionally, there were freelance stints with CBC Radio, BBC (London, England), and an hour-long weekly programme, Electric Powwow on the fledgling Sirius Satellite Radio Channel Iceberg 95. The reach was global and highly influential. It provided great strides in building awareness for Indigenous music and culture with a slice of current events. The massive collection of archived interviews with professionals, activists, artists, and elders provides a vault of direct knowledge of Indigenous culture and history. The students themselves can access and research the information and cross-reference those sources with other material that they find on their own. Such activities tend to break down and eliminate pre-existing stereotypes and disinformation. Source material, in this case music, can be an elusive pursuit or one that generates limited findings, in this way it has been a long-standing challenge in education. Given my experience in music and radio, I accumulated the largest private collection of recorded Indigenous music to be found anywhere. It included vinyl LPs, 45 RPMs, 78 RPM recordings, cassettes, reels, and associated paraphernalia representing traditional, mainstream, small independent studios from reserves, and reservations from across North America.The material serves as an additional source of research and learning from rarely acquired first-hand sources directly from the culture and communities.

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In the music industry, I also served as Chair for the Aboriginal Category for the Juno Awards and helped create the Native music category for the Grammy Awards (2000–2010) and witnessed the growth of the Indigenous music industry from within to an established international presence. Combining such vast elements that preserves and highlights Indigenous music, specifically, from various archives, presents further opportunities for student research. If a student is in a music industry course, then there exists practical knowledge and material that can provide deeper insight for the learners. As a writer and illustrator, my first book in the graphic novel series Red Power [Fitzhenry/Whiteside 2011], was widely reviewed. In 2017, original art from Red Power was included in Direct Action Comics: Politically Engaged Comics and Graphic Novels, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The exhibit also included original works by Joe Shuster (Superman) and Art Spiegelman (Maus). It was a humbling experience but the importance of profiling these achievements, tells my students that there isn’t anything they can’t accomplish. No one can predict the ripple effects that ardent efforts can create or where they may take an artist within career pursuits. The exhaustive eight-year research to complete the manuscript for the Encyclopedia of Native Music and the production of various radio programmes to include mountains of music, guests, and spoken word and content are attributes that are passed on to students. Life as a music journalist, writer, artist, producer, archivist, and educator has merged to create a practical understanding and appreciation of Native culture by students of various backgrounds. Combining a ceremonial and activist background steeped in the Indigenous culture provides a circumspect view of Indigenous life, land, and history enabling and encouraging students to grasp a deeper understanding of Indigenous culture that contributes to building a future together.

Conclusion: look forward in peace Do I, as a man of colour feel oppressed? No. Despised and reviled? Sometimes. But I enjoy a certain privilege by engaging with students of all ages, backgrounds, and colours to share my culture in academic settings. In some ways, it is a new experience for everyone by engaging in an enriching journey that has far reaching implications with potential for real and positive change. In addition, it represents an ongoing initiative that has evolved over many years. Currently, there is a growing effort to include Indigenous studies in the curriculums from primary to post-secondary institutions. It establishes a pathway to the future by understanding and knowing our collective past as human beings on this planet. Lakota elder and interpreter Matthew King pointed out: In the Indian way, everything is for the children. They learn respect because we show respect for them; we let them be free, but at the same time, there is always someone there to teach them how to act, the right way to treat people… to be generous, to be respectful, and to love all living things. We believe

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in the Great Hoop, the Great Cycle of Life; everything comes back to where it started… That is the Indian Way. (Weyler, 1982) Education is a natural journey. As refined as it is in the institutions of learning, it has become a methodology that at times, seems determined to eliminate critical thinking and self-awareness in a changing and dangerous world. Selfish awareness versus self-awareness is a mad teeter-totter ride of challenging opinions, perspectives, and agendas. There should be opportunities to teach students how to survive with level-headed self-assuredness and respect. If ideas are dangerous, then love dangerously, and approach that emotion with humility and grace. After all isn’t that the ‘Indian way?’ Or is it, as human beings, simply being human as children of this Earth? As educators and parents, the information that is shared with students of all ages must be honest and truthful, to the best of one’s ability. Traditionally and historically, many messages to that initiative have been handed down over generations. At the closing of his years as an effective leader, orator, and educator, Hunkpapa Sioux leader chief Sitting Bull saw the future as a world that would have a place for his people. It was through education and the arts that the first nations would survive alongside other nations from around the globe: ‘Let’s put our minds together and see what life we can build for our children.’

References Abu-Laban, B. (2018/2013) ‘Arab Canadians.’ The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available from: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/arabs. (Accessed 4 Dec. 2020) Brissenden, C., Loyie, Larry and Spear, W. (2014) Residential Schools, Indigenous Education Press. Chan, A. B. (2019) ‘Chinese Canadians.’ The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available from: (Accessed 4 Dec. 2020). Fernandez, M. (2020) Chair, School of Communications, Media, Arts and Design, Story Arts Centre, Toronto, Ontario. Available from: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/sitting_ bull_172388. (Accessed 5 Dec. 2020). Keoke, E. D. and Porterfield, K. M. (2003) Encyclopedia of American Indian Contribution to the World: 15,000 Years of Inventions and Innovations, Checkmark Books Miller, J.R. (2012/2020) ‘Residential Schools in Canada.’ The Canadian Encyclopedia. Available from: (Accessed 4 Dec. 2020). National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada,Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2012. SagkeengCFS. (2014) Our 7 Ojibway Teachings. Available from: https://youtu.be/sASjfNI_ lD0. (Accessed 12 Sep. 2019) Swamp, J. (n.d.) The Great Law of Peace and the Constitution of the United States of America,Tree of Peace Society, Mohawk Nation, Akwesasne, New York: independent publication. Weyler, R. (1982) Blood of the Land: The Government and Corporate War Against the American Indian Movement,Vintage Books. Words First: An Evolving Terminology Relating to Aboriginal Peoples in Canada (2002, October) Communications Branch, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Wright-McLeod, B. (2005) Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet, Tuscon: University of Arizona Press.

Chapter 11

Colour-blindness and neoliberalism in Disney’s Pocahontas Brennan Thomas

Disney’s 33rd full-length animated feature, Pocahontas (1995), is a visually stunning reimagining of the Powhatan princess’s fateful encounter with English explorer John Smith marred by romantic fantasy and cultural zeitgeist. Although its tagline promises ‘An American legend comes to life’ (International Movie Database [IMDb], 2020), most events depicted in the film, from Pocahontas and Smith’s romance to Smith’s heroic rescue of Pocahontas’ father, are fictional and provide no historical truth or insight into the titular character’s role as a liaison between the Powhatan tribe and the English. Even more problematic is the film’s message of the alleged unimportance of race and ethnicity. According to its Oscar-winning song ‘Colors of the Wind’ (IMDb, 2020), one’s colour – ‘whether … white or copperskinned’ (Pocahontas, 1995) – should simply be ignored to achieve racial acceptance and social accord. However, this naive message of colour-blindness is conveyed to impressionable young viewers by White voices.The actor who provides Pocahontas’s singing voice, Broadway star Judy Kuhn, is White; the two male composers who wrote the song’s lyrics are White, as are the film’s two male directors (IMDb, 2020). In essence, the film’s central tenet – to embrace the Other by ignoring any sense of Otherness – is spoken primarily by White males through their puppetry of the Powhatan princess. Pocahontas’s themes of racial harmony and colour-blindness parallel to those of the other 1990-era films (e.g., Dances with Wolves, Last of the Mohicans) featuring Indigenous North Americans as the stereotypical ‘Noble Native’ (Neag, 2017, p. 208) and their beneficent Caucasian counterparts as White saviours. Pocahontas’s John Smith is an especially egregious example of the White saviour because his efforts to understand Pocahontas are fuelled by sexual desire, not curiosity or compassion. Moreover, Smith’s motives behind anglicising Pocahontas and her people remain unquestioned in the film.When he boasts to Pocahontas,‘We’ve been improving the lives of savages all over the world’ (Pocahontas, 1995), she takes greater issue with his word choice than his intentions to usurp her culture with his. The film’s focus on language instead of systematic methods of Othering implies that racism is rooted in insensitivity and cultural ignorance, which are easily rectified, rather than sustained through law, brute force, and resource control, which are not. Studying Pocahontas’s oversimplified approach to racial oppression, alongside contemporary social and political efforts to mitigate racial disparity, may DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-12

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enable students to appreciate more fully how popular media both reflects and shapes public perceptions of anti-racist measures to effect social transformation. This chapter thus critically examines Pocahontas’s elements of colour-blindness and de-Othering as media representations of broader late twentieth century efforts to achieve racial equality via political correctness. Pedagogical methods for analysing Pocahontas and other media artefacts of this era are also included.

Disney memes and themes Pocahontas is one of several feature films that I review with students in my first-year seminar, CORE 113: Disney Memes and Themes, which I have taught as part of Saint Francis University’s General Education curriculum since 2013. The course’s purpose is to introduce students to the processes of sustained research and writing via critical examination of sociocultural trends and issues – an ideal vehicle for dialogic pedagogy. Each CORE 113 section presents its own theme, often based in students’ popular media interests, with previous themes including Japanese anime, comic heroes, and science fiction films. My CORE 113 section, Disney Memes and Themes, offers an intimate look at Disney’s most enduring and culturally pervasive animated features, ranging from projects personally overseen by Walt Disney, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), to films of the late twentieth-century Disney Renaissance (1989–1999), including Pocahontas, to Pixar productions such as Finding Nemo (2003) and Up (2009). In addition to analysing the obvious, child-oriented, and more nuanced adult-themed messages of these and other Disney films, students examine their collective impact on cultural attitudes of morality and innocence. The course is divided into several units, each devoted to certain cultural, ethnographic, and/or ecological themes as well as related Disney texts. One of our most engaging units is ‘Analysing History in Disney Films,’ for which students examine cinematic depictions of historical periods, events, persons, and groups in Disney films. What fuels this unit’s insightful, spirited conversations are students’ realisations of how Disney films’ themes of hegemony and cultural erasure undermine their child-friendly messages of acceptance and harmony. Pocahontas is a particularly rich text for examining these conflicting themes and messages, as cultural acceptance and obliteration are at the forefront of the film’s narrative and the studio’s efforts to commodify these narrative elements. Although my students and I do not watch Pocahontas in its entirety in class, we examine several pivotal scenes from the film that reflect the studio’s cultural and commercial aims. One scene featuring Pocahontas’s pet raccoon named Meeko and a pampered English pug named Percy presents a light-hearted microcosm of the film’s macrocosmic conflict. Observing Meeko and Percy’s comical skirmish over food, John Smith predicts that once two parties are at odds with each other, violence is inevitable. It is an overly simplistic argument proven untrue in the following scene when Meeko rescues Percy. When I ask my students what these two scenes might suggest about intergroup conflict, their responses generally settle on the idea that violence can be avoided if the parties find common need for cooperation over competition. I then ask, ‘Is that what actually happened between the English colonists and the

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Indigenous people? Did they find this common need?’ Unfortunately, the answer is no; the longest lasting treaty of that historical period, the Pilgrim-Wampanoag peace treaty, was broken within three generations (Hightower-Langston, 2003). Students then consider how these scenes with Meeko and Percy might affect young viewers, since they offer no truth or insight into intergroup relations between the Powhatans and the English. Invariably, a student will state the obvious reason why these pantomiming animals feature prominently in Pocahontas: to sell merchandise.Though these funny, furry characters no doubt delighted elementaryage moviegoers with their antics, their inclusion in the film is problematic on three levels. Young viewers are first denied truth; then supplied with a new distorted narrative that, depending upon their age and impressionability, will likely compete with other versions of the actual historical events they might later read or hear; and finally commodified into consumers of toys and t-shirts bearing the likeness of Meeko and Percy. Since Disney’s merchandising of its cinematic creations dates back to the Great Depression with Mickey Mouse dolls and Snow White sand pails (Plath, 2018), the images of Meeko, Percy, and even the titular Pocahontas on toys and other product tie-ins may seem, if not entirely innocuous, then at least in line with Disney’s marketing ploys. But then my students and I discuss, in light of Pocahontas’s tagline of ‘An American legend comes to life,’ why a Barbie-styled Pocahontas doll or a stuffed plush Meeko might be more problematic than a Mickey Mouse toy. Students are quick to point out that most animated Disney films are based upon fairy tales and children’s fiction. Pocahontas, however, is based upon actual events that took place not in some unnamed land far, far away but in known locations along the mid-Atlantic coast where many Indigenous peoples, including the Powhatans, lived and thrived for generations (Hightower-Langston, 2003). By incorporating merchandising strategies into the film’s narrative via commercially viable characters and grossly distorted interpretations of cultural conflicts, the film’s historical content and instructive value are greatly diminished, arguably to the point where viewing the film does more harm than good to audiences’ understanding of the early post-Columbian Exchange era. (One of my students admitted when we began this film unit, ‘I actually didn’t know Pocahontas was based on a true story.’ Evidently, the filmmakers were so good at superimposing Disney fantasy over American history that the former had obliterated any sense of the latter for this student.)

Hollywood's era of neoliberalism Identifying the film’s historical inaccuracies is a useful starting point, but to understand how and why filmmakers reimagined Pocahontas’s story as they did, students must also examine the film as a cultural artefact of its own historical period. To contextualise Pocahontas in the neoliberal era of the early 1990s, my students and I view short clips from Hugo Award nominee Lindsay Ellis’s 2017 video essay ‘Pocahontas Was a Mistake,’ which highlights various problems with the film’s treatment of Indigenous populations from both an historical and cinematic

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standpoint. Ellis (2017) points out that the filmmakers knew John Smith’s diaries (from which the story of Pocahontas saving Smith was primarily sourced) were filled with hyperbole and romanticism to make their author look as heroic as possible and drum up more support for England’s commercial ventures in the New World (Cressy, 1987). As such, Disney filmmakers recognised that they could take liberties with Pocahontas’s story development and characterisation of Smith and Pocahontas. Roy E. Disney noted in a behind-the-scenes documentary of the film’s making that although they knew certain facts about Smith’s and Pocahontas’s ages (she being a child and he nearly middle-aged), these facts were changed to capture the emotional truth of Smith and Pocahontas’s relationship as liaisons of their respective cultures (The Making of ‘Pocahontas,’ 1995). They also changed the nature of Smith’s role in the Pocahontas legend from a prisoner saved by the Powhatan princess (as the real Smith claimed) to the cinematic equivalent of a neoliberal White saviour who saves Pocahontas’s people. It is the inclusion of this White saviour trope, as I explain later in this chapter, that is the most troublesome element of the Disney film. Ellis’s essay examines various Hollywood depictions of Native Americans of the neoliberal era of the 1990s when Pocahontas was released. Both the resurgence in popularity of American West cinema and the establishment of the White saviour in mainstream historical dramas featuring Native Americans would define this final decade of the century. These two trends are largely attributed to Kevin Costner’s Academy-Award winning epic Dances with Wolves, which ‘attempts to convey understanding, sympathy, and tolerance for the Lakota culture’ (Neag, 2017, p. 208). Prior to this film’s release in 1990, most depictions of Native Americans were still fraught with elements of violent Othering, with God-fearing White settlers civilising the American wilderness by pushing out the Native Americans and herding them onto small reservations. This Hollywood narrative of Manifest Destiny, established decades earlier with films such as How the West Was Won (1962), was still a staple of epic Westerns even as recently as 1989’s popular miniseries Lonesome Dove, in which its White protagonists ‘bring order to a lawless land’ populated by Comanche outlaws (Willbern, 2014, p. 81). Dances with Wolves offers an alternative narrative to cinematic Manifest Destiny with a more empathetic view towards the Lakota people and their gradual displacement from the plains by hunters, settlers, and soldiers. The Lakota are portrayed as resourceful and peaceful, led by sensible leaders who recognise the implications of establishing a diplomatic relationship with an understanding White man.This portrayal was a major departure from the stereotypical savage popularised by earlier Hollywood Westerns, and for most contemporary audiences and critics, a welcome one (Bowden, 1991). The film received numerous accolades for its humanisation of Indigenous populations and depictions of social practices and resource use with some degree of accuracy.

The White saviour However, Ellis (2017) observes, this revised Hollywood narrative needed to be made more palatable for White American audiences. Enter the White saviour, supplied by Dances with Wolves’ producer, director, and star Kevin Costner. Costner

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portrays a Union soldier named John Dunbar who seeks not a confrontation with the Native Americans but an opportunity to learn from them. Dunbar seems to be a principled man driven by curiosity and the desire for intellectual enrichment rather than greed or power. He is receptive to the Lakota people’s teachings and eventually wins them over as friends. According to L. Daniel Hawk (2016), ‘The film lingers over the human connections that Dunbar makes with people in the community and this, along with scenes of Lakota village life, forges respect and empathy for the Lakota’ (p. 14). These connections are pivotal to not only the film’s representation of the Lakota but also contemporary White audiences’ willingness to invest themselves emotionally in the Lakota’s plight. Ellis (2017) contends that because White audiences ‘don’t want to feel like the bad guy.’ films of this era featuring Native Americans included ‘good white protagonists helping the natives out.’ John Dunbar is portrayed as a kind, brave soldier who not only embraces the Lakota people’s values and way of life but also ‘create[s] sympathy for the oppressed’ – the Othered native (Jagodzinski, 1999, p. 80). His character provides White audiences with an alternative identity, the ‘well-intentioned saviour who is both noble and morally good,’ to the ‘outright invader and colonizer’ (Jagodzinski, 1999, p. 80). Through Dunbar, White audiences can reimagine their roles in the broader cultural narrative, not as the Lakota’s oppressors or usurpers (as some of their ancestors may have been) or even as their indifferent White counterparts today, but as their advocates who might enrich their own lives by taking a keen interest in theirs. My students and I spend some time retracing the evolution of the White saviour trope through the other 1990-era films involving White and Native American people. In our retracing, we have observed that with each subsequent film, the White saviour’s desire for cultural enrichment is reduced while his romantic or familial motivations for cross-cultural encounters have increased. Disney’s 1991 live-action film White Fang, for instance, situates a young trader named Jack Conroy, played by Ethan Hawke, in the trading camp of an Alaskan tribe who have adopted a wolf–dog hybrid named White Fang. Although Jack’s interactions with the Indigenous people are pleasant and uneventful, they serve primarily to further his efforts to acquire White Fang (Maldonado and Winick, 2001) and establish his claim in the Yukon Territory. The White saviour of Michael Mann’s 1992 drama The Last of the Mohicans, Hawkeye, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, is likewise motivated by personal relationships to facilitate diplomacy between the Indigenous people and White settlers of the northern mid-Atlantic region. Hawkeye has straddled the worlds of Native American and White people for years, having been adopted by one of the last surviving Mohicans, Chingachgook, and his son, Uncas. When he, Chingachgook, and Uncas rescue two British sisters, Cora and Alice Munro, from a group of Huron warriors, Hawkeye quickly becomes attracted to the elder sister, Cora, and his Native American brother to Alice. Their main objective from this point onwards in the film is to keep both women alive, although because Cora advocates for the Mohicans’ safe passage, she joins Hawkeye’s White saviour efforts.

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The noble native As my students and I discover in our unpacking of this trope, the White saviour does more than assuage audiences’ cultural guilt while viewing films like Dances with Wolves or The Last of the Mohicans. The trope oversimplifies, to the point of historical distortion and even absurdity, the cultural contact zones between encroaching colonists and Indigenous populations. Morality and nobility in such films are defined primarily by intergroup alliances. The Lakota and Mohicans who befriend well-intentioned White outsiders such as John Dunbar and Cora Munro are cast in the role of the ‘Noble native’ (Neag, 2017, p. 208) against their seemingly ignoble brethren, the Pawnee in Dances with Wolves and the Huron in The Last of the Mohicans. This confusing dichotomy between alliances is often glossed over in such films. Jan Jagodzinski (1999) observes that ‘[t]he division as to which tribes sided with the British (and why) against the Americans [in The Last of the Mohicans], is rarely problematized’ (p. 83). The Lakotas’ and Mohicans’ gentleness towards White characters who do them no harm starkly contrasts with the brutality with which they attack their and their White allies’ foes, be they Native Americans or other White people. Any threat to themselves or their allies is met with violent resistance, impressing upon audiences another quality of the noble native trope – restraint. Both the Lakota and Mohicans are shown shooting their enemies with arrows or guns, stabbing them, and slitting their throats.Yet, they engage in violence only when provoked by ignoble native people or ‘greedy and bad’ White people whom Ellis (2017) characterises as the direct antithesis to ‘the good white people who just want to be free’ and live in peace with their Native American friends. Thus, these ‘good’ characters’ acts of onscreen violence, however brutal, are presented as morally justified. Their intentions and alliances to other similarly intentioned groups appear noble, and so their nobility as either White saviours or noble natives remains intact.

Cultural and moral alliances in Pocahontas In preparation for our analysis of Pocahontas, my students and I examine these tropes and their impact upon audiences of the early 1990s. One observation we have made is that the White saviour trope features more prominently in commercially successful films such as Dances with Wolves than in unsuccessful ventures such as Disney’s 1994 live-action film Squanto, which grossed less than $4 million during its theatrical release (IMDbPro, n.d.). Exploring the commercial appeal and rhetorical purposes of the obvious White saviour also enables students to appreciate not only how but also why these elements were incorporated in Pocahontas. Some of my students have argued that a standout White saviour appeals more directly to audiences’ desire for a reimagined idealised past – what viewers wish they could have been and would choose to be if they could relive certain historical events. Other students have suggested that a clear, uncompromising White saviour eliminates any moral ambiguity of aligning oneself with those outside their group against those within the group. Obviously, Disney filmmakers

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wanted the film to succeed financially, so they reworked the narrative of the Powhatan princess’s encounters with the English to appeal more broadly to predominantly White audiences (Ward, 2002). Gary Edgerton and Kathy Jackson (1996) note that Pocahontas’s writing team ‘chose certain episodes from her life, invented others, and in the process shaped a narrative that highlights some events, ideas, and values, while suppressing others’ (p. 94). As a result of these narrative changes, the role of John Smith has been expanded to a prominent White saviour with whom adults and children alike can align themselves. Smith’s White saviour also defines the film’s sense of moral order in terms of characters’ group alliances. As my students and I determine from viewing other era films, these alliances revolve around characters’ relationships to the White saviour. Those who align themselves with the saviour, such as the Lakota people of Dances with Wolves or Chingachgook’s Mohican family of The Last of the Mohicans, are portrayed as wise, kind, and brave and therefore moral. Those who threaten the saviour, whether other White characters or native people, are presented as selfish, close-minded, and prone to violence and are thus immoral. To visually reinforce these divisions between moral and immoral characters, filmmakers often convey the White saviour’s natural goodness through their physical and sexual appeal. John Dunbar and Hawkeye are both strong, muscular males with straight white teeth and well-proportioned faces. By contrast, most White males who oppose the saviour are considerably less attractive, often with crooked, yellow teeth, pudgy or overly thin physiques, and dirty or balding scalps. Pocahontas’s animation team, not limited by the physical realities of human actors, is able to manipulate even further the external traits of John Smith and his antagonists. Smith, voiced by Mel Gibson, is a young, handsome, blond-haired captain who rivals the attractiveness of any Disney prince. His grandiose boarding of the Virginia Colony’s ship Susan Constant begins the film, immediately followed by his improbable rescue of an inept crewmate. Within the first five minutes of Pocahontas, Smith, having proven himself strong, fearless, and adored by his men, is designated as the White saviour. Since his character is introduced well before the film’s eponymous Powhatan princess, he is presented as a protagonist equal to, if not in some ways more important than, Pocahontas herself. Also presented in the film’s opening scene is the principal antagonist to Smith’s White saviour, Governor John Ratcliffe, voiced by David Ogden Stiers. Disney villains in animated films are usually drawn to be obvious in their wickedness to amplify the goodness of protagonists. ‘Their villainy,’ observes Amanda Putnam (2013), ‘creates the situation from which the hero and heroine must escape – and from whom the heroes are most clearly defined’ (p. 149). As the anti-saviour, Ratcliffe is a particularly insufferable example of the Disney villain. His proportions are so distorted as to render him inhuman, more like a flesh-coloured apple with pigtails than an English explorer. He is also endowed with a dark, twisted beard, small eyes, and a large, beaked nose. He speaks in a pompous tone, belittles his men, and reveals to the audience before the film’s opening credits that his only motivation is gold. Even Pocahontas’s youngest viewers would recognise Ratcliffe as the film’s villain.When my students examine Smith’s and Ratcliffe’s physical and behavioural

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differences and their impact on audiences, they quickly surmise that Smith is drawn to be attractive and Ratcliffe to be repulsive. Smith appears to be a natural leader, Ratcliffe the beneficiary of his Old World social rank. In the New World, Smith is far more competent than Ratcliffe; once he and his expeditionary team have landed on shore, Smith wanders away from the group and explores his new environment without difficulty. Within moments of disembarking, Ratcliffe and the rest of the men have scared away any potential game; they then waste time and resources digging holes, chopping down trees, and blowing up mounds of dirt in their futile search for gold. Smith, less interested in profit than his counterparts, seems instead taken with the possibility of adventure in such a land, where one is free from the constraints of civilisation. As the obvious hero, Smith’s most admirable values and behaviours form the film’s moral code, especially once they are blended with Pocahontas’s. Even before they interact with each other, Smith and Pocahontas are shown to be ideologically similar. They both value their freedom to choose their own destinies and relish opportunities to experience new adventures; they both also romanticise the wilderness and enjoy their solitude.The film’s introduction of Pocahontas shows her standing atop a rocky cliff far away from her village, deep in introspection. She appears restrained by her immediate social world and is anxious to change it, especially after learning that she has been betrothed to the warrior Kocoum, whose ‘serious’ nature seems ill-suited to her free spirt. Pocahontas seeks the advice of another independent creature, her spirit guide Grandmother Willow, a 200-yearold tree who advises Pocahontas to ‘listen’ to her heart and ‘follow’ her path, which will later be revealed to point to John Smith (Pocahontas, 1995). One text my students and I read in tandem with our analysis of Pocahontas’s moral order is Annalee Ward’s Mouse Morality (2002), which provides various criteria and methods for distinguishing moral and immoral boundaries in Disney films. Ward (2002) defines a moral code as the basic tenets of good or acceptable values and practices held by a particular society. In one society, for instance, it is good for parents to choose their children’s marriage partners; in another society, it is good for children to choose their own marriage partners. In Pocahontas, both societal moral codes are referenced, but audiences are directed to view one society’s moral code as superior to the other when Pocahontas’s betrothed suitor Kocoum is killed, clearing the way for her romance with Smith (Ward, 2002). A society in which young lovers are able to marry if they so choose is the preferred society in Pocahontas, as it is throughout most of the modern Western world. Much of the film’s moral order is organised around these contemporary moral tenets of American audiences. Both Pocahontas and Smith clearly favour personal choice and fulfilment over deference to authority, innovation, and risk over convention and safety. They each represent Western values of individualism that reflect contem­porary audiences’ value systems rather than those of the historical Pocahontas or any of the other reallife characters of this story. Thus, in contrast to Roy Disney’s stated goal to present the story’s emotional rather than historical truth, Pocahontas offers neither. Instead, it presents the filmmakers’ perceptions of modern-day audiences’ moral preferences for self-discovery and self-validation.

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Othering and colour-blindness in Pocahontas These moral preferences for individual pursuits are easy to identify in the sequence my students and I spend the most time deconstructing: Smith and Pocahontas’s first meeting and Pocahontas’s subsequent singing of ‘Colors of the Wind.’This sequence begins with Pocahontas spying on Smith as he explores the shore’s river inlets.When she crawls down to the water’s edge to get a better look at Smith, he hides behind a small waterfall with his gun at the ready. All hopes for an amicable encounter rests squarely on Smith’s shoulders, who, upon seeing Pocahontas, lowers his weapon and attempts to communicate with her. His actions seem at least partly driven by lust (Kutsuzawa, 2000), as Pocahontas’s cheeks are flushed red, her lips pursed, her hair swirling around her face and torso. Kiyomi Kutsuzawa (2000) observes that ‘Pocahontas’ perfect brown body encapsulates, and at the same time feeds into, white men’s desire for power and fantasy about the ideal Orient.’ She appears more beautiful in this sequence than at any other point in the film – the insinuation being that her beauty is paramount to her survival and that of her people. When Smith attempts to speak to her, Pocahontas continues to be Othered, first by answering in her native tongue, to which Smith dismissively mutters, ‘You don’t understand a word I’m saying, do you?,’ then forcing herself through listening to understand Smith’s language (Pocahontas, 1995). Her next words are clear, perfect English – ‘My name is Pocahontas’ – to which Smith responds in English rather than in Pocahontas’s language (Pocahontas, 1995). After watching this scene, my students and I consider how depicting Smith and Pocahontas learning each other’s language, one expression at a time, might have changed the film. Most agree that this alternative depiction would have made the story more interesting (or at least more ‘adult,’ as one student put it), not to mention far more realistic. Smith and Pocahontas’s communication struggles also would have shown that central to the English and Powhatan’s actual conflict was the lack of a common language. In reality, the two groups were uncertain of each other’s intentions because they could not easily convey them.This inability to understand and be understood meant that one group could be betrayed, exploited, and ruled by the other, which is unfortunately what happened (Ruediger, 2020). Of course, in Disney’s version, the language gap is easily bridged in a cinematic form of magical realism. Because Pocahontas learns Smith’s language so effortlessly, there isn’t much for Smith to do or gain on his own. What little he does learn is spoon fed to him by Pocahontas through the film’s most recognisable song, ‘Colors of the Wind.’ This song has been described by Pocahontas’s directors as the film’s central moral tenet from which all its other themes and messages of acceptance, understanding, and respect for life are derived (Edgerton and Jackson, 1996). What prompts the song’s singing, however, isn’t a discussion of how these themes are tantamount to conflict avoidance and cultural exchange, but the antithesis of neoliberal political correctness: name-calling. In describing his other exploits, Smith informs Pocahontas that her people’s way of life will soon be replaced with cities, roads, and a European social system. Oddly, Pocahontas doesn’t seem disturbed by this; she marvels at the possibility of seeing buildings as tall as ancient trees. But

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when Smith tells her, ‘We’ – meaning European explorers – have been ‘improving the lives of savages all over the world,’ Pocahontas immediately takes exception to his language (Pocahontas, 1995). In this scene, Kutsuzawa (2000) explains, ‘Pocahontas sharply interrogates Smith’s unexamined belief about western superiority and challenges his euro-centric biases expressed by terms such as barbarian, civilization, and ignorant.’ Pocahontas thus insists to Smith that the very use of the label ‘savages’ betrays his true feelings about her and her people – that he and the other English sailors see them, and her, as barbaric and backwards. A common cinematic trope of the neoliberal era is colour-blindness, specifically the notion that one’s skin colour should be considered irrelevant. The problem with this idea is that it also disregards everything that skin colour symbolises: degradation, displacement, oppression, and even genocide. When Pocahontas sings to John Smith to ignore ‘whether we are white or copper-skinned,’ the filmmakers are essentially telling White audiences to ignore Native Americans’ history, their harsh treatment under British and American law, and their uncertain cultural fate. All one needs to do now is simply recognise the Other as equal. This problematic message disavows four centuries of enslavement and genocide and instead redefines racial identity as a blank slate upon which a new contemporary history can be rewritten, much like the story of Pocahontas and John Smith was rewritten by Disney filmmakers to fit Westernised ideals of discovery and maturation. ‘Colors of the Wind’ thus serves only to deprogram Smith’s thinking rather than enlighten audiences to cultural and historical truths. Through clichéd images of running, swimming, and floating across the countryside, Pocahontas shows Smith the benefits of respecting nature rather than exploiting it. Smith is receptive to this lesson, but more so because the song gives him opportunities to explore his physical attraction to Pocahontas (Edgerton & Jackson, 1996), as he rolls around on the ground with her and nestles his head in her hair. By the song’s conclusion, Pocahontas and Smith are standing so close, they are practically kissing, which Smith seems eager to do, but Pocahontas, hearing the drums of her people, senses something foreboding and departs. Smith’s attempts to stop Pocahontas by physically grabbing her hardly correspond to her lessons of respect and understanding. From this point onwards, these lessons focus exclusively on concerns about language and labelling. Although Smith’s comrades have been reluctant to take up arms against the Powhatans to this point, they do so once whip into a frenzy by their leader, Ratcliffe, during the film’s most controversial musical sequence, ‘Savages.’ During this song, both the White sailors and the Powhatans decry the other group as ‘savages’ who are ‘barely even human’ because of their superficial differences (Pocahontas, 1995). The word savage both defines and exacerbates the complete breakdown in diplomacy between the two groups.At the precise moment that Smith is about to be executed by Chief Powhatan, Pocahontas rushes to the stone altar on which he has been placed and throws her body over his. She convinces her father that fighting can be avoided and he agrees to spare Smith’s life, holding his executioner staff above his head to signal a ceasefire between the two groups. Once again, there is no communication barrier preventing the two sides from understanding each other’s intentions. As the Powhatan warriors lower their

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bows and spears, the English sailors lower their guns.The only holdout is Governor Ratcliffe, who, unable to convince his men to take up their arms, fires a single bullet at Chief Powhatan to reignite the tension between the two groups. However, the now-freed Smith steps in front of Powhatan and takes the bullet, prompting the rest of the English sailors to surround, bind, and gag Ratcliffe. Labels of savagery and evil have been Ratcliffe’s biggest weapons in fomenting the English sailors’ distrust of the Native American people, and with the governor unable to speak, the sailors lose any prejudice towards Chief Powhatan and his people. Language is now controlled, paving the way for peaceful exchanges of food and other resources, and the film ends with the two groups showing understanding and respect towards each other.

History rewritten The addition of Smith’s sacrifice, which is a massive departure from all recorded historical facts and folklore of Smith’s interactions with the Powhatans, is a baffling (and, according to my students, poor) narrative choice. The simplification of the tense relations between the native people and the English reduces the story to the point of historical bastardisation (DoRozario, 2006). All points of contention between the two groups are concentrated into one Englishman, and all prejudice stems from single word savages, which, once removed from both groups’ vocabularies, quells any possibility of further conflict. Henry Giroux and Grace Pollack (2010) contend that ‘the film’s conclusion of peaceful coexistence between the Powhatan Nation and the colonialists completely erases the historical reality of European racist attitudes about, injustice toward, and oppression of Native Americans …’ (p. 111). Several of my students have taken this argument even further. In their responses to Ward’s Mouse Morality, they argue that Pocahontas attempts to usurp historical accounts of the film’s events with Disney’s version of what contemporary White audiences wished had happened, namely, that their ancestors had listened to and learned from Native Americans instead of enslaving and murdering them. This desire for revisionist history is encapsulated in Smith, who proves his sincerity in adopting Pocahontas’s values by (literally) taking a bullet for her father. In essence, White males, from the saviour Smith to the filmmakers who wrote and animated this film, have rested Pocahontas’s story from her and made it their own, very much the way the real John Smith is alleged to have done when he recorded his encounters with the Powhatans in his diaries. As one of my former students lamented of the film’s ending, ‘Pocahontas isn’t even the main hero now.’

Pedagogical implications Perhaps it is not surprising that Pocahontas’s box office performance disappointed studio executives, given their expectations for the film to top the previous year’s blockbuster juggernaut The Lion King (Edgerton and Jackson, 1996). Pocahontas is also the only film of the Disney Renaissance (1989–1999) to receive a ‘rotten’ rating (55%) on Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregator, with critical consensus singling out the

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film’s ‘bland, uninspired’ storytelling and ‘lack of fun’ as its principal weaknesses (Rotten Tomatoes, n.d.). Yet, despite these flaws (or perhaps because of them), Pocahontas provides a useful artefact for helping students understand the failings of neoliberalism and the public’s gradual recognition of these failings even as early as 1995 when the film was released.To enhance their critical and cultural understanding of this artefact, my students deconstruct the film’s scenes of cultural exchange across contact zones and synthesise their interpretations of these exchanges with the scholarship of Ward, Giroux, M. Keith Booker, and other noted authors. In doing so, my students not only critically examine the reductionist tropes of race, racism, and racial identity identified by these scholars in Disney films but also recognise how these tropes reinforce contemporary values and beliefs replicated by other cultural media addressing similar themes of Othering and Orientalism. For future offerings of my CORE 113 seminar, I plan to engage students in unpacking some of the film’s most prominent terminology – Indian, native, savage, civilisation, people, land – and explore how each term’s meaning changes according to its speaker’s use and the context in which it is used. An extension of this exercise might involve examining the terms’ usage in other neoliberal-era films featuring Native Americans (e.g., Last of the Mohicans), as well as more recent films set in the early post-Columbian Exchange, such as Terrence Malick’s The New World (2005), to determine how and to what extent such connotations have evolved in Hollywood filmmaking since Pocahontas’s release.This language analysis could then be augmented by research of pertinent legislation and public policies regarding the rights and treatment of Native Americans over the past 30 years. In particular, students and educators might evaluate the success or failure of policymaking to advance racial inclusion and eliminate racial bias during and after the neoliberal era, explore how neoliberal-era films like Pocahontas might have reinforced, challenged, or even undermined these policy objectives, and determine how past and present-day audiences have responded to such objectives when presented in popular media. Perhaps the most useful examination of Pocahontas as a product of White American neoliberalism is to study it alongside filmic representations of Indigenous peoples made by Native American filmmakers, such as Smoke Signals (1998), Naturally Native (1998), Skins (2002), and Winter in the Blood (2013). Although Disney filmmakers worked closely with several Native Americans, including Russell Means, during Pocahontas’s early production stage to ensure cultural accuracy in their portrayal of the Powhatan people, many of the contributions made by these experts were ultimately changed or ignored (Edgerton & Jackson, 1996). Despite the film’s title, Pocahontas is a story created by White (primarily male) filmmakers for White audiences. Its two directors, head screenwriter, and principal animators are all White men who might have been well intentioned in their efforts to depict this Native American story with sensitivity and weight but who told it through a White male lens that defined the Disney Company at that time (and arguably still does today). What Pocahontas’s filmmakers produced is arguably less art than product, less instructive than reductive. By contrast, films written and directed by Native Americans about their own experiences expand

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viewers’ understanding of Native Americans’ past and present, aims and struggles. Films and novels that focus on young Native Americans in particular offer incisive glimpses into not only what they experience as they transition from childhood and adolescence to adulthood, but how these transitions are often complicated by their changing familial relationships (Smoke Signals), their lives on reservations (Skins), and external factors to reduce or strip them of their cultural identities. These and other complex themes are largely absent from Pocahontas, but as this chapter shows, such themes certainly do not have to be absent from students’ discussions of this film. Ultimately, Disney’s 33rd animated feature is a cultural artefact of the neoliberal era that focuses on language as the principal tool of oppression while ignoring the actual systems of oppression – e.g., resource control, communication barriers, and commercialism – as well as any means of dismantling such systems. Examining Pocahontas from this perspective, however, encourages critical discussions of the era’s Hollywood idealisation of racial harmony. ‘Against such oversimplifications [of good and evil],’ argue Giroux and Pollack (2010), ‘there is a growing need for modes of critique that not only take seriously how power and consent shape the terrain of everyday life but also embrace a politics of possibility that engenders a global resistance …’ (p. 203). By studying the rich texts of Native American filmmakers against Disney’s simplistic fantasy, students will recognise how simple causes of racial tension and strife such as a single greedy antagonist serve only to ‘disperse white guilt’ (Jagodzinski, 1999, p. 77) and why simple solutions to racial oppression such as colour-blindness are both misguided and wholly ineffective.

References Bowden, L. R. (1991). ‘Dances with wolves.’ CrossCurrents 41(3): 391–396. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24459957 [Accessed 21 Dec. 2020]. Cressy, D. (1987) Coming over: Migration and communication between England and New England in the seventeenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge UP. DoRozario, R. C. (2006) The consequences of Disney anthropomorphism: Animated, hyper-environmental stakes in Disney entertainment. Femspec 7 (1): 51–65. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc.org/docview/200162067/9C5C1A9B10 BD4773PQ/ 1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 1 July 2020]. Edgerton, G. and Jackson, K. (1996) Redesigning Pocahontas: Disney, the ‘White Man’s Indian,’ and the marketing of dreams. Journal of Popular Film & Television 24 (2): 90–98. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc.org/docview/199398687/ fulltextPDF/ CA05585D3A4D45FFPQ/1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 30 June 2020]. Ellis, L. (2017) Pocahontas was a mistake, and here’s why. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ARX0-AylFI&t=171s [Accessed 15 Dec. 2020]. Giroux, H. A. and Pollack, G. (2010) The mouse that roared: Disney and the end of innocence. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Hawk, D. L. (2016) Indigenous helpers and renegade invaders: Ambivalent characters in biblical and cinematic conquest narratives. Journal of Religion and Film 20 (3): 1–27. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc.org/docview/1860270406 /749A19AE468345A6PQ/ 1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 15 Sep. 2020].

Colour-blindness and neoliberalism   181 Hightower-Langston, D. (2003) The Native American world. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. IMDbPro. (n.d.) Squanto: A warrior’s tale. Available from: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/ release/rl1752401409/weekly/?sortDir=asc&sort=rank&ref_=bo_rl__resort [Accessed 28 Oct. 2020]. International Movie Database. (2020) Pocahontas (1995). Available from: https://www.imdb. com/title/tt0114148/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0 [Accessed 23 Dec. 2020]. Jagodzinski, J. (1999) Reading Hollywood’s post-racism: Lessons for art education. Journal of Multi-Cultural and Cross-Cultural Research in Art Education 17: 74–90. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc.org/docview/205854565/ 90B69966C8AF4D7CPQ/ 1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 16 Sep. 2020]. Kutsuzawa, K. (2000) Disney’s Pocahontas: Reproduction of gender, orientalism, and the strategic construction of racial harmony in the Disney Empire. Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 6 (4): 39–65. Available from: doi:10.1080/12259276.2000.11665893 [Accessed 22 Oct. 2020]. Maldonado, N. S. and Winick, M. P. (2001) True to life/nature and nurture. Childhood Education 78 (1): 59–60. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc. org/docview/ 210383337/880A1B56A89141B3PQ/1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 21 Oct. 2020]. Neag, M. (2017) Dances with wolves (1990). In: Bernardi, D. and Green, M. (eds.) Race in American film:Voices and visions that shaped a nation, vol. 2 (G-O). Santa Barbara: Greenwood, pp. 207–209. Plath, J. (2018) Walt Disney (1901–1966): When you wish upon a star. In: Merlock, K. & West, M. I. (eds.) Shapers of American childhood: Essays on visionaries from L. Frank Baum to Dr. Spock to J.K. Rowling. Jefferson: McFarland, pp. 44–62. Pocahontas. (1995). [Film]. Mike Gabriel & Eric Goldberg. dirs. USA: Walt Disney Pictures. Putnam, A. (2013) Mean ladies: Transgendered villains in Disney films. In: Cheu, J. (ed.) Diversity in Disney films: Critical essays on race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability. Jefferson: McFarland, pp. 147–162. Rotten Tomatoes. (n.d.) Pocahontas. Available from: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ 1063452-pocahontas [Accessed 24 Oct. 2020]. Ruediger, D. (2020) ‘Neither utterly to reject them, nor yet to drawe them to come in’: Tributary subordination and settler colonialism in Virginia. Early American Studies 18 (1): 1–31. Available from: https://search-proquest-com.francis.idm.oclc.org/docview/ 2447282138/ fulltext/FEAD5D028D494035PQ/1?accountid=4216 [Accessed 29 Dec. 2020]. The Making of ‘Pocahontas.’ 1995. [Film]. Dan Boothe. dir. USA: The Wrightwood Group. Ward, A. R. (2002) Mouse morality: The rhetoric of Disney animated film. Austin: University of Texas Press. Willbern, D. (2014) Dialogic frontiers: History and psychology in Lonesome Dove and Blood Meridian. The Arizona Quarterly. 70 (1): 81–108.Available from: doi:10.1353/arq.2014.0000 [Accessed 29 Sep. 2020].

Chapter 12

Beyond the burial ground Reflecting on Indigenous representation in 1970s and 1980s American horror Lisa Ellen Williams

Introduction While discussions regarding horror and ‘otherness’ are common, explorations of Native American and Indigenous representation in American horror film are limited – despite haunted sacred burial grounds and Indigenous vengeance being iconic tropes in horror film. Horror films notoriously challenge societal levels of comfort by encouraging us to experience and confront our fears, prejudices, and anxieties. They can also inform our definitions of what is considered horrific as well as reinforce cultural myths and perpetuate folklore, practices which can lead to exploitation or appropriation, and damage efforts towards diversity and inclusivity. US films about Indigenous tribes seeking vengeance on colonisers became increasingly frequent near the end of the Carter era and during the Reagan administration. The Civil Rights and Women’s Movements helped heighten awareness of Indigenous rights, and throughout the 1970s, important legislation was passed to offer protections towards Indigenous people and land. The American political administrations of the 1980s, however, prompted a return to ‘traditional family values,’ and civil rights progress suffered a backlash from conservative groups that sought to reinforce the White, Christian, heterosexual, patriarchal family as the American standard.These cultural and religious shifts are reflected in popular films such as Prophecy (1979), Poltergeist II:The Other Side (1986), and Pet Sematary (1989). Even though these films acknowledge the disenfranchisement of Native Americans, at the time they subverted efforts to promote respect and protection for the Indigenous individuals depicted for entertainment value. Reflecting on these images and deconstructing their origins educates readers about the short- and long-term effects of cultural appropriation. This chapter encourages educators to read and apply Geneva Gay’s (2002) Culturally Responsive Teaching as a framework for using media to discuss controversial and challenging topics such as racism, environmental degradation, and violence. Gay (2002) defines culturally responsive teaching: as using the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively. It is based on DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-13

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the assumption that when academic knowledge and skills are situated within the lived experiences and frames of reference of students, they are more personally meaningful, have higher interest appeal, and are learned more easily and thoroughly. (2002, p. 106) Thus, approaching media literacy and pop culture with this framework requires educators to assess curriculum for gaps in content and create strategies for students to feel supported and confident in reflecting on and articulating their personal opinions and experiences.

‘Indians’ in/and American cinema Examining portrayals of heroes and villains in film is an effective way for educators to begin deconstructing systemic and cultural racism. The horror genre, in particular, has a history of heightening awareness of how institutions demonise and ‘other’ groups who fail to confirm, biologically or ideologically, to societally enforced norms. As the film industry grew, recorded images rapidly evolved from neutral shots of subjects to more politically inspired narratives. Depictions of Indigenous cultures were common in early cinema. As Neil Diamond and Catherine Bainbridge trace in Reel Injun (2009), Indigenous people were some of the first images captured on film by Thomas Edison, and they continued to be a consistent presence throughout silent cinema, intriguing audiences with ceremonies and dress. Discussions surrounding these images are controversial, as scholars argue about whether these images assisted in teaching about Indigenous cultures or began to place Indigenous people as objects, and thus, dehumanised and further ostracised them. As Diamond and Bainbridge’s (2009) documentary points out, however, after the Great Depression and World War II, the images of Indigenous people in cinema shifted. As Hollywood established itself as a lucrative and leading US (and international) industry, the narratives were focused primarily on war and westerns, promoting nationalism and instituting mediadriven mythologies about US history, and in turn, also asserting a patriarchal, White, heteronormative stance of ‘American.’ Though some of these films appear to side with and promote empathy for Indigenous tribes and cultures, negative stereotypes about Native Americans were undeniably perpetuated by western productions that depicted Indigenous people as a symbol of the past: primal, uncouth, and technologically inept. Reel Injun (2009) deconstructs these images, examining the origins and effects of cinematic representation on both native and non-native audiences. Diamond and Bainbridge (2009) chronologically break down the images such as the ‘savage injun,’ and ‘noble injun,’ in popular US films, noting how representation takes a drastic and derogatory shift when crafted by a White, non-native film industry. Creators and producers who lack personal and professional interest in protecting their subject matter and release historically inaccurate narratives has resulted in numerous issues: cultural and internalised racism, erasure of former and

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current Indigenous contributions and identities, and native and non-native spectators who identify solely with a White (often male) hero who eradicates an infiltrating ‘other.’ Joanna Hearne (2012) further addresses these concerns in her book Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western. Referring to Richard Slotkin’s work on western films, Hearne (2012) points out how Western genre narratives of American ‘regeneration through violence’ became ‘the structuring metaphor of the American experience’ (pp. 10–11). Slotkin’s vision of a narrative dependency on structures of opposition, based on regressive temporality, offers a compelling account of the Western’s ‘obsessive emphasis on violent masculine combat—especially vigilantism.’ Hearne (2012) continues, explaining how the Western expectations of American boyhood and masculinity from posture to wardrobe deludes American history to a hypermasculine performance and costume while encouraging viewers to identify and support the concept of colonialisation as necessary progress. This perspective, Hearne (2012) notes, neglects the complexities of race dynamics and conversations about inclusivity and representation in Hollywood: ‘Yet at times these films also offered a space for Native directors, actors, and consultants to influence or alter the dominant representations of Native peoples on screen’ (p. 8). As the fight for Native civil rights gained political momentum and mainstream attention in the 1960s and 1970s with the Red Power movement and the American Indian Movement, the cinematic images of Indigenous people in American film began to evolve and play a larger role in another genre – horror. Perhaps what is most notable about both horror and westerns are their ability to help audiences negotiate reality and confront trauma; additionally, while westerns are often touted as family friendly, westerns and horror films also educate audiences about violence, often justifying violence and aggression towards the ‘other’ as a necessary means of survival. In order for a hero narrative to be established and successful, a villain worthy of punishment must be created, dominated, and overthrown to fortify the hero – and the ideologies the hero represents and performs – as the standard. While much attention has been given to American westerns, war films, and dramas, there has been little more than an obligatory blurb about the impact of Indigenous images in horror film, particularly in terms of how it informs viewers’ perspectives on the past and of Indigenous people. When paired with historical context, these films can be effective – and engaging – strategies for teaching about media literacy and pop culture’s impact on racial ideologies and cultural racism. Tropes about Indian burial grounds are arguably more prominent and explored in greater depth in horror literature; however, considering horror film’s audiences often being teenagers who seek out these cinematic rites of passage, examining how to use these films as tools is essential not only for promoting media literacy but also to help future filmmakers learn how to advance these narratives and contribute provocative, innovative texts to the genre. As Hearne (2012) alludes, doing so is not meant to demonise or discredit these films and those who created them but rather to study how media representation and spectator identification impacts the individual and society both short- and long-term. Furthermore, several of these films are household names with infamy regarding myths surrounding their

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production, so their exclusion from Indigenous media studies is surprising, particularly due to the discussions they rouse regarding the American politics in the 1980s known for encouraging cinema that reflects Reagan-era ethics and policies. Though texts such as Reel Injun are pivotal tools in teaching about race in popular culture, the 1980s are glossed over and/or ignored, leaving a gap in context as the 1990s and 2000s are considering a revolutionary period in Indigenous cinema in the US. Bridging this gap helps identify what realisations and steps were necessary to prompt and maintain this revolution in cinema.

Creating monsters and establishing heroes Horror’s reputation as an illegitimate art form often lends it the power and ability to explore controversial issues ignored or deemed threatening by society. In the 1960s and 1970s, horror’s prominent themes centred on crises of faith, fears about birth and reproduction, the threat of female sexuality, and isolation in rural America. The Women’s and Civil Rights Movements also prompted horror films about racial injustice, otherness, and harmful effects of colonialisation. As a generation who grew up on westerns and stereotypical images of race and gender, the filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s sought to confront these images, and at times, were successful though many still promoted uninformed stereotypes about Indigenous people in the US. William Grefé’s Death Curse of Tartu (1966) and Leo Garen’s Hex (1973), also known as The Shrieking, stand out despite not being box office successes. Death Curse of Tartu addresses the impacts of colonialisation and the Anthropocene – narratives that carry into iconic 1980s American horror. Accordingly, Hex (1973) features female characters of native descent, raising the taboo topic of miscegenation and weaves in the genre of the American road movie. These two films indicate a shift in independent cinema and attitudes towards Indigenous cultures in the US, and they can be used to introduce colonialist ideology and postcolonial theory. Using lesser-known films to introduce such concepts is an effective strategy that allows viewers to recognise and reflect on their own assumptions about genre and American history without influence from outside sources about the film. Both films are examples of the independent and underground cinema developing at the time. With limited budgets and resources, filmmakers were forced to be resourceful, utilising the surrounding environments and people. Filmed in the swamps of the Florida Everglades, Death Curse of Tartu (1966) follows archaeologists as they explore for fossils but, instead, disturb an area cursed by an ancient ‘witch doctor’ who can transform into the Everglades’ dangerous wildlife. The film, directed by Florida’s most notorious ‘regional’ filmmaker, William Grefé, was strongly influenced by his fascination with John Ford, John Wayne, and mummy films (They Came from the Swamp, 2016). Unlike his beloved predecessors, however, Death Curse (1966) initially challenges the notion of hypermasculinity being equated with a heroic American identity, and the explorers are repeatedly punished by Tartu for entering the area and discrediting the locals. The film begins with an explorer and Billy, a local who guides outsiders to the Everglades and warns them

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of the spiritual dangers of the area. When an explorer scoffs at Billy’s insistence about the curse and his fear of the area, he asserts his heritage and experience: You forget. I am a Seminole…. Ever since I was a little boy, I have seen my people bring back the bodies of dead men who have invaded the sacred burial ground. I myself have heard the drums and the voices of ancient Indians that lie buried here. (Death Curse of Tartu, 1966) In typical B-film fashion, Tartu appears as a cartoonish monster when not taking the form of snakes and alligators, and the trope of the cursed Indian burial ground does not appear in horror much more until the 1980s.This can be attributed to the ongoing legislation being passed in the 1970s as a result of the Red Power movement and the fight for Indigenous people to have more control over their ethnic identity and the images shown of them, which is discussed in greater depth in the following section. From an underground film production perspective, Death Curse of Tartu (1966) and other low budget films being created in Southern Florida in the late 1960s are admirable feats considering the challenges of the southern climate, terrain, and wildlife. However, examining such films through an ecocritical lens provokes questions regarding the ethical uses of the environment, especially in respect to those Indigenous people inhabiting the area. While the filmmakers accurately located the Florida Everglades as home to the Seminoles, the Seminole character in the film is actually played by a non-Seminole due to the original cast member’s refusal to shave his chest (They Came from the Swamp, 2016). In All Our Nations: Native Struggles for Land and Life, Winona LaDuke (1999) presents a chronological historical account of the colonisation of the Everglades, documenting how As it turns out, all this ecological maneuvering, all this playing god (in the ‘development’ of the Everglades and all the subsequent managing that is then undertaken) has been a huge ecological mistake that, today, Congress, President Clinton, and a host of others are trying to unravel, in a twisted and complicated fashion. (p. 41) She continues to discuss the history of the Seminoles and how many were forced out to Oklahoma while a few hundred remained in the Everglades. Published in 1999, her work highlights the ongoing traumas as well as the continued strength of Indigenous people and the tumultuous results of having their stories told and commodified by non-Indigenous people. In the documentary They Came from the Swamp (2016), the creators of Death Curse of Tartu comment that the narrative and appearance of Tartu stemmed primarily from mummy films and their own personal dreams. As often occurs in entertainment, authenticity is not key; rather,

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popular culture since the 1960s has repeatedly returned to narratives that privilege both the abject and the uncanny as core signifiers of traumatic historical events, establishing in the process what Andreas Huyssen would term a popular ‘culture of memory’ that is unstable aporetic, and often very frightening indeed. (Blake, 2008, p. 3) In terms of US Indigenous representation and history, this ‘culture of memory’ dominantly created by White people reduces historical trauma to a mere frightening image that is an amalgamation of and result of their own previous exposures to the manipulated narrative(s), which can reduce histories and cultures to mere performance, myth, and folklore. Released less than a decade apart, Death Curse of Tartu (1966) and Hex (1973) share some common themes: Native revenge from White intrusion, relationships between Indigenous people and animals, mystical curses, and the amalgamation of genre styles and tropes that were informed from previous cinematic narratives. Set in 1919 Nebraska, 1973’s Hex takes a slightly more empathetic approach to its Indigenous representation but also conveys many of the Indigenous stereotypes typical in American cinema of the time; furthermore, the horror western features two female protagonists, a rarity for a film that blends multiple male-dominated genres. The narrative follows two sisters, Oriole and Acacia, whose father was an ‘Indian’ and mother was White. Orphaned after their parents died of illness and old age, the sisters remain on the land left to them by their father, whose descent is unclear. Acacia explains that ‘he come from far away from the shiny mountains beneath the plain,’ and he was ‘old and strong’ and ‘wore his hair long, and he knew everything there was to know’ (Hex, 1973). The two women embrace their upbringing and are independent and self-sufficient on their farm. Their way of life is disrupted, however, when a gang of bikers drives through the town, inviting themselves to stay with the women. Acacia is more accommodating than Oriole, who dresses in her father’s Native attire and remains sceptical of the group. After one of the men tries to rape Acacia, Oriole uses inherited mystic powers to kill him and control animals and nature to taunt the rest of the group. Hex (1973) raises a variety of questions about performance of race and gender as well as the history and expectations of gender dynamics and interracial relationships. Representation of Indigenous men in American film are far more prominent than images of women, and as Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Dina Gilio Whitaker (2016) describe in their essential book, All the Real Indians Died Off and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans, when Indigenous women are discussed or present, they are usually divided into two categories: Although the stereotypes have changed over time, they are nearly always monolithic, as if Native Americans are a racial or ethnic group. Centuries of British and US domination of Native nations produced the binary of the “Indian princess” and the “squaw,” which purports to describe both Native

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women’s bodies and their status. The counterparts for male Natives are the romanticized “warrior” and the degraded “savage”. (p. 137) The biracial women are not presented as princesses or squaws; instead, Oriole’s embracing of her father’s heritage masculinises her, and she fits into the ‘warrior’ and ‘savage’ stereotypes of Indigenous men. She wears his clothes and uses his weapons and powers, establishing her as a greater threat to the bikers and more mysterious (and dangerous) than her sister, who presents herself as much more feminine, innocent, and non-native than Oriole. The two sisters’ personalities and appearances combine their White mother’s and Indigenous father’s, which also rouses questions and discussions about US anti-miscegenation laws. Their parents’ interracial relationship was taboo in part because Nebraska had anti-miscegenation laws in place for almost a century; not until 1967 were anti-miscegenation laws eliminated by the US Supreme Court. Furthermore, Hex (1973) also addresses how rhetoric can directly inform and maintain social hierarchies and colonial attitudes. When the bikers learn of the women’s descent, each has a different term: indian, injun, redskin, etc., and the realisation of the women’s bloodline scares the bikers and intrigues them as they desire to assert their domination sexually and physically, refusing to leave the farm even after the attempted rapist is killed. ‘An injun ain’t white, that’s for sure,’ a biker declares, and their preconceived notions of injun dictate how they respond to the women throughout the film (Hex, 1973). Even though they fear Oriole’s mysticism, they also believe her not to be threat they cannot dominate despite demonstrations of her spiritual superiority.The women also confront inner conflicts about their responsibilities to their home; while Oriole opts to leave the farm with one of the two remaining bikers, Acacia chooses to remain on their land with a biker with whom she falls in love. The film’s perplexing – and unsatisfying – ending leaves many questions unanswered for viewers, which makes it ideal for discussions about expectations of genres, narratives, and the characters’ races and genders.

Building on the burial ground For a brief time, a sudden shift in Indigenous representation occurred as the US entered the 1980s. This can be attributed to the accomplishments of the Red Power movement and American Indian Movements who were heightening awareness towards discriminatory government policies and legislation that was repeatedly neglecting the rights of Indigenous people, often resulting in land disputes and relocation, unsafe living conditions due to pollution, and their continued dehumanisation. Indigenous activism was key in instituting numerous organisations and legislation to protect tribes, solidifying that tribes have agency and a voice regarding policies that impact them. One of the most significant acts of defiance and empowerment was the 18-month occupation of Alcatraz by a group of young Indigenous people, the Indians of All Tribes, demanding programmes such as the Center for Native American Studies, methods, and institutions for

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teaching historically accurate information about the cruelty of US colonialism, and an Indian ecology centre to address and reverse the ecological harm inflicted (Dunbar-Ortiz, 2014, p. 184). The American horror films of the late 1970s and early 1980s also address concerns about the government’s impact on American lives and land, and prominent themes during this time include warnings about the seduction of technology and ‘progress’ and continued discussions about man vs. nature. The hyperbolic tone of horror films, particularly ‘creature features’ and eco-terror horror films can be especially helpful in deconstructing and conversing about the unsettling and frightening realities of climate change. In ‘Ecological Grief and Anthropocene Horror,’ Timothy Clark (2020) examines the sense of loss that environmental devastation can cause not only to an ecosystem but also to an individual: ‘Ecological grief at the loss or destruction of a particular place is an emotion felt personally, as an affront to those who valued that place, creature or ecosystem: it has the sense of a personal assault’ (p. 65). In addition, Clark (2020) points out the sociopolitical implications of those most suffering from this grief: ‘Intense ecological grief and its attendant identity crises tend to be suffered by people who are the most vulnerable to environmental change for reasons of poverty, social status, or mode of livelihood’ (p. 62). Referring again to All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999), LaDuke calls attention to the consistent environmental tragedies that have been inflicted on native land, and throughout her work and activism, she highlights the environmental and humanitarian crises that continue to be enacted onto Indigenous people and land, declaring that ‘There is a direct relationship between the loss of cultural diversity and the loss of biodiversity’ (p. 1). A particularly effective text to use for a discussion about how class and race intersect with environmentalism is 1979’s Prophecy. Directed by John Frankenheimer, Prophecy (1979) not only directly confronts human rights and environmental crises through its narrative, but it also follows and advances the ‘creature feature’ subgenre of horror that viewers are acquainted with, providing a familiar foundation for discussion. Furthermore, shifting from lesser-known horror films to mainstream hits encourages reflection on what messages and ideologies about race, class, and environmentalism are presented to and consumed by a mass audience. Prophecy’s plot features violent animosity between a log mill and a Native American tribe, referred to as Opies (‘original people’) in the film, and when Dr. Robert Verne ventures from the city to rural Maine to record the ongoing feud between the tribe and mill, his new position at the Environmental Protection Agency becomes a nightmare. Dr. Verne practices in low-income and impoverished areas of the city and is well aware of the disasters that can occur due to systemic racism and classism and a capitalist, colonialist ideology. The tribe and mill blame each other for mysterious violent deaths occurring throughout the town, and it’s revealed that the mill contaminates the water with chemicals, specifically mercury, causing mutations and birth defects among the wildlife. Until this is revealed, the tribe blames the deaths on legend of Katahdin, an evil creature who the mill has perhaps awakened. Katahdin might not be a mythical being, but the disfigured bear-like creature does brutally retaliate against the humans. Though wildlife might not morph into a

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vengeful monster, chemical contamination is an ongoing issue in the US that impacts wildlife and humans. And those in vulnerable populations may be dismissed when pursuing assistance: ‘The law has not brought justice’ (Prophecy, 1979). Correspondingly, when discussing the Seminoles in the Florida Everglades, LaDuke (1999) describes how wildlife has been impacted by toxins and chemicals, noting that the declining Florida panther population was proven to have high mercury levels, making it difficult for them to reproduce and thrive. As the 1980s progressed, American political ideologies were shifting towards Christian conservatism and Reaganomics (Jeffords, 1994).This is reflected in many American films of the 1980s that reinforce White, patriarchal heteronormative notions of family and community. The suburbs became the typical setting for mainstream horror and action films, and the dissolution of the family unit via an outsider became the catalyst for many box-office releases. Normalising these concepts often included a White male authority figure who leads the family to safety, a method for equating the stereotypical hypermasculine attitude with American patriotism (Jeffords, 1994). In order to assert these notions as the status quo, the erasure of alternative voices must occur.Thus, as Indigenous activists were – and continue to – work towards decolonising linguistic and visual rhetoric. The mainstream horror of the 1980s often upended those efforts through narratives that feature the ‘Indian uncanny’ and question the responsibilities of and assert innocence of the current generation of White people. In the collection Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History, Colleen E. Boyd and Coll Thrush (2011) describe how the narratives about Native ghosts ‘perform a wide range of cultural and political work’: First, they express the moral anxieties and uncertainties provoked by dispossession of a place’s Indigenous inhabitants. Second, and almost paradoxically, Indian ghost stories harness very real Indigenous beliefs in the power and potency of the dead, and then cast those beliefs as irrational ‘superstition’ that must give way, like the believers themselves, to rational ‘progress.’ Third, and often ironically, Native hauntings disrupt dominant and official historical narratives as expressions of liminality that transcend fixed boundaries of time and space. (p. ix) Numerous 1980s films feature the Indian uncanny, The Ghost Dance (1982), Scalps (1983), Eyes of Fire (1983), The Dark Power (1985), Creepshow 2 (1987), and more; however, two of the most famous and popular are Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and Mary Lambert’s cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1989). These films illustrate the binaries continuously presented by media and government policies that hegemonise White patriarchal ideology even with the inclusion of Indigenous actors and narratives. Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) continues the story of Steve and Diane Freeling and their children, a White upper middleclass family who was living in the newly constructed Cuesta Verde suburbs until the

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ghosts of the burial grounds that the suburb was built on taunt the family and try to take their young daughter, Carol Anne. A year later, the Freelings have moved and yet again are tormented by a spirit trying to recruit Carol Anne.Their previous and current experiences lead them to the psychic Tangina Barrons, famously portrayed by the late Zelda Rubenstein. In Poltergeist II (1986), Tangina recommends her friend, Taylor, a Native American shaman, to help the Freelings rid themselves of the evil spirit, a preacher and leader of a nineteenth century cult.Taylor does not identify his Indigenous background, and Steve is overtly sceptical about Taylor’s presence and abilities. He stays in a tent that resembles a teepee outside the family’s house, paints their son’s face, and communicates with spirits. To defeat the demonic cult leader, Taylor takes a cynical Steve to the dessert to perform a ritual, giving the Freeland patriarch the ‘Power of the Smoke.’ The Indigenous stereotypes are rampant in Poltergeist II (1986), but what also stands out is Steve’s attitude towards the shaman. For Steve, Taylor’s presence is not only a disruption to their lives despite him being there to assist the family, but he is also a threat to his authority. He repeatedly mocks Taylor’s ways of living and speaking, but Taylor retorts: You understand me. No matter how much you like to feel sorry for yourself, you have to change that. I’m a warrior. A warrior would rather be defeated and die, than act against his nature. That is the path you have chosen to take, whether you know it or not. You should assume full responsibility…. Responsibility for everything. Everything in your world. (Poltergeist II, 1986) Though Taylor is the assumed hero of the story, his role is reduced to the stereotypes of classic Hollywood westerns, and the Freeling’s nightmare ends when Steve uses the powers transferred to him by Taylor, who requests the Freeling’s near demolished car as payment for his contributions to the family’s safety. Taylor leaves, and the Freelings are safe to resume their suburban lifestyle. Finally, Mary Lambert’s film adaptation of Pet Sematary (1989) is by far one of the most notorious cinematic narratives about ancient Indian burial grounds. Though Stephen King’s novel, along with additional works by him, offers greater depth to this trope, the film (and its sequel, Pet Sematary 2 [1992]) is particularly memorable and haunting due to its subject matter and its presentations of loss, mourning, and violence. Moreover, the absence of the images of Indigenous people also perpetuates the notion of Indigenous people as of the past and as spiritual forces that should not be disturbed without retribution. When the Creed family moves to Maine, they face numerous heartbreaking obstacles and losses that lead Louis, the father, to experiment with an ancient Mi’kmaq burial ground near their new home. Despite warnings from his new neighbour and confidant Jud, Louis buries the deceased family cat and even his deceased son Gage, in efforts to bring them back to life through the magic of the cemetery. However, the sacred ground revives the beings, but they return as evil, aggressive versions of themselves. In a discussion about Pet Sematary (1989), Colin Dickey (2016) comments on the inclusion of Indian burial grounds as a plot device:

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The narrative of the haunted Indian burial ground hides a certain anxiety about the land on which Americans—specifically white, middle-class Americans—live. Embedded deep in the idea of home ownership—the Holy Grail of American middle-class life—is the idea that we don’t, in fact, own the land we’ve just bought.Time and time again in those stories, perfectly average, innocent American families are confronted by ghosts who have persevered for centuries, who remain vengeful for the damage done. Facing these ghosts and expelling them, in any of these horror stories, becomes a means of re-fighting the Indian Wars of past centuries. (p. 45) The presence of these ghostly narratives about Indigenous history highlights conflicts about land ownership; more specifically, the crises of racial, ethnic, and gender identities due to the fictionalising and rehistoricising of American history to position White settlers and contemporary manifestations of White colonialist ideologies as innocent and necessary, even if difficult and/or traumatic, ‘progress.’ Returning to Hearne’s (2012) assertions about ‘violence through regeneration,’ Pet Sematary (1989) and the aforementioned horror films are excellent tools for initiating discussions about vigilantism being equated with American identity: Violence and vigilantism are subsumed within emotional melodramas of interracial domestic separation, maternal anguish, and child custody’, and a narrative’s focus on ‘the national past also encodes a national future, and the genre’s visual representation of kinship stages a drama of Native absence and presence that is crucial to this “backward-looking” future charter. (p. 11) Though she is primarily discussing the Western genre, horror embraces these ideas as well, presenting them, arguably, at greater hyperbole to both terrify and engage audiences.

Conclusion: beyond the burial ground Applying culturally responsive teaching strategies to media literacy activism and education is an effective way for educators and students to 1) reflect on how their own experiences and identities are informed by media, 2) recognise how media images and historical narratives influence how they perceive others, 3) deconstruct texts to identify how narratives are formed and who they’re created by, and 4) consider ways to revolutionise media so it becomes more inclusive and diverse. Perhaps what is most apparent in this chapter is the importance of encouraging images and narratives produced by the people they are about rather than through a White colonialist lens: ‘Indigenous filmmakers’ engagement with archival images, genre conventions, and industrial film practices can alter the frame through which viewers see “images of Indians,” actualising dynamic visual processes of political

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and genealogical recognition’ (Hearne, 2012, p. 3). By recognising ‘the burden of historical representation,’ filmmakers and viewers can recognise that films made for/by indigenous groups have the pedagogical potential to enhance students’ understanding of the inferential discipline of history, while providing a pedagogical portal to the histories and cultures of indigenous and marginalised groups that are often so invisible in the history curriculum. (Stoddard et al., 2014, 33) Indigenous filmmakers are seeing a revolution in cinema made by their own, and recent horror films such as Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) and Blood Quantum (2019) demonstrate the innovative and necessary contributions to pop culture and horror cinema. Encouraging an array of dynamic voices in cinema enrichens genre and entertainment, and more importantly, it is an important form of activism that helps eliminate racism and promotes social justice.

References Blake, L. (2008) The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Boyd, C. E. and Thrush, C. (2011) ‘Introduction: Bringing Ghosts to Ground,’ in Boyd, C.E. and Thrush, C. (eds.), Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. vii–xi. Clark, T. (2020) ‘Ecological Grief and Anthropocene Horror,’ American Imago 77(1), pp. 61–80. Death curse of tartu (1966) William Grefé [DVD]. UK: Arrow Video. Dickey, C. (2016) Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places. New York: Penguin. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. (2014) An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States. Boston: Beacon Press. Dunbar-Ortiz, R. and Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2016) “All the real Indians died off” and 20 Other Myths about Native Americans Boston: Beacon Press. Geneva, G. (2002) ‘Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching,’ Journal of Teacher Education 53(2), pp. 106–116. Available from: 10.1177/0022487102053002003 Hearne, J. (2012) Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western. Albany: State University of New York Press. Hex (1973) Leo Garen. [DVD] Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox. Jeffords, S. (1994) Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. LaDuke,W. (1999) All Our Nations: Native Struggles for Land and Life. Cambridge: Haymarket Books. Pet Sematary (1989) Mary Lambert [DVD]. Los Angeles: Paramount. Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) Brian Gibson [DVD]. Los Angeles: MGM. Prophecy (1979) John Frankenheier [DVD]. Los Angeles: Paramount. Reel Injun (2009) Neil Diamond and Catherine Bainbridge [DVD]. New York: Lorber Films.

194  Lisa Ellen Williams Stoddard, J., Marcus, A. and Hicks, D. (2014) ‘The Burden of Historical Representation:The Case of/for Indigenous Film,’ The History Teacher 48(1), pp. 9–36. Available from: https:// www.jstor.org/stable/43264376 They Came from the Swamp: The Films of William Grefé (2016) Daniel Griffith [DVD]. UK: Arrow Video.

Chapter 13

Gaming from the margins Indigenous representation, critical gaming, and pedagogy Wendi Sierra

Introduction Michael A. Sheyahshe, a Caddo author writing about Indigenous1 representation in comic books, reflects on his uncritical love of sidekicks as a child and the eagerness with which he sought them out: The realization that there are too few of these [Indigenous] heroes saddens me now more than it might have back then. Ignorance might not have been bliss, but it was a calming salve that kept me looking for the next identifiable Native hero. From the world of Marvel Comics, X-Force’s Warpath (aka James Proudstar) seemed larger than life.To me, Dani Moonstar seemed to exemplify the strength and beauty inherent in Native women. All the comic book evidence indicated to my little kid self that the Indigenous hero served as an integral part in saving the day. Take the most easily recognizable Indigenous hero,Tonto, for example. I know that the Lone Ranger would have never lived through so many adventures had Tonto not saved him at the last possible second so many times.These are the heroes of color that sparked the imagination of my young Indigenous mind. (Sheyahshe, 2013, p. 2) Conversely, Elizabeth LaPensée, an Anishinaabe and Métis game designer and scholar, recalls her disappointment at the flat, generic representation she found in Indigenous characters and games. This disappointment became a motivation for her own journey as a game designer: I grew up playing games like King’s Quest, Street Fighter, Turok, and many more. I was looking for characters to identify with and I was always hoping for something more than characters who were just “the keeper of their people” or the “protector of their people.” Who are their people? There were no Anishinaabeg or Métis characters, that’s for sure. I recognized that the games I wanted to play myself, I’d have to make myself, so I started on a journey to be able to help that happen. (LaPensée, 2015) DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-14

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Sheyahshe’s and LaPensée’s experiences with Indigenous representation in popular media highlight both the problems in contemporary representation of Indigenous peoples and the eagerness with which people look to see themselves in media. As their reflections anecdotally demonstrate, few Indigenous characters exist at all. Moreover, when these characters do appear, they are often generic amalgams that dilute or meld cultures beyond recognition. Indeed, at this point it is sadly blasé to note that ‘biased understandings of how contemporary Native Americans look, sound, and behave permeate U.S. society’ (Eason, Brady, and Fryberg, 2018, p. 71). Even Teen Vogue, in 2018, decried the lack of attention given to Indigenous issues. The article, bluntly titled ‘Invisibility is the Modern Form of Racism Against Native Americans,’ highlights both challenges faced by contemporary Indigenous youth and the lack of visibility in school curricula and in popular media. The article extolls its readers to educate themselves, providing links to Indigenous comedians, fashion designers, bloggers, and more (Nagle, 2018). In this way Teen Vogue shares a surprisingly rich picture of contemporary Native Americans with its readers. Even LaPensée’s reflection, which recognises video game heroes who were given some level of respect and veneration within their respective game worlds (as generic ‘protectors’ and ‘spiritual leaders’ found in nearly every fighting game series), is even a bit generous for gaming’s history (a history which is reflective of tropes and genres common in other popular media). In 1982, the pornographic gaming company Mystique released a now infamous game, Custer’s Revenge.This game is one of the first in video gaming’s history to depict Native American characters on screen (it is preceded by Indian Attack, a 1980 Taito arcade cabinet released only in Japan). In Custer’s Revenge, the player takes on the role of General Custer, the infamous American general killed at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The player’s objective is to reach a bound Native American woman on the opposite side of the screen, dodging incoming spears along the way, and rape her. Sadly, while LaPensée and Sheyahshe recall the protagonists they encountered in their youth, the unnamed Indigenous women of Custer’s Revenge are emblematic of a more common trend in Indigenous representation. Representation as heroes, even generic ones, is uncommon. More frequent is representation as NPCs with little agency, who exist as embodiments of problematic stereotypes. These traumatic representations are not limited to the early days of gaming’s history either. The Western genre in particular is rife with ill-defined, two-dimensional tropes. In 2005, the Association for American Indian Development called for a boycott of the game Gun: One of [the] earliest tasks that the game player must complete before advancing to the next level is to slaughter, not once, but on an ongoing basis, Apache Indians… not only slaughter (and this is the terminology used in the game) but to scalp (terminology also used in the game) them as well with a “scalping knife”. (Sinclair, 2008) These trends are all the more concerning given that for many Americans, media interactions are the only connection they have with Indigenous peoples and cultures.

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Despite this troubling history, it would be foolish to dismiss the engaging possibilities of gaming. As a medium combining visual aesthetics, aural soundscapes, player agency, and decision-making, gaming can be a powerful medium for Indigenous people to shape Indigenous knowledge, practice survivance, and (when appropriate) share their stories with a broad audience. Moreover, as a tool for critical pedagogy, games have the potential to give students experiential insight into cultures they may have little direct access to or awareness of. Critical pedagogy, which can be seen as the thoughtful exploration of systems, is ideal for tackling Indigenous representation in gaming. Such an approach involves looking not only at the game texts themselves but also the systems of power that surround them and contribute to their development. This chapter first explores the complicated issue of Native American representation in AAA2 video games. From a textual perspective, this includes not only the visual representations in games but also how mechanics belie world views. From an industry perspective, this includes considering both who makes games and who plays games. After setting a foundation for what the current state of Native American representation in major gaming titles is, I turn to briefly considering why games might be used as a useful tool in teaching for racial inclusion and how gaming fits into a critical pedagogy framework. Finally, having explored both the current state of mainstream gaming and how gaming nonetheless answers the call of critical pedagogy, this chapter advocates for a holistic approach to teaching about Indigenous representation in gaming. Such an approach is greatly streamlined when centring on Indigenously determined game design, a movement advocating for Indigenous people to develop games and speak their own truths. Many of these Indigenously determined games, designed by and for Indigenous communities, are examples of using popular media to enact survivance and resist the ongoing effects of colonisation. Games including Never Alone, When Rivers Were Trails, and Māori Pā Wars offer examples of Indigenous creators weaving their iconography, art, musical traditions, and values into a variety of different game genres. Thus, outside of mainstream gaming, Indigenous communities and developers are forging their own path in powerful ways. However, with appropriate contextualisation, AAA games can also be used to explore the problematics of contemporary Indigenous representation.

Longhouses, spirit guides, and can(n)on fodder: the troubling state of mass market gaming As the opening description of Custer’s Revenge might suggest, the history of Native American and Indigenous representation in gaming is problematic. The first thing that must be observed is the relative absence of Native American characters, positive or negative, in mainstream gaming. In a total census of characters released in one fiscal year, Williams et al. found a complete lack of playable Native American main characters and a paucity of secondary characters (2009, p. 815). Similarly, in a review of 20 years of top-selling games, Wisniewski found only 36 games with playable Native American main characters to study (2018). Giant Bomb, a games

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news and information website, maintains a wiki with a ‘Native American Games’ category. This wiki, which records primarily mass market games, lists a total of 89 titles in the entirety of gaming’s history in this category (Concept: Native American, 2020). Moreover, as a user-created wiki, this list is unevenly curated. The wiki mentions few Indigenously determined games (a concept explained further later in this chapter) but does include unreleased games like Limbo of the Lost and limited release games like Legend of Pocahontas, developed by a small company and only released in Europe. Thus, the total number of mass market games receiving major release with Native American characters is far below either that of other ethnicities or that of US census levels (and it is worth observing here that Native Americans are estimated to be the most undercounted group in the census) (National Indian Council on Aging, 2019). Nonetheless, it is worth briefly exploring the tropes that do appear when Indigenous peoples are present in media. Afterall, as Leavitt et al. note, relatively few Americans have consistent, daily encounters with Native Americans, making media tropes a key component of their understanding (Leavitt et al., 2015, p. 43). These tropes have been studied extensively in other media: comics (Sheyahshe, 2013), film (Rollins and O’Connor, 2003; Aleiss, 2005; Marubbio and Buffalohead, 2013), television (Tan, Fujioka, and Lucht, 1997), and even YouTube (Kopacz and Lawton, 2011). As game studies emerges as a field of scholarly inquiry, similar work has begun exploring the tropes found in gaming. While far more work has been done with regards to other minority groups, a growing body of work is documenting Indigenous characters. This section does not document all of these tropes, but instead summarises a few representative ones to demonstrate some of the issues with Indigenous representation. One of the most common tropes is that Indigenous peoples and cultures remain locked in a pre-Industrial time period. In Wisniewski’s study of Native American characters in games, he found that roughly half were in historical settings (2018). In this respect, games are certainly not unique; Leavitt et al. found 191 of the first 200 Google images and 199 of the first 200 Bing images when searching for Native American/American Indian were historical images (Leavitt et al., 2015, p. 43). Certainly, the influence of the Western genre plays some role here, with games like Call of Juarez and the Red Dead series depicting primarily NPCs set in the eighteenth and nineteenth century narratives of the American West. However, a number of other game genres also fall into this category: Real-time strategy games like Civilization 5 and Age of Empires 3 depict pre-Industrial tribes, and the action game Assassin’s Creed 3 features a Mohawk main character during the American Revolution. This focus on historic representations of Indigenous peoples is especially problematic given many contemporary Americans’ lack of knowledge about modern tribes and peoples; ‘this devalues the modern aspects of living cultures by presenting their past as the pinnacle of their existence, or in the case of contemporary games, suggesting that the cultures still strive for that historical ideal’ (Wisniewski, 2018, p. 29). Rather than seeing contemporary examples of Indigenous peoples lives, successes, and struggles, this trope presents pre-Industrial times as their cultural peak.

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Related to the locked in time trope is what Paul Jentz calls the ‘mystical Indian’ (2018, p. 151). Jentz notes that this fascination with Indigenous religions goes hand in hand with a mournful (but wholly unreflective) belief in their near extinction:‘Indian religions by some unexplained means remained “pure” and because of their fragile state must be recorded for posterity before being lost forever’ (2018, p. 167). In this trope, Indigenous peoples are seen to possess mystical spiritual powers. The 2006 action–adventure game Prey is emblematic of this trope. Set in contemporary times, Tommy lives in Oklahoma on a Cherokee reservation. After being kidnapped by aliens, Tommy discovers his spirit powers and his spirit guide (a hawk). He discovers these spirit powers during a vision, another common aspect of the ‘mystical Indian’ trope. Indeed, Wisniewski finds multiple examples, particularly from fighting games, including Mortal Kombat, Samurai Showdown Sen, and Tekken, for references to vision quests (2018, p. 65). Even when Indigenous characters are not depicted, elements of this trope can drive a game’s story. Naithan Lagace examines Until Dawn, a horror game whose primary monster is a Wendigo (Lagace, 2018).The main narrative of the game involves a group of teenagers spending the night in a cabin on Blackwood Mountain. In keeping with the horror genre, the teenagers are pursued throughout the night and the player must make choices in an attempt to keep them alive until dawn. It is only in easily overlooked notes and tapes scattered around the environment that players discover the origins of the Wendigo. Even then, the depiction of Wendigos is highly distorted from its Cree origin. Lagace highlights the problem with this decontextualisation: ‘when non-Indigenous game companies use images like “Wendigos” or mystical imagery, they omit important Indigenous cultural lessons that leave the player uninformed about how to relate to the images’ (2018, p. 51). If we understand gaming to be a valuable medium for teaching about representation and Indigenous representation to be an important issue, how then to deal with the problematic issues of commercially developed AAA games? One simple, direct answer is to not teach with games developed without consultation and input from the people being depicted. Belman and Flanagan posit that ‘Games are well-suited to [fostering empathy] because they allow players to inhabit the roles of other people in a uniquely immersive way’ (2010, p. 11). However, if the games we are exposed to are filled with bland amalgams and faux spiritualism, they will do little more than reinforce the limited and distorted picture of Indigenous peoples present across popular media. Indigenously determined games – games designed by and for Indigenous peoples – offer a more robust, contextualised, and respectful approach to teaching about representation via gaming. As Maize Longboat notes, there is no clear dividing line between what constitutes an Indigenously determined game and what does not. The essential question, which has no easy answer, is ultimately one about culture: ‘At what point does game design go from being inspired by Indigenous themes or cultures to truly reflecting the worldviews of the people that are being depicted or the developers that are working on the game’ (Longboat, 2019, p. 11)? As Prey demonstrates, having an Indigenous main character is certainly no guarantee that a game truly reflects the world views of an Indigenous culture. Prey is not a Cherokee story, and while Tommy’s ‘spirit powers’ are inspired by the mystical Indian trope, the game

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does not (and does not aspire to) depict a Cherokee world view. Certainly, games like When Rivers Were Trails, which involved the contributions of more than 30 Indigenous collaborators in everything from writing to interface design, would be considered an Indigenously determined game. But what of consultation? The Assassin’s Creed series is a set of alternate history games surrounding the fictional conflict between two factions, the Assassins and the Templars. Each faction uses a version of time travel to intervene at key points in history, with the goal of changing the course of human civilisation. Assassin’s Creed III takes place during the American Revolutionary War and features a Mohawk protagonist, Connor/ Ratonhnhaké:ton. Lead writer Corey May recalls that early in the development cycle, he saw some concept art featuring teepees (Newman, 2012). The Mohawk, whose lands stretched from present-day New York state north into Canada, lived in longhouses. A simple understanding of climate might suggest that a tribe living in upstate New York and Canada would not dwell in teepees but the misunderstanding has substantial cultural implications as well. The Mohawk are one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee, a word that means ‘People of the Longhouse.’The longhouse, a multi-family dwelling, is a central part of Haudenosaunee culture and society. Citing this and other issues of accuracy, Ubisoft Montreal reached out to the local Mohawk community and hired a cultural consultant (Thomas Deer) to advise them throughout the design process. Indeed, it seems like Deer was able to have substantial input on the game. Many reflect that the team had initially planned to make use of ceremonial masks in the game but based on Deer’s input decided it would be inappropriate for their project. Assassin’s Creed III also features a substantial amount of Mohawk language: Conner has a Mohawk name (Ratonhnhaké:ton), certain sequences in the game are in Mohawk with English subtitles, and the tribe is primarily referred to by its own name (Kanien’kehá:ka) rather than Mohawk (a name that, like many official tribal names, is offensive and derives from an insult). However, for all the care Ubisoft Montreal gave to ‘getting things right’ (and I by no means want to diminish this, already an impressive step forward compared to many games), Assassin’s Creed III is not a Mohawk story told by Mohawk people about a Mohawk world view. Indeed, as Lagace notes, Ratonhnhaké:ton’s lack of a father figure leaves him somewhat outside of his Kanien’kehá:ka community, and he frequently falls into the stereotype of the violent Indian warrior (2018, p. 56). While his lack of a father is impactful for story reasons, it also allows the studio to evade deeper questions of how Ratonhnhaké:ton’s actions throughout the game’s narrative might either connect or disenfranchise him from his Kanien’kehá:ka community. Thus, consultation alone is not sufficient for a game to be considered Indigenously determined. Longboat proposes world view as one possible test. A further consideration might include the quality and quantity of input consultants are able to give. In Assassin’s Creed III, Deer was brought in not to generate content but to review ideas already in place. In contrast, LaPensée and Emmons argue that ‘Indigenous collaborators should be involved from the very beginning of the game’s development, starting at the conceptual phase, should be given key and equal roles on the development team, and should be paid ethically for their work’ (2019, p. 78). One of the more widely recognised games featuring an Indigenous

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world view, Never Alone, demonstrates these principles. Never Alone is a puzzle platformer.The player initially takes on the role of Nuna, an Iñupiat young woman, but is joined by a fox spirit who helps her on her journey. Throughout the game the player switches between Nuna and the fox and must use the unique abilities of each to traverse the tundra. The story is adapted from traditional Iñupiat tales, including the story of Kunuuksaayuka, but modified to suit the game medium and to inspire a contemporary audience. While the game was not programmed by Iñupiat developers, the project included Iñupiat at all stages of design and creative decisionmaking. Indeed, the development company initially pushed for an adventure-style game and after being rebuffed by tribe members shifted their plan to be a puzzle platformer. More importantly, as Meloche observes, the game mechanics themselves present an extension of Iñupiat world view and philosophy. Meloche argues that the game mechanics demonstrate Aulatsigunnarniq, the Iñupiat philosophy of ‘the ability to change quickly for the continuance and well-being of all,’ while also ‘[undermining] colonial concepts of domination by reminding the player of their overlapping responsibilities to the characters, to community, and to the land’ (Meloche, 2017, p. 3). To succeed in the game, a player must learn to read the game environment and respond with it, instead of fighting against it. In short, when done with substantially engaged community members, Indigenously determined games are an act of survivance. Gerald Vizenor, contemporary originator of the term survivance, defines it as: an active sense of presence over absence, deracination, and oblivion; survivance is the continuance of stories, not a mere reaction, however pertinent. Survivance is greater than the right of a survivable name. Survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, detractions, obtrusions, the unbearable sentiments of tragedy, and the legacy of victimry. (2008, p. 1) As an orientation towards media representation, survivance is self-determination. Indigenous peoples telling Indigenous narratives, from folklore to contemporary stories, as affirmation. Indigenously determined games incorporate not only the ‘correct’ names and visual imagery but utilise game mechanics appropriate to the world view of the culture being portrayed. In Maize Longboat’s study of Indigenously determined games, he found that many of these creators appear to have little interest in creating games that uphold colonial projects like resource extraction, expansion into unsettled territory, and economic individualism. Instead, we see that many Indigenous games tend to explore themes of colonial resistance, family and kinship, and human to other-thanhuman relationships. (2019, p. 15) Kristin Arola reflects on hearing Indigenous women react to the idea of using presewn fringe at a regalia-making workshop she attended. After describing the

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time-consuming process to handmake fringe, one woman remarks that the fringe can be pre-bought and that once on it is impossible to tell from the outside whether the fringe was pre-made or not. However, despite joking about the ease and convenience of the pre-made fringe, she and the others consider using pre-made fringe ‘cheating.’ Arola uses this exchange to introduce American Indian epistemologies of creation as a thoughtful, reflective act: ‘making things the right way, of putting yourself into the objects you bring into the world so as to honor the relations that came before and will come after’ (Arola, 2017, p. 275). It is possible, or maybe even likely, given the average person’s lack of familiarity with Indigenous cultures, for the play experience of a game to ‘look right’ from the outside. Thus, identifying an Indigenously determined game means looking beyond just at the final product, which can be deceptive. Instead, one must consider the creation process as well. Ultimately, Indigenously determined games are those that are made the right way, with care and respect for elders, stakeholders, and communities, and with a thought towards those that will follow and how these games will impact, support, and uplift them.

From critical pedagogy to Red Pedagogy As the preceding section might suggest, absent some serious contextualisation, commercial games are doing little to offer new insights or provide meaningful, empathetic encounters with Indigenous cultures. This is not, however, to suggest that such a connection cannot be made via gaming. Isbister notes that while the educational value of games is often praised, the focus is often on ‘how games could reenergize education, without having a nuanced conversation about which games and why’ (Isbister, 2016, p. xvi). Like Belman and Flanagan (2010), Isbister’s answer to ‘why’ has to do with empathy and the emotional potential of games; she argues that ‘because players make their own choices and experience their consequences, game designers have unique power to evoke emotions… that typically cannot be accessed with other media’ (2016, pp. 40–41). However, if we are to realise these possibilities, particularly with regards to Indigenous peoples and cultures, it seems essential that games be firmly grounded within a critical pedagogy framework. I won’t spend an excessive amount of space defining critical pedagogy here, but it is worth pausing for a moment to consider two important questions: First, what does critical pedagogy ask of us as teachers? And second: How can a critical pedagogy framework provide guidance on addressing representation for Native American peoples and cultures in games? As an approach to teaching and learning with a 50-year history, there exists a number of different takes on critical pedagogy. Regardless of approach, however, it is worth observing that critical pedagogy refers both to a style of teaching and to a subject matter. As a style, Fobes and Kaufman note that critical pedagogy uses strategies and methods that may appear indistinguishable from forms of active learning pedagogy (2008). Critical pedagogy should eschew banking model activities and instead ‘[promote] a problem-posing dialogue’ and ‘[foster] ­ ­epistemological curiosity in both teachers and learners’ (Fobes and Kaufman, 2008,

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p. 26). Thus, in terms of activities, critical pedagogy should find space for students to explore, discuss, and discover, rather than passively receive. In addition to the care given to how teaching is done, critical pedagogy demands instructors consider the content of their teaching as it relates to larger power structures and the sociocultural context of materials. Ann S. Beck defines the teaching of critical literacy as an approach with a ‘focus on sociopolitical issues and promoting social justice’ (2005, p. 396). Regardless of discipline, critical pedagogy asks instructors to help illuminate the ideologies and power structures inherent in their subject matter. These are clearly and directly relevant to game studies and media representation. Thus, in this section and the following, I focus primarily as content with profound sociopolitical implications, to be situated in meaningful ways within a classroom setting. I do not focus on style of critical pedagogy, which would include a focus on specific classroom activities and methods. This is not to suggest that I do not firmly believe in the methods of critical pedagogy. Instead, I hope to follow Isbister’s injunction, putting more focus on which games to teach with and less focus on the mechanics of how to teach with games, which have been covered extensively elsewhere. Having answered what critical pedagogy asks of us, I turn to my second question: How can a critical pedagogy framework provide guidance on addressing representation for Native American peoples and cultures in games? This section and the following presume a reader who is teaching to predominantly nonIndigenous students. As Sandy Grande explores more fully in Red Pedagogy, there are both benefits and potential pitfalls in using a critical pedagogy framework within a primarily Indigenous context. Indeed, Grande argues that: the aims and imperatives of American Indian education not only illuminate the deep deficiencies of off-the-shelf brands of multiculturalism, which espouse the empty rhetoric of “respecting differences” and market synthetic pedagogies that reduce culture to the “celebration” of food, fad, and festivals, but also point to the relevance and necessity of critical pedagogies of Indigenous education’. (2015, p. 30) A Red pedagogy, Grande argues, ‘aims to construct a self-determined space for American Indian intellectualism’ (2015, p. 163), and we might understand by extension that a Red pedagogy of games would seek a similar goal, illuminating a self-determined pathway to critically aware and engaged game design. LaPensée and others (including myself) have written elsewhere about precisely this issue. As Beck suggests, critical pedagogy asks us to focus on the sociopolitical issues surrounding our content. I have already addressed some of the problems in how Indigenous peoples are represented in media, but it is similarly worth acknowledging that these negative representations have impacts that reach well beyond the small screen. Leavitt et al. use the idea of prototypes to explore the impact of Indigenous representation: ‘in the absence of direct in-person contact or other pertinent sources of information, media representations emerge as prototypes that establish

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the quality and quantity of characteristics people associate with different groups’ (2015, pp. 44–45). These prototypes shape the perceptions of people in-group and outsider. For group members, limited prototypes can hinder their perception and lead to self-stereotyping and deindividuation (Leavitt et al., 2015, p. 47).The uptake of negative prototypes by those outside the group can have profound negative impacts as well. As Eason, Brady, and Fryberg observe, biased understandings and beliefs about Indigenous people have serious consequences: ‘interactions with law enforcement are more likely to end in the use of deadly force for Native Americans than for any other racial group relative to population size’ (Eason, Brady, and Fryberg, 2018, p. 72). Eason, Brady, and Fryberg also explore how negative perceptions have led to troubles in formal education environments, and, conversely, how providing educators with instruction on Native cultures and curricula that respect Native ways of knowing leads to substantial educational gains for Native students (2018, p. 76).

A holistic approach to teaching Indigenous representation in gaming Using critical pedagogy as a lens to address representations of Indigenous peoples in games requires instructors to consider both how such content represents culture and also how their contextualisation of games can either contradict or reify common tropes about the status of contemporary Indigenous people. As one model of how to ethically teach about Indigenous cultures, Carol Cornelius, an Oneida scholar, offers a culture-based curriculum framework. Her framework, developed from an Indigenous perspective, provides a model for how to teach about cultures with respect and reciprocity (1999). Like Grande, Cornelius is highly critical of a contributions approach to culture, which involves instruction about ‘heroes, holidays, and discrete cultural elements’ and further objectifies unfamiliar cultures. Moreover, she argues that this contributions-focused approach ignores a recognition of how cultures evolve and contributes to a misperception of cultures as purely historical, rather than exploring the contemporary beliefs, values, and struggles. In its place, Cornelius proposes curricular models that include (1999, p. 44): 1. The world view expressed by a particular culture 2. The way the world video structures people’s way of life and enactment in the daily life of the culture 3. The interaction of cultures 4. The dynamic aspects of culture, selective adoption/adaptation, and continuity of world view 5. Cultural continuity to contemporary times The first two elements of Cornelius’ culture-based curriculum, the world view and enactment in daily life, are elements commonly covered in contemporary education, at least at a cursory level. However, the later three elements of her

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framework encourage learners to see cultures as dynamic, evolving, and contemporary.These elements are both lacking from most contemporary education about Indigenous peoples and crucial in dispelling the common misconception that Native American tribes and cultures are gone. Moreover, it is these last elements that help us move into a critical pedagogy space, as we move from considering Indigenous cultures as purely historical, towards looking at the contemporary status and issues faced by these peoples. Finally, if we are to move beyond a cursory overview and contributions-focused presentation of culture, we must situate even Indigenously determined games within their larger cultural context. With Cornelius’ framework for culture-based teaching and critical literacy/ pedagogy as a method, I propose a holistic approach to teaching about Indigenous representation in video games should thus strike a balance between the two key themes. First, such an approach should interrogate common tropes, giving at least a brief exploration to their origins and impact. Afterall, according to a Reclaiming Native Truth’s ‘Research Findings,’ only 34% of Americans feel Native Americans face a great deal of discrimination in this country, and 62% of Americans are unacquainted with any Native Americans (2018). Second, a holistic approach should centre Indigenous voices, in their criticisms of problematic games and in their design of games with self-representation. From this perspective, we can see that AAA games featuring Indigenous characters and Indigenously determined can be effective tools for teaching about representation. Both will require some level of support and contextualisation to be effective teaching tools, with the questions of how much and what kind depending on the games being used. Prioritising Indigenously determined games over AAA games typically foregrounds the first two elements of Cornelius’ framework. As Meloche demonstrates with regards to Never Alone and as Longboat observes about the various games in his study, Indigenously determined games frequently integrate world views and interactions as central mechanics. Working with AAA games requires substantially more work, as many of them do not represent a particular tribe’s world view or demonstrate how that world view is played out in daily life, values, and narratives. This, of course, does open the possibility for exploring precisely this lack (as discussed below). Regardless, as a stand-alone media artefact, games alone do not hit all aspects of Cornelius’ framework (nor should we expect them to, nor would any other single media artefact). Below I provide two examples of what a holistic approach might look like, one with an AAA game and one with an Indigenously determined game.

Age of Empires III Age of Empires III is a real-time strategy game first released in 2005 and recently remastered and released (2020) in a ‘Definitive Edition.’ Players take control of a civilisation. Over the course of a match, they must advance the civilisation through various technological ages to gain access to greater and greater military technology, uncover areas of a map by exploring to find and use natural resources, and eventually find and defeat any other civilisations on the map.These other civilisations may

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be either computer controlled or controlled by other players, depending on the game mode initially chosen. There is a campaign mode, where players must be a specific civilisation and are given story-related objectives to complete, and a freeplay mode, where players may pick any civilisation they like and defeat the enemy civilisations to win. The 2006 Warchiefs expansion brings a story focused on the fictional Nathaniel Black, half-Mohawk and his attempt to rally other Haudenosaunee tribes behind the colonists during the Revolutionary War. All civilisations in Age of Empires receive military units and buildings based on their respective cultures. For example, Russians receive Cossacks, while Ottomans access to Janissaries. For the Haudenosaunee faction, the original release contained a fire pit building, ringed with skulls, that the player could assign workers to dance around and provide an attack bonus to warriors. The public reception of the Warchiefs expansion was generally positive. However, many Indigenous players and scholars had substantial misgivings about the representation of Indigenous cultures in the expansion (the Haudenosaunee and the Sioux are foregrounded in the campaign mode but a number of tribes are depicted throughout). In particular, LaPensée explores how, despite incorporating Mohawk language and some appropriate visual design choices, the very mechanics of an RTS imply a colonialist drive that is simply not appropriate for the cultures being depicted. Indeed, as LaPensée (previously publishing under Dillon) observes, ‘the RTS genre in general needs new mechanics in order to properly design play that is relevant for simulating North American Indigenous peoples and their culture’ (Dillon, 2008, p. 142). Similarly, Anthony Brave, the cultural consultant for the 2020s Definitive Edition, discussed how the original version played into common media tropes about Native Americans: ‘it seems like if there is a Native character in a video game, that character must have animal powers’ (2020). The WarChiefs, then, does not meet any of the criteria for Cornelius’ culturebased framework. As LaPensée and Brave note, even for the Mohawk people, who are the primary focus of a narrative in the campaign mode, there is no insight into a Haudenosaunee world view. Like Assassin’s Creed III, Age of Empires uses a halfMohawk protagonist to at least partially sidestep engaging with the culture of the people being depicted. In the free-play mode, despite the use of Mohawk language and some appropriate imagery, the Haudenosaunee culture is basically unrecognisable amidst the colonialist drive of the mechanics. As a stand-alone text, this would be a fairly poor way to discuss Indigenous representation in gaming. This is not, however, to suggest that one can’t teach with The WarChiefs. Ironically, by so drastically missing the mark from a culture-based approach, The WarChiefs creates a number of openings for a critical pedagogy to explore what went wrong and what could be done differently.The game first begs the question, what is colonialism and how is it instantiated in game mechanics? Answering this question through critical analysis and the synthesis of gameplay and scholarly readings invite students to the realisation that game mechanics embodiments of world views that often go unnoticed during casual gameplay. A holistic approach to teaching with The WarChiefs might thus begin by exploring tropes of Pan-Indian cultures (the idea that there is one monolithic Indigenous culture of Turtle Island, rather than

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several culturally distinct groups) and tropes about savage/uncivilised Indians. The gameplay itself could be paired with readings about the Great Law of Peace and the Good Mind (important elements of the Haudenosaunee world view) and readings about colonialism. Finally, such a unit might conclude by looking at contemporary Haudenosaunee tribes and cultures.

When Rivers Were Trails When Rivers Were Trails, a 2D point and click adventure game, was designed as a response to games like Oregon Trail, games that ‘position Indigenous peoples only in relation to players who are not Indigenous and invoke interactions that focus on guiding the player and avoiding “misunderstandings” with Indigenous people so as not to be attacked by the violently’ (LaPensée and Emmons, 2019, p. 75). In When Rivers Were Trails, players take on the role of a displaced Anishinaabe heading from Minnesota to California in the 1890s. Along the way, players meet an expansive cast of Indigenous characters, each of whom has a different backstory and culturally appropriate language, beliefs, and interactions. Players make a variety of choices along the way; choices meant to symbolise their relationships both with other people and with the land and natural elements around them. Hunting, fishing, and trading are certainly included, but so is gifting. The game’s very focus is in portraying Indigenous world views, and so it easily meets the two criteria from Cornelius’ culture-based education framework. As an Anishinaabe character, the player learns about Anishinaabe world views and the choices given to the player help to demonstrate how this world view shapes actions and daily life. Moreover, because the game highlights not just the Anishinaabe, but also a variety of tribes with different languages and cultures the player meets along the way, the game integrates elements of Cornelius’ third and fourth criteria. These criteria highlight the dynamic nature of culture and include the interactions between cultures and the process of adoption/evolution of culture that results from such interaction. As players travel from Minnesota to California, they encounter a variety of people and are exposed to different cultures and languages. Thus, When Rivers Were Trails avoids the Pan Indian myth and instead productively explores both elements that unite the Indigenous peoples of Turtle Island (which are primarily related to the shared trauma of colonisation) and important cultural differences. Indeed, the only element of Cornelius’ framework that is not covered, at least to some extent, within the game is the final one, which asks us to consider how these cultures continue to exist in contemporary times. As discussed previously, the focus on historical representations of Indigenous cultures has resulted in the mistaken belief that these cultures are gone. Certainly, it is not the job of every game to do everything, and this is in no way a criticism of the game, which expertly weaves in a wealth of culture-based material. However, exploring this element in relationship to When Rivers Were Trails provides an opportunity both to rebuff the misconception that Indigenous peoples are now ‘extinct’ and to engage with the kind of sociopolitical issues that critical pedagogy implores us to consider. While Age of

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Empires III provides an opportunity to contextualise and explore colonialism in the context of gaming, When Rivers Were Trails invites us to consider the dual concepts of survivance and self-determination. Just as Age of Empires III can be used to set the stage for game mechanics as the embodiment of an ideology, When Rivers Were Trails can be used to explore game design itself as the enactment of ideology.

Conclusion In ‘Indigenizing Education with the Game When Rivers Were Trails,’ LaPensée and Emmons explore how students responded to the game either when it was used on its own alongside a traditional curriculum or as a part of the Lessons of Our Land curriculum, a standards-aligned adaptable curriculum developed by the Indian Land Tenure Foundation to share Indigenous perspectives on history and the environment (2019). Their pilot study found that while students retained broad themes regardless of whether the game was accompanied by a colonialist curriculum or by the Lessons of Our Land curriculum, students following the Lessons of Our Land curriculum retained more specific information about themes, tribes, and historical events (LaPensée and Emmons, 2019, 81). Their work suggests that the context with which games, even Indigenously determined games, are presented matters. While few games come with a pre-packaged curriculum, and such a curriculum may not be appropriate for all audiences anyway, Cornelius’ culture-based teaching framework provides a model for how to meaningfully contextualise media representations, including games, with additional materials that offer a richer picture of culture and world view. Contextualising games, whether AAA or Indigenously determined, against contemporary writings of Indigenous people counters the perception that we are gone, a misconception that is at the heart of many other tropes. I have attempted to cover a substantial amount of ground in this chapter, and I am deeply indebted to those who have written on this topic before me. As is customary to say at the end of the Oneida Kanehelatúksla’ (Thanksgiving Address), if I have left anything out, I hope you will fill it in.

Notes 1 Throughout this chapter, I primarily use Indigenous to refer to the original peoples of North America. However, as other authors use Indian or Native American, I reflect those terms when referring to their writing. 2 The term ‘AAA’ (triple A) is often used to refer to games created by major studios with large marketing budgets, large development staffs, and wide distribution platforms (and juxtaposed against ‘indie’ studios and developers).

References ‘Concept: Native American’ (2020) Giant Bomb. Available at https://www.giantbomb.com/ native-american/3015-1632/games/ (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020). Aleiss, A. (2005) Making the White Man’s Indian: Native Americans and Hollywood Movies. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Gaming from the margins  209 Arola, K. L. (2017) ‘Composing as Culturing: An American Indian Approach to Digital Ethics,’ in Mills, K. A., Stornaiuolo, A., Smith, A., and J. Z. Pandya (eds.), Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 275–284. Beck, A. S. (2005) ‘A Place for Critical Literacy,’ Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 48(5), pp. 392–400. Belman, J. and M. Flanagan (2010) ‘Designing Games to Foster Empathy,’ International Journal of Cognitive Technology 15(1), pp. 11–20. Brave, A. (2020) ‘An Interview with Age of Empires III: DE Consultant, Anthony Brave,’ Age of Empires.com 15 September. Available at https://www.ageofempires.com/news/ interview-anthony-brave/ (Accessed 1 Dec. 2020). Cornelius, C. (1999) Iroquois Corn in a Culture-Based Curriculum: A Framework for Respectfully Teaching about Cultures. Albany: SUNY Press. Dillon, B.A. (2008) ‘Signifying the West: Colonialist Design in Age of Empires III: The WarChiefs,’ Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture 2(1), pp. 129–144. Eason, A. E., Brady, L. M. and S. A. Fryberg (2018) ‘Reclaiming Representations & Interrupting the Cycle of Bias against Native Americans,’ Daedalus 147(2), pp. 70–81. Fobes, C. and Kaufman, P. (2008) ‘Critical Pedagogy in the Sociology Classroom: Challenges and Concerns,’ Teaching Sociology 36(1), pp. 26–33. Grande, S (2015) Red Pedagogy: Native American Social and Political Thought.Tenth Anniversary Edition. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Isbister, K. (2016) How Games Move Us: Emotion by Design. Cambridge: MIT Press. Jentz, P. (2018) Seven Myths of Native American History. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing. Kopacz M. and B. L. Lawton (2011) ‘The YouTube Indian: Portrayals of Native Americans on a Viral Video Site,’ New Media & Society 13(2), pp. 330–349. Lagace, N. (2018) Indigenous Representations and the Impacts of Video Games Media on Indigenous Identity. MA Thesis. University of Manitoba. LaPensée, E. (2015) ‘Making the Games You Want to See in the World,’ Ad Asta Comix 8 April. Available at https://adastracomix.com/tag/elizabeth-lapensee/ (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020). LaPensée, E. and Emmons, N. (2019) ‘Indigenizing Education with the Game When Rivers Were Trails,’ Amerikastudien 64, pp. 75–93 Leavitt, P.A., Covarrubias, R., Perez,Y., and S. A. Fryberg (2015) ‘Frozen in Time:The Impact of Native American Media Representations on Identity and Self-Understanding,’ Journal of Social Issues 71(1), pp. 39–53. Longboat, M. (2019) Terra Nova: Enacting Videogame Development through Indigenous-Led Creation. MA Thesis. Concordia University. Marubbio, M. E. and E. L. Buffalohead (eds.) (2013) Native Americans on Film: Conversations, Teaching, and Theory. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Meloche, K. (2017) ‘Playing the Digital Qargi: Iñupiat Gaming and Online Competition in Kisima Inŋitchuŋa,’ Transmotion 3(1), pp. 1–21. Nagle, R. (2018) ‘Invisibility is the Modern Form of Racism Against Native Americans,’ Teen Vogue 23 October. Available at https://www.teenvogue.com/story/racism-againstnative-americans (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020). National Indian Council on Aging. (2019) ‘2020 Census Especially Important for Tribes,’ NICoA.org 26 July. Available at https://www.nicoa.org/2020-census-especiallyimportant-for-tribes/ (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020) Newman, J. (2012) ‘Assassin’s Creed III’s Connor: How Ubisoft Avoided Stereotypes and Made a Real Character,’ Tech Times 5 Sept. Available at https://techland.time. com/2012/09/05/assassins-creed-iiis-connor-how-ubisoft-avoided-stereotypes-andmade-a-real-character/ (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020).

210  Wendi Sierra Reclaiming Native Truth. (2018) Research Findings: Compilation of All Research. Available at: https://rnt.firstnations.org/ (Accessed 1 Dec. 2020). Rollins, P. C. and J. E. O’Connor (eds.) (2003) Hollywood’s Indian: The Portrayal of the Native American in Film. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Sheyahshe, M. A. (2013) Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical Study. Jefferson: McFarland. Sinclair, B. (2008) ‘American Indian Group Boycotts Gun,’ Game Spot 18 Nov. Available at https://www.gamespot.com/articles/american-indian-group-boycotts-gun/11006143508/ (Accessed 23 Nov. 2020). Tan, A., Fujioka, Y., and N. Lucht (1997) ‘Native American Stereotypes, TV Portrayals, and Personal Contact,’ Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 74(2), pp. 265–284. Vizenor, G. (2008) ‘Aesthetics of Survivance: Literary Theory and Practice,’ in Vizenor, G. (ed.), Survivance: Narratives of Native Presence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp. 1–23. Williams, D., Martins, N., Consalvo, M. and J.D. Ivory (2009) ‘The Virtual Census: Representations of Gender, Race and Age in Video Games,’ New Media & Society 11(5), pp.815–834. Wisniewski, N. (2018) Playing with Culture: The Representation of Native Americans in Video Games. MA Thesis. Northern Arizona University.

Chapter 14

Questioning the drug war frame Teaching Mexico’s violence through documentary representations of race David Shames

Introduction In this chapter, I examine a selection of documentaries on drug-related violence in Mexico as classroom media. My approach addresses how documentary film shapes perception of race, and how this film genre can be used as a pedagogical tool to foster critical thinking about racialised depictions of Mexicans and Latin Americans in the media. I demonstrate how critical-pedagogy approaches to teaching documentary films on the ‘Drug War’ can help students develop the skills to question the racist stereotypes about Mexicans and Latin Americans that often warp coverage of these conflicts. Specifically, this chapter analyses four recent documentaries as class materials that can be used to cultivate a critical gaze towards depictions of race in documentary film: Cartel Land (2015), dir. Matthew Heineman (USA); The Business of Drugs (2020), dir. Jesse Sweet (USA); The Siege of Culiacán (2019), dir. Andrea Schmidt (USA); and El velador (2011), dir. Natalia Almada (Mexico). The descriptive accounts of student discussions I provide stem from my experiences teaching From NAFTA to The Wall: The Mexican Neoliberal Experience at Boston University during the 2019/2020 academic year. I argue that critical class discussions about the construction of documentary truth and the impact of racialised media frames on our understanding the drug war can help students become critical media consumers, capable of questioning how documentarians generate or deflect public awareness of underlying economic and social issues affecting marginalised Mexicans, Latin Americans, and people of colour residing in the US. By viewing, discussing, presenting, and writing about globally influential and problematic ‘Drug War’ documentaries alongside documentaries that foreground the everyday economic life amid drug-related violence, we become more aware of how media depictions shape our perceptions of nuanced issues of race and inequality surrounding the international drug trade.

Background on the US/Mexico drug trade Despite the decades-long war on drugs, little progress has been made to curtail the flow of narcotics across the US/Mexico border and to reduce the violence used to control drug routes. Since the attempted military crackdown on drug trafficking DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-15

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organizations (DTOs) began in 2006, over 300,000 Mexicans have become victims of homicide. Although Mexico’s homicide rate spiked after the state began to carry out a war on drugs, the state is yet to abandon the use of military force to combat cartels (Lee et al. 2019). While the US has deployed a range of policies related to the war on drugs dating back to the 1970s, the country remains one of the largest markets for narcotics in the world, with Mexican DTO sales totalling between $19 and $29 billion per year (Gale Global Issues 2019). Researchers have been calling for a shift in the way the US and Mexico approach the issue of drug trafficking. Scholars have demonstrated that the so-called ‘kingpin strategy’ of eliminating DTO leaders has been counterproductive, accounting for 31.5% of the spike in Mexico’s homicide rate between 2006 and 2010 (Lindo and Padilla-Romo 2018; Calderón et al. 2015). Ami C. Carpenter advocates multilateral negotiations between some DTOs, the Mexican state, and international bodies to work towards peacekeeping solutions (Carpenter 2013). Alfonso Reyes Garcés calls for an ‘integrated approach’ of combining law enforcement with harm reduction policies to address the social roots of drug violence (Reyes Garcés 2009). Apropos of these social roots, development economists Enamorado, et al. found that during the apex of Mexico’s drug war, every 1% uptick in the Gini coefficient generated a 36% increase in the homicide rate, suggesting suboptimal income differentials for employment opportunities offered by DTOs compared with other economic sectors (Enamorado, et al. 2016).These issues of public safety and inequality have been exacerbated by the militarisation of the drug war, as state resources are increasingly diverted to security forces whose activities escalate internal violence and decrease the Mexican state’s capacity to collect tax revenue (Flores-Macías 2018).

Race and the global drug war documentary gaze My approach to teaching drug war documentaries begins with helping students unpack how race impacts their knowledge and misconceptions of the narcotics trade and the US–Mexico relations. In addition to their lived and academic encounters with the drug war, I designed our coursework to unearth the racial dynamics and racist stereotypes that pervade popular media representations of cartels and state efforts to combat them. Following Ann Beck’s assertion that classrooms hold the potential to help students build ‘critical consciousness and participate in the transformation of their society,’ I structured a section of my course around drug war documentaries precisely because critical considerations of the genre lead us to question the depiction of race in a media format that is often thought of as a neutral source of information (Beck 2005, p. 393).Through the lens of race, we examined the manifold ways subtle visual and narrative devices in a documentary film shape our relationship to knowledge about drug-related violence. Such an approach allowed our class to interrogate the drug war as a strategy of racial management that displaces considerations of the rampant structural inequality within Mexico and along the US/Mexico border. It was my hope that critical engagement with mass media through the lens of race would help students better understand the persistent gap between the research on deescalating drug

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conflicts, and decriminalising and regulating the narcotics trade, on the one hand, and current policy on these matters on the other hand. Public opinion functions as an important incentive for government officials, and 2013 and 2014 surveys by Pew Research shed some light into the divergence between scholarly research and drug policy. Despite the drug war leading to an increased homicide rate, 85% of Mexicans supported the use of the military to combat DTOs (Pew Research Center 2013). In the US, the 2014 surveys found that large majorities of Americans favoured treatment-based approaches to drug consumption as opposed to incarceration, but little evidence exists that US citizens support deescalating anti-drug conflicts abroad (Pew Research Center 2014). Polling from 2018 on the US public’s foreign policy priorities did not even ask respondents whether the government should shift its strategy in the drug war, but national security and military superiority were viewed as the most important, with defending human rights ranking near the bottom (Pew Research Center 2018). Public opinion on social and political issues is shaped by a myriad of forces, and mass media plays a critical role by straddling the nexus of information and entertainment. Documentary film in particular is a media form which is an increasingly common part of consumers’ media diets to understand critical issues in global current events. This appetite for issue-driven documentaries has led to consideration of the impact of these films on public opinion. Nisbet and Aufderheide argue that documentaries are no longer thought of as merely interesting or entertaining, as these films ‘spark debate, mould public opinion, shape policy, and build activist networks’ (Nisbet and Aufderheide 2009, p. 450). Research in media studies on popular representations of Mexico’s drug war confirms this view. Mercille finds that the majority of US-produced media content on Mexico’s drug war reinforces negative stereotypes about Mexicans and the prevailing drug war paradigm with its emphasis on militarisation (Mercille 2014). Orsini argues long-form US television reporting on the drug trade in Mexico overwhelmingly deploys frames that prompt viewers to think about the security challenges presented by DTOs at the expense of other issues (Orsini 2017). Physical proximity to areas directly suffering from drug-related violence affects the tenor of coverage. Lower-circulation local papers generally feature ‘peace journalism’ while popular national outlets tend towards ‘war journalism’ ‘(Lacasse and Forster 2012). Picatto has emphasised the negative consequences of circulating exploitative imagery, as such a media climate functions as propaganda for the most violent DTOs and desensitises the public to violence (Picatto 2017). In light of this research, my goal in the classroom was to foster critical consciousness of how a selection of popular, award-winning, and critically acclaimed documentaries on the Mexican drug trade reinforce or critique the paradigmatic focus on the drug war as a fundamentally military issue through the framework of race. We analysed the narrative and visual tropes deployed across a range of documentary films to elucidate the ways filmmakers frame, highlight, deemphasise, and elide issues of race that are related to the drug trade. We also engaged with Bill Nichols’ identification of the privileged position of the documentarian to ‘[shape] the film into a way of understanding the historical

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world’ (Nichols 2017, p. 10).Yet, they also explored the manifold ways a documentary’s message is determined by its audience, following Michael Chanan’s assertion that an understanding of the documentary as act of ‘position-taking’ necessarily includes the diverse actors who use and interpret these films in different contexts (Chanan 2007, p. 27). As such, this seminar course – entitled Crossing Borders: Narratives of US/Mexico Relations and the Underground Economy – also intended to cultivate the class’s abilities to establish a critical transnational dialogue between Mexican filmmakers and their global counterparts. By studying documentaries from Mexico and the US, students shed light on the pluralistic approaches to addressing the drug trade and to understand how different racialised visions of drug violence are produced, interpreted, and shape public opinion. With each film, our class continually debated how these documentaries used depictions of race to foreground or elide the different social problems that undergird, perpetuate, or are epiphenomena of the violent political economy of the border. In the following section, I sketch out the general contour of our collective analysis of each film, focusing on the diverse ways filmmakers present or undermine reified racial categories that often map onto exclusionary binaries of and implicit ‘us’ and ‘them.’ I offer an account of how we critically upended these binary categories to highlight how they illuminate and reflect the political and economic exclusion attendant to the current political economy of the border regime.

Cartel Land (2015), dir. Matthew Heineman Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, Matthew Heineman’s Cartel Land promises spectators a glimpse into the dangerous area where the law has effectively ceased to exist on both sides of the US–Mexico border. The film invites viewers to ‘rubberneck’ at the collapsed state of law through the opening and final scenes which bracket the main plot. In each scene, anonymous and masked Mexicans cook methamphetamine in the moonlight. When asked about the illegal nature of their work, they tell the documentary crew that their labour is one of necessity, and that they would gladly do ‘clean’ work if only it was available. Thus, the film sets the stage for a juxtaposed portrayal of two individuals on either side of the border who organise efforts to impose order in a lawless world. In the Mexican state of Michoacán, Heineman’s crew follows the efforts of José Mireles to organise autodefensas, or self-defence militias, to combat the ruthless Knights’ Templar cartel. In a remote corner of Arizona, Heineman captures the activities of Tim Foley’s paramilitary militia known as Arizona Border Recon as members venture out into the desert to impede cartel lookouts. By oscillating between the two organisations and their leaders, the film overtly binds them through the putative necessity of taking the law into ones’ own hands in a time of crisis. By extension, the film purports to offer an unvarnished, if ugly, glimpse at the dirty nature of how private citizens attempt to restore the state of law. Tromp calls Heineman’s film ‘controversial’ in no small part because at its surface it appears to offer an apology – if a somewhat conflicted one – for the violent activities of the vigilante groups as actions fundamentally driven by genuine

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concern for safety and security (Tromp 2018, p. 225). Even when the film accounts for Mireles’ ethically dubious activities and for some of the more inflammatory views of the Arizona Border Recon members, the portrait of both groups is at least partially sympathetic. Individual failings of the members and leaders of the groups are presented as the tragic and inevitable outcome of citizens finding themselves forced to step into a legal vacuum. Yet in our class discussions, students deftly critiqued the way the film’s racial politics obscure the fundamental issues of drugrelated violence in Mexico. Early on, Foley admits that what first led him to Arizona was his difficult experiences with unemployment following the Great Recession. Foley attributes his lingering inability to find work to undocumented migrant labour allegedly pouring into the US through the border. In one of the film’s recurring defects, the filmmaker fails to offer context or outside opinion on this issue. The critical consciousness fostered through class discussions led our class to question this unchallenged analysis of migrant labour coming in through the border and putatively taking jobs from the native born by conducting research on the thorny issues of work, migration, and wages. We critiqued both Foley’s view and Heineman’s failure to contextualise this view by leaning on economic research from Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, especially a passage from their recent book in which they contend, unequivocally, that: There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives; nor are labor markets like fruit markets, and the laws of supply and demand do not apply. But the other reason immigration is so politically explosive is the idea that the numbers of would-be immigrants are overwhelming, that there is a flood of strangers, a horde of foreigners, a cacophony of alien languages and customs waiting to pour over our pristine monocultural borders.Yet…there is simply no evidence the hordes are waiting for a chance to descend on the shores of the United States. (Banerjee and Duflo 2019, p. 31) Later on, another Arizona Border Recon member echoes Foley’s deeply misguided view, justifying his activities by saying ‘You wouldn’t put two pit bulls in the same pen and expect them to get along and not fight. Why would you put two races in the same nation and expect them to get along?’ Not only does this racist view erase the millions of Latin Americans and their descendants living in the US and their equal claim of belonging, students found most troubling how this assertion was left unchallenged and without context by Heineman. Moreover, they discussed how this racist border imaginary serves to accentuate the ‘us’ and ‘them’ binary that primes viewers to uncritically accept the legal/illegal binary that provides the justification for Arizona Border Recon’s activities. By centring their analysis on the racist assumptions that permeate the paramilitary group’s views, students were able to critically consider some of the aspects of the film which are presented in a straightforward fashion but which upon scrutiny strain credulity. For one, Foley insists that he operates beyond the law because the law has abandoned southern Arizona. Yet in a scene when Arizona Border Recon apprehends

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individuals alleged to be DTO scouts, Foley places a quick phone call and turns over the detainees to Border Patrol. Despite the ways they imagine themselves as unsanctioned protectors of a nation, the working relationship between Arizona Border Recon and law enforcement undermines the legal/illegal binary that the racist border imaginary perpetuates. In Michoacán, a parallel dynamic plays out as the Mexican state begins to formally incorporate the autodefensas into the military. However, Heineman’s focus on Mireles’ seeming treatment of the autodefensas as a private army, his power struggle with another militia leader, and the very real corruption of the Mexican armed forces confers a halo of racialised inevitability to the corrupt practices viewers witness, naturalising these tendencies rather than examining them as contingent factors shaped by prevailing legal and economic regime. We concluded our discussions of Heineman’s films by unpacking how the documentarian leverages the truth-shaping aspects of the genre through sensationalistic access to the paramilitary organisations he depicts. Our class was able to turn the film’s exclusionary and racist ‘us’ and ‘them’ binaries into a critical tool to unmask the other shaky binaries on which the film’s portrayal of citizen justice rests, leading them to develop critical consciousness of the neglected issues of border political economy the film elides.

The Business of Drugs (2020), dir. Jesse Sweet In the 2020 Netflix series The Business of Drugs, Jesse Sweet trains the camera on Amaryllis Fox, a former CIA officer who explores the never-ending war on drugs. Fox guides viewers through a nuanced examination of the economics underpinning the drug trade with the explicit intention of helping viewers understand why the war on drugs is so violent, and so unwinnable. Interviewing poor coca farmers in Colombia and following the flow of cocaine across the border between Ciudad Juarez, Mexico and El Paso, Texas, Fox brings the complex economics of the cocaine supply chain out of the shadows. Her investigations lead her to the grim conclusion that absent transnational legalisation and regulation of the drug trade, the plague of violence will remain endemic, as multibillion dollar markets in the US can only be serviced by groups willing to hold territory within the crucial supply chain nodes of Mexico with force. Although Sweet and Fox provide significant context and alternative viewpoints to frame their explorations of the cocaine trade, reading the film through the lens of race helped us further unpack the political economy of the US/Mexico border, while linking the film’s humanising portrayal of ordinary and poor Latin Americans trapped in the drug trade to the US’s prison industrial complex, and its disproportionate effect on people of colour. Fox’s first interview is with an unnamed and masked man from Los Angeles, California, who discusses his routines as a streetlevel drug trafficker. After recounting how there are simply no other jobs available to him that would allow him to earn a comparable salary, he remarks that the same widespread poverty and lack of good jobs led his father down the same path and, ultimately, to incarceration. We discussed how Sweet’s decision to begin with an exploration of the socio-economic context of the retail distribution of drugs and then pivot to the circumstances facing impoverished coca farmers and smugglers

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in the Colombian highlands and in the port city of Buenaventura helped to pierce racist stereotypes about Black and Latinx people by highlighting the poverty and lack of alternative work each of these far-flung individuals faced. Our class critically examined how injurious views which impute a supposed predilection for criminality to Black and Brown people racialise a rigid binary of good and evil that is then mapped onto populations both in the US and in Latin America. This critical perspective on race facilitated class discussions of how, if we question these racial and ethical dichotomies in light of the economics of the drug trade, we might also develop an analogous critique of the rigid dichotomies of the political economy of the drug trade itself. Students pointed out how Sweet’s repeated shots of drug smuggling amid the normal flow of traffic between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso visually emphasise how it is the selective rigidity of the US/Mexico border, which provides a legal framework for voluminous trade and travel flows, that simultaneously makes the illegal drug trade both lucrative and capable of passing undetected.Thus, a critical perspective towards depictions of race in the drug trade help us overcome racism’s effects of obfuscating the economic circumstances of average individual participants in the drug trade (who earn very little). Examining the dichotomising effects of race assisted students in developing critical attitudes to the selective and reductive dichotomies of the current legal and border regime in between Mexico and the US, whose nominal prohibitions of the drug trade fuel the economic incentives of powerful transnational cartels. Such a perspective led our class to research surprising admissions by law enforcement agencies, including a 2016 Drug Enforcement Administration report that discloses that despite huge increases in so-called border security, ‘[t]he most common method employed by Mexican TCOs [Transnational Criminal Organizations] involves transporting drugs in vehicles through U.S. ports of entry’ (Drug Enforcement Administration 2016, p. 7). If prohibition makes drugs expensive and lucrative, and if the vast majority of narcotics enter the US concealed within the normal flows of people and trade despite expensive interdiction efforts, why, many students wondered, do the US and Mexico continue to pursue this failed border regime? Here we can see critical consciousness at play. Through our interrogations of the racist stereotypes about low-level participants in the drug trade, our class was able to understand how the rigid dichotomies of legitimate and illegitimate livelihoods paper over the desperate economic circumstances impoverished populations confront. As the rigidity of these dichotomies melted away, students were able to transfer this critical perspective to the task of examining the historically contingent nature of the paradoxical border arrangements that, post NAFTA, both make the drug trade lucrative and provide commercial flows heavy enough to allow DTOs to have steady access to US markets. In turn, this perspective allowed them to consider how racist attitudes inhibit consideration of alternative, more humane border regimes.

The Siege of Culiacán (2019), dir. Andrea Schmidt Andrea Schmidt’s The Siege of Culiacán is a short documentary episode of the extended series The Weekly, a long-form visual journalism format produced by The

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New York Times. Through a detailed dive into an archive of found footage from cell phones, on-the-ground media reporting, and investigative journalism, three reporters reconstruct the extraordinary events of 17 October 2019. On that day, Mexican special forces planned a raid to capture Ovidio Guzmán, son of the infamous former head of the Sinaloa cartel Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán. Although the operation at first seemed to lead to the quick apprehension of the suspect, the authorities were unable to execute the second phase of extraditing Ovidio Guzmán to the US for prosecution. Either due to prior knowledge of the raid from contacts in the security forces or due to the ability to mobilise their forces at a staggering clip, the Sinaloa cartel launched a counteroffensive to prevent Ovidio Guzmán’s extradition. Beyond merely attacking the government soldiers with weapons of war in bustling neighbourhoods of Culiacán and inflicting heavy casualties upon Mexican security forces, the Sinaloa cartel took the unprecedented steps of setting cars and trucks ablaze as flaming barricades to trap soldiers and citizens alike in the crosshairs of a firefight.The operation evolved into, as the title of the documentary short suggests, a de facto total war against the city. Cartel members freed prisoners from the local penitentiary and, in the coup de grace, invaded the local housing compound for military families and their children to hold them hostage. This final development prompted the Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s government to release Ovidio Guzmán so as to end the carnage, a move the administration claimed fulfilled the spirit of López Obrador’s campaign pledge to fight drug violence with ‘abrazos, no balazos’ (‘hugs, not gunshots’), but which shocked observers around the globe. Indeed, the reporters’ main conclusions are that the incident represented not just the degree of incompetence and corruption of the Mexican security apparatus, but a stunning capitulation to the forces of violence and terror. Classroom analysis of the film began with appreciation of how the documentary is primarily narrated by both reporters of colour speaking in English, reporters from Culiacán speaking in Spanish with English subtitles, and by everyday people who were caught in the crossfire that day. The film’s depictions of the racial and ethnic diversity of Mexicans, combined with the inclusion of commentary from people of Mexican and Latin American descent speaking in both English and Spanish, pushed back against the monolithic stereotypes about the putative violent tendencies of people living in areas afflicted by the drug wars. For several individuals, foregrounding the experiences of the ordinary Mexicans who suffered the trauma and horror of the assault was a critical piece of documentary filmmaking. Focusing on the victims, and the tragic eruption of indiscriminate violence within their daily lives, struck my class as an affective appeal capable of generating critical consciousness in the public that might disrupt prevailing racist discourses surrounding the drug trade. Yet, the lens of race also helped students grapple with some of the films’ more problematic elements by helping our class to challenge the idea that violence is normal for certain communities. Commenting on the unprecedented violence of 17 October 2019, one reporter claims early in the film that this event shocked residents of Culiacán even though these citizens are supposedly ‘accustomed to violence’ (4:45–4:50). Several students debated whether or not this statement

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seemed to naturalise violence in this Mexican city. Did the journalist seem to attribute violence to a deeply ingrained facet of Mexican society or character in a manner complicit with racist stereotypes about the ‘natural’ predisposition to violence of certain groups? Or was this statement a clumsy and sensationalistic attempt to account for extraordinary nature of this particular violence, despite the obvious truth that no one ever becomes accustomed to violence? However, through further collective analysis, our class was able to use the racialised natural/ unnatural binary implicit in this statement to question other dichotomies that emerge in the documentary. Although the documentary’s concluding segments stressed how the Sinaloa cartel’s successful operation to prevent Ovidio Guzmán’s extradition to the US raised questions about the capacity of the Mexican state, our class began to scrutinise the putative naturalisation of this arrangement. If cartel violence represents a threat to the Mexican state’s sovereignty, in what sense does a transnational legal arrangement whereby suspected criminal bosses are extradited to a foreign country build up the domestic state of law? Following this line of inquiry, students explored the political and cultural theory of the Mexican critic Sayak Valencia, who traces the roots of Mexico’s violence back to the 1980s, when Mexico’s near default on its sovereign led to a novel agreement with the US and international financial institutions to implement neoliberal market reforms. According to Valencia, the result has been the rise of ‘ultraviolent forms of capital accumulation’ that fill the void of a nation state hollowed out by transnational policies that have eroded its legitimacy and capability in favour of market supremacy (Valencia 2018, p. 20). By questioning and denaturalising the racial overtones of the reporter’s description of the relationship of Culiacán residents to violence, students were able to train their gazes upon the contingent historical roots that have led to the effective collapse of Mexican state sovereignty in Sinaloa.

El velador (2011), dir. Natalia Almada 1 The opulent mausoleums coveted by deceased narcos in Sinaloa’s Jardines de Humaya are the principal focus of Natalia Almada’s 2011 documentary film El velador. Almada’s film depicts the quotidian events at the cemetery by following its night watchman and caretaker on some of his rounds. Although there is little dialogue, and even less of a discernible plot, El velador nonetheless presents an incisive and deeply lyrical critique of the narcoeconomy in Culiacán and its tragic human costs. Unlike many treatments of the concomitant violence of the drug war, Almada does not capture or exploit a single drop of blood with her lens. Instead, the escalation of conflicts between the drug trafficking organisations and state security forces is relegated to interspersed commentary emanating from radios and televisions. For viewers unfamiliar with the cemetery, the first indication of the context in which these lavish tombs have been constructed occurs ten minutes into the film, when the camera captures a TV news segment describing how newly elected President Felipe Calderón has decided to militarise the campaign against violent drug traffickers. Ten minutes later, the spectator gets a glimpse of a newspaper article about the proliferation of guns in Sinaloa. News reports on the

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local banking issue such as a shortage of debit cards, the registering of 1,100 homicides in a single month, and US diplomats calling for greater attention to be paid to Mexico are peppered throughout the film and disrupt the elegiac montages. The reliance on spliced-in reportage to narrate the violent vicissitudes of the drug war culminates at the end of the film in a radio report describing how the notorious cartel leader Alfredo Beltrán Leyva had been killed in a shootout with security forces. In a scene suffused with literal gallows humour, the cemetery labourers talk about how this death portends a potential boom in their workload. The glaring absence of violence depicted on the screen in this film imbues it with much of its critical power, calling attention to the dynamics of capital accumulation which, for R. Andrés Guzmán, are the ‘absent cause’ of the violence reported in the news and the construction boom at the cemetery (Guzmán 2017, p. 112). In addition to Almada’s film, we engaged with Guzmán’s insightful reading of how Almada develops a critique of ‘a certain economy of the cemetery’ in which ‘the construction and maintenance of mausoleums are inserted into national and international circuits of capital’ (Guzmán 2017, p. 114; 115). Guzmán interprets Almada’s final sequences as a bleak reminder that ‘the cycle of accumulation-death-accumulation will continue’ for the foreseeable future (Guzmán 2017, p. 123). By examining the film through the lens of race, our class pushed this reading further by focusing on the subtle ways in which El velador’s depiction of race unmasks the exploitative economic circumstances underlying the architecture of the Jardines de Humaya cemetery. The film pushes back against racist stereotypes about Mexicans and Sinaloenses by foregrounding the quotidian experiences of a night watchman and construction labourers within the cemetery. Many felt that by showing how narco capital fuels activity for even the most impoverished labourers in the service sector, Almada offers a view from the margins of how the narco economy begins to cannibalise other spheres of production. Other students highlighted how Almada disrupts the Black and White, dichotomous models of the drug war documentary they had previously viewed by displacing the focusing from the narco traffickers themselves, and humanising the everyday working poor navigating the narco economy. Having developed critical consciousness about the ways in which racism can fog the lens needed to examine economic relationships, students were able to pinpoint the film’s subtlest juxtapositions of poverty and the promises of a consumer utopia that forms the economic backdrop to the drug war. Just after the radio broadcast in which a US diplomat decries the lack of attention being paid to Mexico’s ‘Drug War,’ the camera cuts to a television broadcasting an advertisement for luxurious mattresses. This detail seems innocuous, but in a previous scene the spectator witnesses how Martín, the watchman, prepares to go to sleep by placing a piece of plywood on cinderblocks. Martín’s lack of a mattress becomes, after the advertisement, a reminder of how while the economy of the cemetery does provide jobs, conspicuous consumption is imagined by many in Culiacán to be only achievable through practices of violence at the service of the cartels. We also discussed how Almada’s film transcends racial stereotypes by blurring the boundaries between images of the cemetery as a site of construction and economic activity and as a site of squalor. Indeed, the first sequence of the

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cemetery’s skyline is a jarring shot of an ornate, domed mausoleum rising up next to another which is in an ambiguous condition. It is not clear whether this second structure is in the process of being built or in a state of abject dilapidation. Although the film goes on to depict unambiguous scenes of construction so as to train the spectator’s gaze on the labour which occurs within this city, its semiotics continually play with the distinction between prosperity and squalor in extended sequences of the outskirts of the cemetery, accumulating piles of trash, the threadbare clothing worn by the workers, Martín’s shanty living quarters, and deliberately confusing shots of mausoleums that are either half built or falling down.Thus, the film’s visual language invites the spectator to rethink how labour and even the human emotion of grief become implicated in the violent economic impetus that impels the economy of the cemetery forward. Our class zeroed in on the nuances and blurry borders with which Almada depicts the Jardines de Humaya as a site where the state and cartel violence meet the everyday economic needs of citizens struggling with poverty. Rejecting the (sometimes ambivalent) glorification of the narcos as outlaws, and the racist stereotypes about Mexicans perpetuated by media representations of drug traffickers, Almada emphasises how in Sinaloa, where ‘Narco GDP hovers around 20% of total output, ordinary peoples’ livelihoods often depend on activities that are deeply intertwined with the narcoeconomy (Ibarra Escobar 2015, p. 315). Students concluded our exploration of the film by focusing on how the impoverished construction labourers who build opulent mausoleums for fallen cartel members highlight the cruel absurdities of Sinaloa’s economic and housing situation. By once again delving into the social and economic research beyond the stereotypes, they discovered that Culiacán is a place where job opportunities are scarce, and these lavish and vacant tombs stand in stark contrast to the region’s broader housing crisis. Government figures indicate Sinaloa has a housing shortage of over 60,000 units, while an additional 140,000 units are overcrowded or in a state of disrepair (Sinaloa Secretaría de Desarrollo Sustentable n.d.). Yet Almada’s subtle and moving portrayal of common working people and the grief of the victims’ loved ones convinced many students that documentary film can also be a tool to overcome the racist stereotypes which pollute and perpetuate drug war discourse and might contribute to addressing issues of economic inequality. Ultimately, my class overall agreed that the documentary genre holds the potential to highlight the everyday circumstances of those most affected by the tragedies of our current drug war paradigm and border regime, perhaps shifting perspectives and contributing to policy changes that could transform our society.

Conclusions Each of the documentaries my students studied was examined through the lens of race as a critical construct for uncovering the visual and discursive practices that attribute drug violence to racial groups in the US and Mexico, while simultaneously obscuring the rigid binaries that structure actual failed drug policy. Through a rigorous critique of the racialised portrayal of vigilante groups in Cartel Land, our

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class was able to dismantle the racist narratives that underlie attitudes towards migrants and the paradigms of border and national security. By examining how so-called vigilante groups in the US collaborate with the Border Patrol, and how the autodefensas were folded into the Mexican military, students were able to question the constructedness of the parameters of legality and illegality surrounding issues of migration to the US. Linking the urgency of criminal justice reform due to endemic racial biases in the US with the economic desperation of ordinary Latin Americans trapped in the drug trade, we examined The Business of Drugs through the framework of race to critique the counterproductive effects of the transnational prohibition on the drug trade in the context of free trade agreements, which both make narcotics extremely lucrative and quite easy to smuggle into the world’s dearest markets for such substances. Our discussion of The Siege of Culiacán afforded our class the opportunity to denaturalise the violence in Sinaloa as an innate feature of life by critically considering how race might facilitate such narratives. This perspective allowed them, in turn, to denaturalise the question of Mexico’s eroded state capacity by studying the political and historical trajectory that resulted in Mexico’s current sovereignty crisis. Finally, by studying El velador through the lens of race, students analysed how Natalia Almada’s portrayal of the ordinary economic activities of poor and working Mexicans have become inextricable from the violent political economy that has subsumed many sectors of the Mexican economy. By focusing their gazes on Almada’s treatment of class and labour in the film, our class developed critical consciousness of how racialised discourses obscure the overlapping economic and political crises in places like Sinaloa, and imagined alternative polices to attend to the roots of economic precariousness and violence. Ultimately, my classroom experiences demonstrate how drug war documentaries deploy a diverse set of aesthetic approaches to construct truth and take positions about the drug trade. Many of these films contained elements that offer a unique window to spectators who may not understand the everyday ramifications and economic forces that shape the lives of ordinary people ensnared in the drug trades. The humanity and complexity of their lives are rarely depicted in other forms of international media outside of the dispassionate format of statistics. This profile stands in stark contrast to the sensationalistic coverage afforded to the most powerful and violent actors in the drug trade, much of which generates racist generalisations about the groups to which they belong. However, the potential of documentary film to cultivate critical consciousness of the lived experience of the economic, political, and bodily violence attendant to the drug trade runs the risk of being attenuated due to racist discourses that often emerge in documentary film themselves.This is especially risky prospect given that documentary film is an increasingly popular explanatory and informational format for obtaining knowledge about an issue and given that the documentary genre’s truth claims are often so visceral.Yet my classroom experience shows the importance of teaching critical literacies specific to the documentary genre. By deeply engaging with the content and aesthetics of these films, students learned how to use these media as an informative tool, while also learning how to decentre and question the

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documentarian’s own position and turn towards other sources to question the assumptions underlying a given position.

Note 1 This section contains material that I have revised and reworked from my doctoral dissertation, ‘History Reborn: Neoliberalism, Utopia, and Mexico’s Student Movements in the work of Roberto Bolaño, Eduardo Ruiz Sosa, and Alonso Ruizpalacios’ (2020).

References ‘Mexico’s Drug Wars’ (2019) Gale Global Issues Online Collection. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale. http://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CP3208520348/GIC?u=mlin_b_bumml&sid= zotero&xid=6ae2b878 (Accessed: 21 Mar. 2020). Almada, Natalia. (2011) El velador. Mexico: Altamura Films, Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, Charles Schultz, Chicken and Egg Pictures, Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Jan Vrijman Fund, Latino Public Broadcasting, Les Films d’Ici, P.O.V./American Documentary, Région Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, Sundance Institute Documentary Fund, Tita Productions, Icarus Films. America’s New Drug Policy Landscape. (2014) Pew Research Center. Available from: https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/americas-new-drug-policy-landscape/ Banerjee, A.V. and Duflo, E. (2019) Good Economics for Hard Times. New York: Public Affairs. Beck, A. S. (2005) ‘A Place for Critical Literacy,’ Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 48(5), pp. 392–400. Available from: doi: 10.1598/JAAL.48.5.3. Calderón, G. et al. (2015) ‘The Beheading of Criminal Organizations and the Dynamics of Violence in Mexico,’ The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 59(8): pp. 1455–1485. Carpenter, A. C. (2013) ‘Changing Lenses: Conflict Analysis and Mexico’s “Drug War”,’ Latin American Politics and Society 55(3): pp. 139–160. Chanan, M. (2007) The Politics of Documentary. London: British Film Institute. Conflicting Partisan Priorities for U.S. Foreign Policy. (2018) Pew Research Center. Available from: https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/29/conflicting-partisanpriorities-for-u-s-foreign-policy/ Enamorado, T. et al. (2016) ‘Income Inequality and Violent Crime: Evidence from Mexico’s Drug War,’ Journal of Development Economics 120: pp. 128–143. Available from: doi: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2015.12.004. Flores-Macías, G. (2018) ‘The Consequences of Militarizing Anti-Drug Efforts for State Capacity in Latin America: Evidence from Mexico,’ Comparative Politics 51(1): pp. 1–20. Available from: doi: info:doi/10.5129/001041518824414647. Guzmán, R. A. (2017) ‘Natalia Almada’s El Velador and the Violence of Narco-Capitalism,’ Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 26(1): pp. 109–129. Available from: doi: 10.1080/13569325.2016.1272444. Heineman, Matthew. (2015) Cartel Land. USA: A&E IndieFilms, Our Time Projects, The Documentary Group, Whitewater Films. Ibarra Escobar, G. (2015) Culiacán, ciudad del miedo: urbanización, economía, violencia. Sinaloa: Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa. Lacasse, K. and Forster, L. (2012) ‘The War Next dDoor: Peace Journalism in US Local and Distant Newspapers’ Coverage of Mexico,’ Media, War & Conflict 5(3): pp. 223–237. Available from: doi: 10.1177/1750635212447907.

224  David Shames Lee, B., Renwick, D. and Cara Labrador, R. (2019) Mexico’s Drug War, Council on Foreign Relations. Available from: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/mexicos-drug-war (Accessed: 21 Mar. 2020). Lindo, J. M. and Padilla-Romo, M. (2018) ‘Kingpin Approaches to Fighting Crime and Community Violence: Evidence from Mexico’s Drug War,’ Journal of Health Economics, 58: pp. 253–268. Available from: doi: 10.1016/j.jhealeco.2018.02.002. Mercille, J. (2014) ‘The Media-Entertainment Industry and the “War on Drugs” in Mexico,’ Latin American Perspectives, 41(2): pp. 110–129. Available from: doi: 10.1177/ 0094582X13509790. National Drug Threat Assessment Summary. (2016) United States Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration. http://defenseassistance.org/primarydocs/161206_ dea_ndta.pdf Nichols, B. (2017) ‘How Can We Define Documentary Film?,’ in Introduction to Documentary. 3rd edn. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, pp. 1–28. Available from: doi: 10.2307/j. ctt2005t6j.5. Nisbet, M. C. and Aufderheide, P. (2009) ‘Documentary Film: Towards a Research Agenda on Forms, Functions, and Impacts,’ Mass Communication and Society 12(4): pp. 450–456. doi: 10.1080/15205430903276863. Orsini, M. M. (2017) ‘Frame Analysis of Drug Narratives in Network News Coverage,’ Contemporary Drug Problems 44(3): pp. 189–211. Available from: doi: 10.1177/ 0091450917722817. Piccato, P. (2017) ‘Messages in Blood: A History of Crime News in Mexico,’ NACLA Report on the Americas 49 (3), pp. 373–376. Available from: doi: 10.1080/10714839.2017.1373972. Reyes Garcés, A. (2009) ‘Winning the War on Drugs in Mexico? Toward an Integrated Approach to the Illegal Drug Trade.’ Naval Postraduate School. Available from: http://hdl. handle.net/10945/10416. Schmidt, Andrea. (2019) ‘The Siege of Culiacán,’ The Weekly. USA: The New York Times, Left/Right. Secretaría de Desarrollo Sustentable. ‘Vivienda Para El Estado De Sinaloa.’ Vivienda Para El Estado De Sinaloa, Gobierno De Estado De Sinaloa. Available from: http://sedesu.sinaloa. gob.mx/p/vivienda-para-el-estado-de-sinaloa. Sweet, Jesse. (2020) ‘Cocaine.’ The Business of Drugs. USA: Netflix. Tromp, R. E. (2018) ‘What Is Mexico? Portraying the War on Drugs in Documentary Film,’ European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies/Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe. Edited by M. Heineman, B. Ruiz, and E. González, (106), pp. 219–228. U.S. Image Rebounds in Mexico (2013) Pew Research Center, Available from: https:// www.pewresearch.org/global/2013/04/29/u-s-image-rebounds-in-mexico/. Valencia Triana, M. (2018) Gore Capitalism. Translated by J. Pluecker. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chapter 15

‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory on the side Kristen Lillvis and Ivy Scoville

This chapter seeks to answer the question of how popular culture can serve as an impetus for students’ understanding of theory, in particular intersectional ideas of race, gender, class, sexuality, and more. The two authors – an English professor and an undergraduate English and Anthropology student at a public research university (Marshall University) in Appalachia in the United States – propose that educators allow students to advance their understanding of literary theory by composing explications of popular culture texts. Drawing on their work in an Introduction to Critical Theory course, the authors offer distinct but related narratives: The professor’s suggestions for scaffolding pop culture focused on activities and assignments and the student’s intersectional feminist critique of a pop culture text. Through these two essays, they seek to demonstrate that allowing students to apply theory to pop culture texts fosters a positive environment in which students can better achieve course learning outcomes, including the application and development of critical theory concepts.

Teaching critical theory through pop culture: an educator’s perspective Teaching a critical theory course requires a broad knowledge of theoretical concepts and the ability to convey connections between different schools of thought. In my Introduction to Critical Theory class, a required course English majors take after passing Introduction to Textual Analysis, students practice their newly honed close reading skills by working to understand key concepts and discover patterns in critical race, postcolonial, feminist, queer, and other theories. Citing Kimerblé Crenshaw’s intersectionality research (2012), I highlight how theories overlap and intertwine because of the convergence of systems of domination. We cannot read a text through the lens of any identity-focused theory, I explain, without considering ‘where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects’ (Crenshaw 2017). Accordingly, I ask students to study theoretical concepts as connected to multiple traditions rather assigned to a single school or camp. The dialogue does not stop at the framing of theories or theorists, however. Students work throughout the semester to join scholarly conversations by using theory to analyse stories, poems, music videos, films, video games, Tweets, and DOI: 10.4324/9781003222835-16

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more. While their efforts culminate in a final essay that they are invited to submit to the annual college-wide undergraduate research conference, students practice applying theory both in low-stakes writing assignments and class discussion by putting on their ‘theory goggles’ to examine primary texts. ‘You don’t have to love every theory,’ I tell my students, but I ask you to put on the goggles and give each one a try.’ Since I require students to wear many different pairs of theory goggles over the course of the semester, I suggest they rely on familiar primary sources for their theory applications. Other than one assignment where they analyse a common Shakespeare play (a department requirement that connects the course to its prerequisite), students choose the texts they read through their theory goggles. Unsurprisingly, works of pop culture comprise the bulk of students selections. While students’ interests of course extend beyond pop culture, giving students permission to apply theory to the books, music, movies, games, and social media their love creates a positive classroom environment and helps them achieve course learning outcomes, including the application and development of critical theory concepts. In their research on inclusive pedagogy, Viji Sathy and Kelly A. Hogan (2019) argue that instructors can facilitate ‘deeper learning’ by tailoring course content and prompts to students’ interests. Studies in STEM courses support the notion that incorporating students’ interests improves students’ motivation and leads to higher retention rates (Killpack and Melón; Cromley, Perez and Kaplan). Tess L. Killpack and Laverne C. Melón (2017) suggest that instructors create ‘opportunities for student choice’ in assignments to increase motivation, while Jennifer G. Cromley, Tony Perez, and Avi Kaplan (2015) assert that a ‘key predictor of grades’ in STEM courses ‘is interest—the persisting desire to engage with certain content.’ Cromley, Perez, and Kaplan (2015) argue that drawing on students’ interests increases ‘students’ perceptions of the relevance’ of course content and, correspondingly, student achievement. My experience suggests that instructors in the humanities and social sciences can similarly enhance student engagement, motivation, and achievement by creating activities and assignments that allow students to focus on their interests. When faculty structure classes so that all students feel comfortable sharing their passions and perspectives, theories of inclusivity and intersectionality become not only part of a course’s content but also the course’s structure. In Introduction to Critical Theory, students primarily convey their interests by choosing to analyse pop culture texts in their in-class work, short response papers, midterm project, and final essay. In one of my Fall 2020 sections of the course, for example, students’ applied theory to the manga series One-punch man (2012–2020), J. K. Rowling’s book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001), the films Frozen 2 (2019) and Midsommar (2019), and the music videos for Chicken noodle soup (2006, 2019). In their final evaluations of the course, students unanimously responded that they had become more competent in the application of critical theory, and their written comments conveyed that the positive classroom environment – an atmosphere of

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‘enthusiasm’ and ‘curiosity’ – increased their engagement with the course material. Feedback from this section corresponds with the evaluations I have received over five years of regularly teaching this class, which indicates that students across departments and colleges benefit when they are free to bring their interests – including pop culture – into the classroom. Rather than adding to the abundant research regarding why faculty should appeal to students’ interests, I seek to convey how faculty can create a classroom climate that evokes students’ enthusiasm. In particular, I want to help instructors use scaffolding to make students feel safe sharing their favourite pop culture texts. Inclusive pedagogy research suggests that structured courses increase achievement for under-represented students, particularly Black and first-generation students, with no negative consequences for others in the classroom (Sathy and Hogan; Eddy and Hogan). As such, I recommend scaffolding not only assignments – moving from low-stakes work to medium- and high-stakes tasks – but also activities during which students share their interests. By working early in the semester to model how students can apply theory to pop culture and then giving students lowand medium-stakes opportunities to choose the texts they analyse, instructors can help students feel comfortable incorporating their interests when tackling highstakes assignments and work they may take beyond the classroom. Scaffolding activities and assignments allow students to develop their theory application skills and also builds their trust in the instructor and in each other, creating a more positive classroom environment and a higher likelihood of achievement. Considering the relationships I develop with my students, first, I have discovered that students have more confidence that they can bring their interests into the classroom when I offer low-stakes opportunities to analyse pop culture early in the semester. I model my passion for pop culture by asking them to apply theory to a music video during our initial class session. Prior to the meeting, I choose a video that we can analyse using almost any course theory; Janelle Monáe’s ‘Q.U.E.E.N.’ and St.Vincent’s ‘Digital witness’ are good options. On that first day, after we have all introduced ourselves, students respond anonymously to a survey about which theory they are most familiar with or like the best. Working with the theory that earns the highest number of votes, we co-author a list of questions to ask and concepts to focus on when analysing a text through that lens. Then we put on our theory goggles and try it out by analysing the music video. I ask students to watch the video and, on their own, make note of anything that pertains to the question and concept list we created. When the video is over, we work together as a whole class to find patterns in our notes and come up with evidence-backed claims about the video. Even though students may be unfamiliar with my music video pick, starting the first day of class with a low-stakes analysis of pop culture helps them believe that they can similarly bring their own interests to assignments. Moreover, by responding positively to their analyses, I demonstrate my enthusiasm for their application of theory to a pop culture text. I further model the relevance of theory to contemporary culture and students’ interests by including readings they may have seen circulated on social media platforms as well as readings that comment directly on contemporary popular

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culture. For example, in a unit on intersectional feminist/Critical Race Theory, I assign essays from Gloria Anzaldúa and Barbara Christian, which are likely new to the students, as well as excerpts from Roxane Gay’s Bad feminist (2014), which includes references to the Ying Yang Twins, Vogue’s September issue, Tweeting, and other familiar pop culture topics. As I argue elsewhere, looking at critical race and other theories through contemporary texts allows students to explore fraught topics more easily (Lillvis 2019). Accordingly, I ask students to make connections between the theorists and also brainstorm additional pop culture examples to help us better understand Gay’s work as well as Anzaldúa’s and Christian’s writings. During these class activities, I work to emphasise the relevance of theory to students’ lives and interests by helping them recognise the presence of pop culture in primary sources and theoretical readings. These low-stakes discussions about pop culture and theory help students grow in their understanding of theory and their relationships with their peers. Research on inclusive pedagogy demonstrates that students have a more positive classroom environment and more success in achieving course learning outcomes when they have the support of their classmates as well as the instructor (Dewsbury and Brame 2019). However, instructors must create ‘varied opportunities for participation’ to ensure that all students feel comfortable sharing their ideas (Sathy and Hogan 2019). During each semester in my Introduction to Critical Theory courses, a handful of students disclose that they are hesitant to contribute their ideas during class discussion, so I offer other low-stakes opportunities for students to collaborate on building our shared knowledge of critical theory concepts. For instance, during the first two weeks of the semester I provide students with questions that they should consider when reading a text through a particular theoretical lens. As the course develops, however, I turn this work over to the students, asking them to create a shared document that outlines strategies for applying a theory. During these group work sessions, students test their ideas with a small number of peers before offering a co-authored document to the whole class. This structured group work activity allows students to get to know one another as they grow their knowledge and their trust of their classmates. As the semester progresses, students’ confidence and trust build, and formerly hesitant students begin volunteering to share their unique theory analyses during class discussion. Students’ individual theory analyses offer the greatest insight into their interests and, accordingly, the best opportunity for me to assess their engagement with and achievement of course learning outcomes before they complete high-stakes assignments. Over the course of the semester, students complete eight shortresponse assignments called ‘FITs.’ A FIT assignment consists of three sections that prompt students to uncover meaning in an assigned theory reading and practice applying that theory to a primary text. ‘F’ stands for fact, and in this section, students state a fact they find interesting or puzzling in the theory text and explain why that fact seems important to understanding the reading in its entirety. ‘I’ stands for interpretation, and students work in this portion of the assignment to interpret the meaning of a quote or passage they select from the reading. Finally, ‘T’ stands for tie-in, and here students connect the reading to a relevant text of their choosing,

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using the theory to analyse that text. While each section of the FIT allows for student choice, the T portion directly asks students to make connections between the assigned reading and the texts they find most engaging. In a unit on queer theory, for instance, students focused the T section on episodes of the Netflix series Sex Education (2019) and The Circle (2020) and Marieke Nijkamp’s young adult novel This Is Where It Ends (2016). Reading students’ FITs allows me to gauge how well they understand our course readings and to gain insight into their interests. I take the information I learn and bring it to our class sessions, drawing on their pop culture examples to highlight theoretical concepts they explained well and to clarify those ideas about which they expressed confusion. By positively engaging with their chosen texts in my feedback on their FITs and in our class discussions, I give students confidence that their interests are relevant to the course and that their midterm project and final theoretical analysis essay can also focus on their favourite texts, including works of popular culture. Moreover, when students share details from their FITs with each other during discussion, they deepen our class environment of engagement and encouragement. Occasionally I am unfamiliar with a student’s chosen text, as I was in this case with Nijkamp’s novel, but rarely does that lack of knowledge extend to the other students in the classroom. Students perhaps best demonstrate their support for each other during those instances when they have selected texts unknown to me. In our discussion, the students praise and extend their peers’ theory applications, and they work to help me understand the relevance of the primary text to the theory (and vice versa). By teaching me during our class sessions, students take part in the scholarly conversation around the theory. Low- and medium-stakes assignments where students apply theory to a story, poem, music video, film, video game, or other text build to high-stakes midterm and final projects that ask them to complete a sustained theory analysis. The midterm project prompts them to choose a theory from the first half of the semester and write a 3–4-page essay in which they analyse a music video according to that theory. While this assignment is familiar to students in that they have been practicing analysis with their FITs – and we also worked together on a music video analysis during our initial class meeting – the midterm requires them to spend more time wearing a single pair of theory goggles than they did previously. Since the intensity of the project is new, I work to provide familiar structures. After they review the prompt, we practice a second sustained music video analysis together during class. Moreover, I offer students a selection of several videos from different musical genres. These structures help students who may feel overwhelmed by the opportunity to choose both their theory and their primary text when working on their first high-stakes assignment. However, committed to shaping the class according to students’ interests, I also allow students to suggest other music videos for the project. If, after watching a suggested video, I determine that it can be analysed through multiple theories, I add it to the list as an option for everyone in the class.While by the midterm I may feel I have a good sense of students’ interests, inclusive learning research indicates that such assumptions might disadvantage students. Killpack and Melón (2017)

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assert that instructors must be wary of shaping courses in ways that ‘may be inadvertently benefiting the students who have backgrounds, interests, or resources similar to [theirs].’ They point out that even an unintended lack of awareness of students’ intersectional identities may limit what content or topics instructors perceive as relevant to students’ interests. As such, I advocate for building in opportunities for students to share throughout the whole semester, including high-stakes midterm and final assignments that may leave students feeling the most pressure to achieve success. Making room for students’ suggestions on high-stakes assignments may allow them to discover comfortable points of entry to difficult tasks. I similarly ask students to again bring their interests to the final course assignment in Introduction to Critical Theory, but I again provide scaffolding to make that task manageable. For the final project, students engage in a sustained theoretical analysis of a single story, poem, essay, film, video game, or other type of text of their choosing, composing a 7–10-page theory application essay that includes secondary source research. By choosing not only the subject of their analysis but also their theoretical lens – any theory from the second half of the semester is permitted – students become co-creators of an otherwise conventional essay assignment. However, since students may feel overwhelmed by the freedom given in the prompt, I guide them towards choosing a theory and text by asking them to look back at their FIT assignments. Though they have the option of working on a new project if they choose, students typically decide to expand on the pop culture connections they made in the T section of a FIT. When giving students written feedback on their FITs during the second half of the semester, I point out strong T sections and help students identify ways they might build on their analyses for the final project. While my comments reflect my genuine excitement about students’ ideas, the positive feedback also promotes future achievement. Bryan Dewsbury and Cynthia J. Brame (2019) assert that an instructor’s expression of ‘warmth and respect’ for students creates feelings of belonging that encourage academic excellence. By highlighting students’ good work on medium-stakes assignments, I cultivate a classroom environment in which those students feel capable of succeeding at high-stakes work as well. I further encourage student success by breaking the final project into a series of manageable tasks completed as part of a supportive community. Students submit a project proposal and suggested bibliography early in the unit, and I give them feedback to help guide their writing and research. I work with my students to help them select and then adjust their theory goggles throughout the unit so that they never feel like they are alone in their writing. In addition to working with me, students share drafts with their peers and, after reviewing their peers’ feedback on their own work, complete an action plan that outlines how they will move forward. In the action plan, students appraise the feedback they received and enumerate strengths they noticed in their peers’ papers. Accordingly, the peer review process (which includes the action plan) cements our course as a community where we learn by joining in conversation with one another. Pop culture allows students to theorise about race and explore complicated issues in contemporary culture. While students in critical theory courses may feel

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hesitant talking directly about identity-focused theories, working with pop culture examples allows them to find commonalities and build a trust with one another as well as their instructor. Scaffolding pop culture focused activities prepares students to become part of a community of scholars engaged in the larger conversations surrounding critical theory. When faculty draw on their students’ interests in pop culture, they not only create a positive classroom environment, they also empower students to articulate the contemporary relevance of classic theories and to analyse the relationships between historical ideas and recent contributions to critical theory.

Teaching critical theory through pop culture: a student’s sample essay In 2006, Harlem-based artists Webstar (Troy Ryan, also known as DJ Webstar) and Bianca Bonnie (Bianca Dupree, who at that time went by the name Young B) released a song called Chicken noodle soup. The song was accompanied by a music video that featured imagery of and references to the culture of Harlem, New York – including a dance that inspired the song – and gained popularity among dance communities and casual listeners (Webstar VEVO 2009). Thirteen years later, J-Hope (Jung Ho-seok), a member of the internationally famous South Korean music group BTS, released a remake of Webstar and Bonnie’s Chicken noodle soup with Mexican–American artist Becky G (Rebbeca Marie Gomez). The 2019 remake features lyrics in J-Hope’s Korean and Becky G’s Spanish as well as lyrics from the original song and a revitalised version of the dance. Since its release, the music video for J-Hope and Becky G’s Chicken noodle soup has garnered over 200 million views from a global audience. As evidenced by the success and popularity of J-Hope and Becky G’s remake of Chicken noodle soup, I argue that the environment of social media acts as a platform for Gloria Anzaldúa’s theory of la mestiza culture to grow globally, especially in regard to music and dance. In ‘La conciencia de la mestiza: towards a new consciousness’ (1987), Anzaldúa’s promotes new types of activism that seek to unite people. Anzaldúa works to bridge the boundaries between individuals from different cultures, races, genders, and sexualities, a type of connection that has special significance to mestizas – people with multiple racial, cultural, and/or spiritual backgrounds – since they live their lives in the borderlands between cultures and identities, a space ‘where the possibility of uniting all that is separate occurs’ (1992, pp. 387, 389).While Anzaldúa identifies certain groups of people as biological mestizas, she also suggests that the mixing together of peoples and ideologies leads to a larger mestiza consciousness, where the gaps between cultures are bridged.Anzaldúa mentions the roles members of the LGBTQ+ community play in creating a mestiza consciousness, for example, saying, ‘Our role is to link people with each other – the Blacks with Jews with Indians with Asians with whites with extraterrestrials. It is to transfer ideas and information from one culture to another’ (1992, p. 392). This inherent mestiza ­consciousness of the LGBTQ+ community exists because, as Anzaldúa mentions, people from the LGBTQ+ community are everywhere and come from every

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culture and walk of life, yet they share this quality that unites them and makes them aware of things that others outside the community may not understand. I started thinking of this kind of mestiza consciousness that almost floats above the world and connects people together regardless of borders and cultures – something that, like the LGBTQ+ community, is present in all places and times and among all people. Thus, I began thinking about the universality of music and dance and the mestiza consciousness that can come from it. Anzaldúa does not focus on the potential roles of music and dance in creating and encouraging a mestiza consciousness, an expanded worldview that comes when one identifies with different cultures and walks of life; however, music and dance are two elements of culture that are experienced and celebrated throughout the world and serve as a means of communication without words. Because music and dance are universal, they can be easily shared and understood despite cultural differences. For example, when discussing the particular dance style of jive, Jonathan Skinner says, It is a language and a movement—both bodily and countercultural—which spans the centuries and crosses the continents, and takes us from the Middle Passage to the D-Day landings, from swing and Lindy hop “joints a jumpin’” in Harlem, New York, to zoot-suit retro swing revivals in Herrang, Sweden. (2012, p. 29) Jive, like all styles of music and dance, originated somewhere among a group of people and then spread outwards. Blues, as another example, is a style of music that features traditional African sounds and is associated with Black culture of the Deep South of the United States and the struggles of oppression, and its relevance and messages still survive after hundreds of years. Even Appalachian old-time music has influences from both Irish and African traditions, yet Appalachia is geographically far removed from either place. As Anzaldúa says, ‘la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another’ (1992, p. 387), so by these traditions of music and movement travelling from group to group across the world, the meaning attached travels with them and creates a musically driven mestiza consciousness shared by those who experience said travelling traditions. Both the original Chicken noodle soup and the 2019 remake are examples of the mestiza consciousness discussed by Anzaldúa that occurs when the culture and values from different groups are transferred to others through music and dance. The dance that inspired the original Chicken noodle soup existed in Harlem long before the song and music video that featured the dance. Bonnie claims, ‘“Chicken noodle soup” was always an international record. People of all cultures know the song, and it’s always been that way’ (Jefferson 2019). By making a cultural dance specific to Harlem the highlight of a song and subsequent music video, Webstar and Bonnie allowed an audience much larger than Harlem to share the experience. J-Hope, primarily a dancer, credits the original song as a favourite of his when he was learning to dance in the early 2000s in South Korea; the song seemed to be similarly meaningful to Becky G, as well, leading to her enthusiasm to work on the

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remake. In regard to the ‘transcultural fandom’ surrounding Korean pop culture in particular, Benjamin Han says,‘transcultural fandom is less concerned with mobility and more concerned with cross-cultural communication and identification, which further expands into cultural values and virtues’ (2017, p. 2251). By remaking and releasing their own version of Chicken noodle soup, J-Hope and Becky G were inherently sharing their experiences with the song in cultures and backgrounds that are different from those found in Harlem. In addition to a reimagined version of the original dance, J-Hope and Becky G’s remake of Chicken noodle soup features three different languages; Korean and Spanish make up most of the song as well as some of the original song’s English lyrics sprinkled in. The question of how music in other languages can be so popular around the world is a question J-Hope’s group BTS is often asked, to which leader RM (Kim Nam-joon) says, ‘music truly transcends language and nationalities and races’ (TODAY 2020, 0:50). Music and dance are ways to express oneself and communicate without words, and because they are something almost everyone in the world is familiar with, they are a kind of universal language in and of themselves. J-Hope and Becky G’s remake of Chicken noodle soup not only connects three different cultures together through shared experiences of music and dance, but it also creates a bridge between Eastern and Western cultures more broadly. In order to achieve a mestiza consciousness, one must be open to experiencing and understanding unfamiliar situations and worldviews, must be willing to learn and accept. Anzaldúa states, ‘Only by remaining flexible is she able to stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically. La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations’ (1992, p. 388). The Korean Wave, or hallyu, is one example of how Eastern culture has spread into the West with increasing influence and acceptance.The first instance of a Korean Wave occurred in the 1990s and mostly centred around the consumption of Korean entertainment by those in other East and Southeast Asian countries, but the second Korean Wave, or hallyu 2.0, reached a wider, more global audience (Jin and Yoon 2016, p. 1278). Dal Yong Jin and Kyong Yoon argue, ‘the new phase of hallyu requires a multidimensional and multidirectional approach to transnational cultural flows’ (2016, pp. 1278–1279). In order for the second Korean Wave to be so widespread,Western audiences cannot simply be consuming the entertainment content that is coming from South Korea, they must also be interacting with it and its many creators; South Korean creators then must also engage with those consuming their content.With K-pop, the pop music produced and created by artists like J-Hope and his group BTS, Yoon claims that the consumption of South Korean media in the West ‘can provide audiences with scripts for diverse possible lives’ and ‘cultural hybridity’ as they learn about and accept an unfamiliar culture (Yoon 2018, p. 373). This idea of hybrid culture is mentioned by Anzaldúa as she claims it is necessary to experience before one can have a mestiza consciousness. More specifically, as the music created and distributed in the second Korean Wave reaches its global audience, those who listen and engage explore pre-existing relationships between cultures as well as forge new ones, as is the case for BlackKorean and Latinx-Korean relationships. When discussing Black-Korean relationships, David Oh mentions the focus seems to land more on ‘irreconcilable conflict’

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rather than ‘friendship and interaction’ after the Los Angeles riots in 1992 (2017, p. 269). However, with a growing Black fanbase, Korean music has begun to change the narrative. Oh goes on to say, ‘Black reaction videos of transnational Korean resources (mediated in global fan communities) are situated between dominant, oppressed, and transnational identities’ (2017, p. 270). Access to Korean media, particularly music, as well as the online space of the ‘reaction video,’ in which fans record themselves reacting to new content, allows for Black fans to assess their relationship with Koreans and Korean culture, including the similarities and differences between them. Korean music and culture have reached other audiences as well. Han addresses the ways in which Korean music and culture continue to be popular and influential in Latin America ‘despite their lack of a shared common language and geographical proximity’ (2017, p. 2252). Along with the ease of access to Korean media as well as universal themes often portrayed in Korean music, Han (2017) also credits Latin American audiences’ interests in the differences in the ways Latin Americans and Koreans regard certain topics, such as love and romance. However, Han (2017) claims that the history of Korean migration to Latin American countries as well as existing business and trade relations have had an impact on Latin America’s consumption of the second Korean Wave as well as fans’ perceptions of LatinxKorean relationships. With J-Hope and Becky G’s remake of Webstar and Bonnie’s Chicken noodle soup, Black, Korean, and Latinx cultures were brought together to showcase the relationships between the three, including differences and similarities. The global reach and success of the 2019 Chicken noodle soup show that people from all over the world are able to access and interact with different cultures easily, especially with the broad scope of social media. The modern social media climate provides an ease of access to other parts of the world and their cultures, which allows the mestiza consciousness of music and dance to grow globally. When considering the particular popularity and success of the second Korean Wave, Jin says, ‘transnational popular cultural products created in non-Western countries are benefiting from the rise of social media, because global fans have been enjoying locally produced popular culture on various social media’ (2018, p. 405). As younger generations are moving away from traditional media such as television and broadcasting, which mainly showcases local media, they are being exposed to different cultures and means of entertainment. This has allowed the second Korean Wave to take off and reach a global audience in a way that the first Wave could not. In a similar vein,Yoon says, Korean pop culture spreads beyond geo-cultural proximities and without traditional media gatekeepers (such as broadcast media). As exemplified by BTS, several K-pop groups have been followed by a large number of global fans long before, or without even having, their network TV debut. (2019, p. 176) By self-promoting on social media, artists are not subject to rules and regulations of traditional media, which could inhibit the extent to which they reach an

‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory  235

audience or the individuality they exhibit in their work. As in the case of the West, particularly the United States, gatekeeping is a problem for BIPOC artists trying to get exposure or who have large followings but are yet to be acknowledged by the mainstream. Before remaking Chicken noodle soup, J-Hope had already acquired the leverage and support of a large international fanbase, which ultimately influenced the successful spread and popularity of the song and music video. J-Hope’s group BTS had a large international following on social media for years before it was recognised by traditional Western media, and since then, the group has gained even more recognition and attention, thus expanding its influence. In 2017, BTS was nominated for a fan-voted award at the Billboard Music Awards for Top Social Artist; this was the first time BTS was recognised by traditional Western media, and it was because the group’s social media presence was gaining attention. Previously, Justin Bieber held six consecutive wins in this award category, but BTS won out in 2017, 2018, and 2019. Even though BTS has fewer followers on Twitter than Bieber, BTS’s international fanbase interacts with the group’s members much more, which further builds a mestiza consciousness driven by music and dance that connects BTS to fans and cultures around the world. This broad influence on a global audience helped boost the popularity of J-Hope and Becky G’s remake of Chicken noodle soup, which has over 200 million views on YouTube and over 73 million plays on Spotify at the time of this analysis; Webstar and Bonnie’s original has about 14 million views on YouTube and about 1.7 million plays on Spotify. Even a dance trend referred to as the ‘CNS challenge’ went viral on social media platforms, like Twitter and TikTok, with people all over the world demonstrating the Chicken noodle soup dance that originated in Harlem before either of the songs existed. Anzaldúa says, ‘the future will belong to the mestiza’ (1992, p. 389), and the future is moving towards a world with expertise in connecting via social media, which makes the movement of music and dance traditions throughout the world and its cultures virtually effortless. Music and dance traditions have traversed across cultures and connected people together for as long as humans could make music and move their bodies, regardless of words or lack thereof because the meanings found within music and dance are often shared. Much in the way Anzaldúa describes the mestiza consciousness occurring among those in the LGBTQ+ community existing in this shared culture at the same time as their individual cultures, I thought about music and dance existing among all cultures around the world and the ways that music and dance are understood by those of differing backgrounds. Anzaldúa says, ‘The answer to the problem between the white race and the colored, between males and females, lies in healing the split that originates in the very foundation of our lives, our culture, our languages, our thoughts’ (1992, p. 389). By sharing our experiences of music and dance with others, we unite ourselves together in a bond of mutual understanding and acceptance, even if we don’t speak the same language. As shown by Chicken noodle soup, both Webstar and Bonnie’s original as well as J-Hope and Becky G’s remake, traditions of music and dance can be shared and celebrated whether you come from the East or the West, even if you cannot understand

236  Kristen Lillvis and Ivy Scoville

English, Korean, or Spanish; you know how it feels to dance to a really good song. The accessibility to the world that social media platforms provide aid in the growth of the mestiza created by shared music and dance, and broader social media influence leads to a broader mestiza consciousness.

Acknowledgements Thank you to Spring 2020 English 355: Introduction to Critical Theory students. Thank you also to Colin Christopher and Jana Tigchelaar, respectively, for creating the original version of the FIT assignment and for facilitating its many revisions.

References Anzaldúa, G. (1992) ‘La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness,’ in Colombo, G., Cullen R. and Lisle, B. (eds.) Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing, 2nd edn., New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 386–395. Crenshaw, K. (2012) ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence AGAINST Women of Color,’ in Weisberg, D. K. (ed.) Applications of Feminist Legal Theory, Philadelphia: Temple UP, pp. 363–377. Crenshaw, K. (2017) ‘Kimberlé Crenshaw on Intersectionality, More than Two Decades Later,’ Columbia Law School. Available at https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/ kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later (Accessed 1 Nov. 2020). Cromley, J. G., Perez, T., and Kaplan, A. (2015) ‘Undergraduate STEM Achievement and Retention: Cognitive, Motivation, and Institutional Factors and Solutions,’ Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3(1) [Online.] Available at: https://journals.sagepub. com/doi/full/10.1177/2372732215622648 (Accessed 13 Nov. 2020) Dewsbury, B. and Brame, C. J. (2019) ‘Inclusive Teaching,’ CBE – Life Science Education 13(3) [Online]. Available at: https://www.lifescied.org/doi/full/10.1187/cbe.19-01-0021 (Accessed 4 Nov. 2020) Eddy, S. L. and Hogan, K. A. (2017) ‘Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure Work?,’ CBE – Life Science Education 13(3) [Online]. Available at: https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.14-03-0050 (Accessed 4 November 2020) Gay, R. (2014) Bad Feminist: Essays, New York: Harper Perennial. Han, B. (2017) ‘K-pop in Latin America: Transcultural Fandom and Digital Mediation,’ International Journal of Communication 11, pp. 2250–2269. J-Hope. (2019) ‘Chicken Noodle Soup (Feat. Becky G),’ Big Hit Labels, [Online video]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i23NEQEFpgQ (Accessed 8 April 2020) Jefferson, J. (2019) ‘Original “chicken noodle soup”Viral Star Bianca Bonnie on ‘00s Harlem hit & its K-pop Remake: “now it’s a worldwide thing”,’ billboard [Online]. Available at: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/8532371/bianca-bonniechicken-noodle-soup-interview-bts-j-hope-becky-g (Accessed 9 Apr. 2020) Jin, D. (2018) ‘An Analysis of the Korean Wave as Transnational Popular Culture: North American Youth Engage through Social Media as TV Becomes Obsolete,’ International Journal of Communication 12, pp. 404–422.

‘Chicken noodle soup’ with some theory  237 Jin, D. and Yoon, K. (2016) ‘The Social Mediascape of Transnational Korean Pop Culture: Hallyu 2.0 as Spreadable Media Practice,’ New Media & Society 18(7), pp. 1277–1292. Killpack, T.L. and Melón, L.C. (2017) ‘Toward Inclusive STEM Classrooms: What Personal Role Do Faculty Play?,’ CBE – Life Science Education 15(3) [Online]. Available at: https:// www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.16-01-0020 (Accessed 17 Nov. 2020) Lillvis, K. ‘Teaching Butler’s “Bloodchild” and the Tenets of Afrofuturism,’ in Stanley, T. (ed.) Approaches to Teaching the Works of Octavia E. Butler. New York: The Modern Language Association, 2019, pp. 136–140. Nijkamp, N. (2016) This Is Where It Ends. Naperville: Sourcebooks Fire. Oh, D. C. (2017) ‘Black K-pop Fan Videos and Polyculturalism,’ Popular Communication 15(4), pp. 269–282. Sathy, V. and Hogan, K. A. (2019) ‘How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive: Advice Guide,’ The Chronicle of Higher Education [Online]. Available at: https://www.chronicle. com/article/how-to-make-your-teaching-more-inclusive/ (Accessed 31 Oct. 2020) Sex education. (2019) Netflix. Skinner, J. (2012) ‘Globalization and the Dance Import/Export Business: The Jive Story,’ in Skinner, J. and Neveu-Kringelback, H. (eds.) Dancing Cultures: Globalization, Tourism and Identity in the Anthropology of Dance, New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 29–45. The Circle. (2020) Netflix. TODAY. (2020) ‘BTS Live Interview on New Album “map of the Soul: Seven”,’ [Online video].Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrJxTtnqMg&t=51s (Accessed 9 Apr. 2020) Webstar VEVO. [2009] ‘Webstar,Young B – Chicken Noodle Soup ft. AG aka The Voice of Harlem,’ Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFav9P54JUA (Accessed 8 Apr. 2020) Yoon, K. (2018) ‘Global Imagination of K-Pop: Pop Music Fans’ Lived Experiences of Cultural Hybridity,’ Popular Music & Society 41(4), pp. 373–389. Yoon, K. (2019) ‘Transnational Fandom in the Making: K-pop Fans in Vancouver,’ International Communication Gazette 81(2), pp. 176–192.

Index

Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refers to notes number 12 Years a Slave (2013) 22, 32 AAA video games 197, 199, 205, 208n2 Acosta, M.M. 124 activism 73, 165, 189, 192–193, 231 Adorno, T. 6 affect 145 affective attunement 98, 101 affirmative action 4 African American vampire stories 64–65 Age of Empires III (game) 198, 205–208 Agier, M. 79 Ahmed, S. 45–48, 131 Aisha (2010) 147 alive-ness, incomplete 49–52 All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999) 189 Almada, Natalia 219–221 Alter, A. 3 amateur video footage 102 American cinema 14, 21; ‘Indians’ and 183–185 American Civil War 14, 20–21 American Indian Movement 163, 165, 184, 188 Anderson, B. 73 Anderson, M. 72 Anthropocene 43, 45–46 Anthropy, A. 119 anti-racism 7, 45 Anzaldúa, G. 228, 231–233, 235 Apache characters 117 Appadurai, A. 101 Arata, Stephen D. 63 Argenal, A. 107 aristocracy 3 Arizona Border Recon 214–216

Arola, K. L. 201–202 artistic research 52–53 artist scholars 53–55 Asian Pacific Policy and Planning Council 130 Assassin’s Creed III (game) 198, 200 Associated Press 138 audience sensibilities 143 Aufderheide, P. 213 Aulatsigunnarniq 201 autodefensas 214, 216, 222 Axone (film) 149 Bad feminist (Roxane Gay) 228 Bainbridge, Catherine 183 Bajaj, M. 107 Baker, J. 4 Balkan corridor 100 Banerjee, A.V. 215 banking model of education 18, 50 Barad, K. 40–42, 44, 49–50 Bareilly ki Barfi (2017) 148 Barnaby, J. 193 Bartlett, J. 131 Batra, S. 147 Baudrillard, J. 6 Bear Spirit 163–164 Beaver Spirit 163–164 Beck, A. S. 3, 203, 212 Becky G 231–233, 234–235 Bell, D. 5 Bello,V. 74 Belman, J. 199, 202 Benhabib, S. 96 Bernal,V. 74 Beukes, S. 72 Bieber, J. 235

Index 239 big data 44 Billboard Music Awards for Top Social Artist 235 Bior, Adut Akech 83 Birth of a Nation (1915) 8, 13–15, 19; and the importance of Positionality 20–22 Black British culture 31–32 Black emancipation 14 Black groups 5 Black identity 72, 80–83 Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) 124, 139, 235 Black Lives Matter 7, 102 #BlackLivesMatter 41–42, 72–73, 76 Blackness 46, 48, 113–115 Black Twitter 72 Blacula (1972) 58–59, 65–67 Blaxploitation film 15, 23–25, 58, 66 Bleiker, R. 102 Blood Quantum (2019) 193 Blumenbach, Johann 132 Bodmer, Karl 163 Bollywood Cinema:Temples of Desire (Vijay Mishra) 43 Bollywood films 141–144, 145–146, 148–149, 152 Bollywood Punjabi 147 Boltanski, L. 16 Bombay film industry 141, 143 Bonnie, B. 231 Bosnian border 105 Boyd, C. E. 190 Brady, L. M. 204 Brame, C. J. 230 Brave, A. 206 brave spaces 21, 25 Brinkman, N. 72 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 31 British North America Act 162 Brock, A. 72 Brooks, Cleanth 2 Broomhilda 23 Bryan, Anthony 34, 36 Bryan, Stephen S. 33 Buffalo Spirit 163 Bull, Sitting 167 burial ground, building on 188–192 Butler, Octavia E. 64 Butler, P. 51 buufi 78, 85n12 Byrne, D. N. 73 Byronic vampire 61–62

Calais Jungle 100 Calderón, Felipe 219 Calderón, G. 219 Caldwell, P. 64 Call of Juarez series (Techland) 117 Cameron, Ben 20 campus/community radio 165 Candie, Calvin J. 23 Candyland 23 Canlas, M. 107 canon, creation of 2–3 capitalism 43, 46 capitalist-imperialist 120 Carpenter, A. C. 212 Cartel Land (2015) 214–216 Castells, M. 73 Cati, A. 101 Centennial College 158 Chadderton, C. 34 Chak De! India (2007) 145, 150–152 Chanan, M. 214 Chang, E.Y. 112 Chang, M. 148–149 Chan, J. 72 Channel 4 (C4) 31 Chicken noodle soup (2006, 2019) 226, 231–234 Child Welfare Services 161 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) 130 Chopra, Priyanka 150 Chouliarki, Lillie 16 Christian, Barbara 228 Churches’ Commission for Migrants in Europe (CCME) 94 Civilization 5 (game) 198 Civil Rights and Women’s Movements 182 Clark, L. B. 28–29 Clark, S. 99 Clark, T. 189 classroom diversity 5 coding practices, geologies of 46 Coel, Michaela 36–37 Collins, Suzanne 60 colonial capitalisms 46 colonialism 43 colour-blind ideologies 38 colour-blindness in Pocahontas 175–178 colour pedagogy 111; Hair Nah, Kishonna L. Gray on 113–115; Never Alone (Upper One Games, 2014), Ashlee Bird on 115–120; Portal (Valve, 2007), Ashlee Bird on 115–120; teaching with games of colour philosophy 123–126; Yellow

240 Index Face (Mike Ren 2019), Edmond Y. Chang on 120–122 communicative practices 115 Conroy, Jack 172 Consalva, Mia 125 conscientização 2 contemporary university education 29 content knowledge 5 conventions 92; migration and necropolitics of 95–98 Cook-Sather, A. 21 Coolidge, Rita 159 Cornelius, Carol 204 coronavirus 42 Cott3ntree 118 COVID-19 pandemic 57, 79, 129–130, 132, 139, 148, 157 Creepshow 2 (1987) 190 Crenshaw, K. 9, 129, 225 critical pedagogy 1–2, 17, 19, 21, 25, 28–31, 98, 106, 141, 202–204 Critical Race Film Studies 17, 19 Critical Race Film Theory 17–18, 25 Critical Race Theory (CRT) 5, 28–31, 129, 133, 138 Cromley, J. G. 226 cross-racial casting 150 cultural and moral alliances in Pocahontas 173–175 Cultural Insights 119 culturally responsive teaching, defined 182 curiosity 172, 202, 227 Custer’s Revenge (1982) (game) 116–117, 196–197 Dances with Wolves 171, 173–174 Danish Refugee Council 105 Day-Lewis, Daniel 172 Death Curse (1966) 185 Death Curse of Tartu (1966) 185–187 decoloniality 46–49 de Humaya, Jardines 219–221 de la Bellacasa, Puig 42 Delgado, C. & Stefancic, J. 35 del Toro, Guillermo 58 de Mirbel, Jean 16 Denham, A.R. 124 Denzongpa, Danny 148 De Reum Natura (Lucretius) 47 Dewsbury, B. 230 Dey, Eric L. 4 Dhar, D. 145 Diamond, Neil 183 Dickey, C. 191

diffraction 40, 42, 51 digital 50 digital activity by migrants 92 digital communication 73, 84 digital education 8, 40, 44, 50 digital ethnohistories 120 digital revolutions 54–55 digital transparency 98–104 Dillon, B.A. 206 Disney memes and themes 169–170 Disney Renaissance (1989–1999) 169 Disney, Roy E. 171 disobedient gaze 99, 105 distributed intelligences, making of ‘race’ inside 41–43 Dixon Jr., Thomas 15 Django Unchained (2012) 13–14; and modern spectator 22–25 documentary film 211, 213, 218, 221–222 Doná, G. 69, 73 double-consciousness 129 Dowerah, S. 148 drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) 211–213 Drug War 211, 220 Dublin Regulation 85n10, 97, 107n3 Dubois, W.E.B. 129 Duflo, E. 215 Duldung 76 Dunbar, John 172–173 Dunbar-Ortiz, R. 187 Dyer, R. 17 Eagle Spirit 163 Earth-Body problem 47 Eason, A. E. 204 Edgerton, G. 174 education 1, 167; banking model of 18, 50; contemporary university education 29; digital education 8, 40, 44, 50; equality in 4; HBCU education 58; Higher Education 1, 3–4, 7, 57; online education 54; technology for 1 Eliot, T S 2 Ellis, L. 170–173 El velador (2011) 219–221 Emmons, N. 200, 208 Enamorado, T. 212 England, Kim V. L. 19 enthusiasm 227, 232 equality in critical pedagogy 4–5 ethnohistories 119 European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights 98

Index 241 Everglades, Florida 185 Everything I Never Told You (Celeste Ng) 132, 139 Eyes of Fire (1983) 190 Facebook 81, 94, 101 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001) 226 Federal Emergency Management Agency 131 #FeesMustFall 72 #Ferguson 72 Fickle, T. 113, 122 film, teaching race in 13; Birth of a Nation (1915) and the importance of Positionality 20–22; Django Unchained (2012) and modern spectator 22–25; historical and academic context 14–19 First World War 16 FIT assignment 228–230 Flanagan, M. 199, 202 Fledgling and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (Octavia E. Butler) 64 Florini, S. 72 Flynn, S. 17 Fobes, C. 202 Ford, John 185 Fortress Europe 94 Foucault, M. 94, 97 Frankenheimer, John 189 Frankenstein (Mary Shelley) 48, 64 Freire, P. 18, 29, 93, 95, 105 Freshman Composition I 57 Frozen 2 (2019) 226 Fryberg, S. A. 204 FX series 58 Galloway, A. 112 game mechanics 201 Games as Social Technology course 114 gaming from the margins 195; Age of Empires III 205–207; from critical pedagogy to Red Pedagogy 202–204; mass market gaming, troubling state of 197–202; teaching Indigenous representation in gaming 204–205; When Rivers Were Trails 207–208 Garen, Leo 185 gatekeeping 235 Gates, H. L. Jr. 2 Gay, G. 182 Gay, R. 228 Gee, J. P. 111 Gender Sensitisation session 144

Geneva, G. 182 Geologies of coding practices 46 George Brown Indigenous Studies 157 George, S. 59–61, 65 Georgiou, Myria 131 The Ghost Dance (1982) Giant Bomb 197–198 Gibson, Mel 174 Gilbert, Madonna 164 The Gilda Stories (Jewelle Gomez) 59, 65 Gilio-Whitaker, D. 187 Gilroy, Paul 37 Giroux, H. 93, 95, 106, 141 Giroux, H. A. 19, 178, 180 Gish, Lilian 16 GLaDOS 116 global drug war documentary gaze 212–214 Godin, M. 73 Gomez, J. 59, 64–65 Gopalan, L. 143 Grande, S 120, 203 Gray, K.L. 112–115 Great Spirit 164 Grefé, William 185 Griffith, D. W. 13, 15 Groom, N. 62 Groom, Nick 62 Gržinić, M. 95 Guests and Aliens (Sassen) 91 Guillory, J. 2–3 Gun (game) 196 Gurin, Gerald 4 Gurin, P. 4–5 Guzmán, R. A. 220 Hair Nah, Kishonna L. Gray on 113–115 Hall, S. 17 hallyu 233 hallyu 2.0 233 Hammond, M. 16 Han, B. 233–234 Haraway, D. 40, 43 Hardt, M. 94 Harker, Jonathan 64 Harraga 100 Harris, E. A. 3 Harris, J. C. 19 Hawk, D. L. 172 Hawke, Ethan 172 HBCU education 58 HBO 62 Hearne, J. 184, 192 hegemonic ideology 114

242 Index Heineman, Matthew 211, 214–216 Hendrix, Jimi 159 heroes, establishing 185–188 heterogeneity 149 Hex (1973) 185, 187–188 Higgin, T. 123 Higher Education 1, 3–4, 7, 57 Hindi cinema, exploring critical frameworks for studying 141; Chak De! India (2007) 150–152; constructing the North East and its under-representation 148–150; deconstructing the overrepresentation of Punjab 146–148; notes from the classroom 144–146; reading Bollywood 142–144 historical accuracy 25 Hitlin, P. 72 Hogan, Chuck 58 Hogan, K. A. 226 Holbourne, Z. 36 Hollywood’s era of neoliberalism 170–171 Hong, Cathy Park 130, 136 hooks, b. 50, 114, 133, 136–137 Horeck, T. 6 Horkheimer, M. 6 Horror and the Horror Film (2012) 62 horror films 182 Horst, C. 74, 78 How the West Was Won (1962) 171 Hughes, Bill 61, 65 Huizinga, Johan 125 human-animal 51 human-digital 51 The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) 60 Hurtado, Sylvia 4 Hwang, David Henry 121 hybrid culture 233 Hylton, K. 28, 30, 32, 34–35 hyperbole 171 I Am Legend (Richard Matheson) 58–59 ICT and social media 69, 71 idealists 18 ideological constraints 5–6 illegal immigrant 103 ‘illegalised’ migration 99 imagined community 73 I May Destroy You 36–38 inclusive English composition course, teaching 57–58; African American vampire stories 64–65; Blacula 65–67; futuristic vampires 67–68; Polidori, John 60–64; vampire genre 58–60 inclusive pedagogy 8, 10, 18, 226–228

incompleteness 51–52, 93 Independent Television (ITV) Network 31 Indian Act 162 ‘Indians’ in/and American cinema 183–185 Indian uncanny 190 Indigenous activism 188 Indigenous communities 119 Indigenously determined games 201 Indigenous music industry 166 Indigenous peoples in video games 117 Indigenous representation in 1970s and 1980s American horror 182; burial ground, building on 188–192; creating monsters and establishing heroes 185–188; ‘Indians’ in/and American cinema 183–185 Indigenous studies, teaching 155–166 inequality 4 informal interactional diversity 5 Inglorious Basterds (2009) 23 Inoue, Asao B. 131, 133 institutional racism 19 insurgent multiculturalism 93 interdisciplinarity 2 International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) 46 internet and social media 80 internet connectivity 77 intersectionality 19; and sections 7 Iñupiaq community 118 Isbister, K. 202–203 isolation, pedagogy of hope in 135–139 Jackie Brown (1997) 23 Jackson, K. 174 Jacobs, E. 57 Jagodzinski, J. 173 Jenkins, Leeroy 123 Jentz, P. 199 J-Hope (Jung Ho-seok) 231–233, 234–235 Jimmy, Skaggs 117–118 Jin, D. 233–234 Jones, B. 44 Jones, R. 92 Jung, E. A. 37 Kakuma Refugee Camp, online identity practices in 78–80 Kaplan, A. 226 Kapoor & Sons 147 Kapoor, Rhea 147 Kaufman, P. 202 Kaur, Balbir 152 Kaur, H. 11n1 Kawin, B. 62–64

Index 243 Keefe, Julia 159 Kendi, Ibram X. 124 Keum, Brian TaeHyuk 131–132 Khan, Aamir 149 Khan, Kabir 150–151 Khan, Salman 149 Khan, Shah Rukh 149, 151 Kharkongor, Nicholas 149 Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) 23 Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) 23 Killpack, T.L. 226, 229 Kincheloe, Joe L. 18 King, Stephen 190 kinnikinnik 156 knowledge economy 1 Kogut, T. 104 Kom, Mary 150 Korean music and culture 234 Korean Wave 233 K-pop 233 Kuhn, E. 100 Kuhn, Judy 168 Ku Klux Klan 14–16, 20, 22–24 Kutsuzawa, K. 176–177 LaDuke, W. 186, 189–190 Lagaan (2001) 150 Lagace, N. 199–200 Lal,V. 142–143 Lambert, Mary 190–191 LaPensée, E. 195–196, 200, 203, 206, 208 The Last of the Mohicans (1992) 172–174 Latinx 11n1 Leavitt, P.A. 198, 203 Legend of Pocahontas (game) 198 Leonard, D. J. 113–114, 118, 120, 124 LeQuint Dickey Mining Company 23 Leyva, Alfredo Beltrán 220 LGBTQ+ community 231–232, 235 Limbo of the Lost (game) 198 Lincoln, Abraham 20 Linneaus, Carl 132 Longboat, M. 199–201, 205 Lopez, L. K. 7 Lovecraft Country 62 Lowe, Lisa 130 ludo-Orientalism 122 Luke, A. 114 Lutgendorf, Philip 143, 145 Lutz, H. 19 Lynch, K. 4 MacCann, D. 3 MacDonald, John A. 162

Macdonald, T. 65–66 Madianou, M. 71 ‘magic circle’ of play 125 Malick, Terrence 179 Malik, S. 30 Mami Wata exhibit 62 Mamuwalde, Prince 63 ‘Mangrove’ (McQueen) 31–33 Māori Pā Wars (game) 197 margins, measures, and marking bodies 43–46 Marshall, W. 66–67 Marxist critique 5 Mary Kom (2014) 145, 150 massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) 123 mass market gaming, troubling state of 197–202 mass media 70 Matheson, Richard 59 Matthew J. Miller 131–132 Maus (Art Spiegelman) 166 May, Corey 200 Mbembe, A. 42, 48, 51–52, 94, 96–97 McDuie-Ra, Duncan 150 McEwan, P. 14, 21 McGonigal, J. 111, 119 McLaren, P. 98 McLoud, Janet 165 McQueen, Steve 31–32 McRobbie, A. 37–38 media 70–71 media landscape 5–6 media studies in critical pedagogy 4 Meloche, K. 201, 205 Melón, L.C. 226, 229 Menard, Andrea 159 Mercille, J. 213 Merkel, Angela 70 Merkel, Mama 70 Merkel-selfies 70 Merriweather Hunn, L. R. 30 mestiza consciousness 233–236 Metropolitan Police 32 Mexico’s violence, teaching 211; Cartel Land (2015), dir. Matthew Heineman 214–216; El velador (2011), dir. Natalia Almada 219–221; race and global drug war documentary gaze 212–214; The Business of Drugs (2020), dir. Jesse Sweet 216–217; The Siege of Culiacán (2019), dir. Andrea Schmidt 217–219; US/ Mexico drug trade, background on 211–212 Midnight Traveller (Fazili) 102

244 Index Midsommar (2019) 226 migrant camps 99 migrants’ self-representational strategies, counter-visual analysis of 91; digital transparency 98–104; methodology and goals 93–95; migration and necropolitics of conventions 95–98; pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) 104–106 migrant wave 94 migration, social media and 70–72 Miller, D. 71 Miller, Matthew 131 Mirzoeff, N. 104 Mishra,Vijay 143, 151 mobile phone 77 Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Appadurai) 101 modern spectator, Django Unchained and 22–25 Mohawk Institute 160 Momo Pixel 114–115 Monáe, Janelle 227 monsters, creating 185–188 Monsters in the Classroom: Essays on Teaching What Scares Us (W. Scott Poole) 59 Mortal Kombat (game) 199 Mortal Kombat X (2015) 117 Mouse Morality (Annalee Ward) 175 multiculturalism 93 multimedia 62 Munro, Cora 173 Music and dance traditions 235 Mutch, D. 63 My Name is Khan (2010) 149 Nail, T. 47 Nakamura, L. 112 Nandy, Ashis 142–143 Nath, Debarshi Prasad 148 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) 16, 67 nationalism in the film 150 Native Recognition: Indigenous Cinema and the Western 184 Naturally Native (1998) 179 Nature/Culture divide 46 necropolitics 95–98 Necropolitics (Mbembe) 96 Negri, A. 94 neoliberalism, Hollywood’s era of 170–171 Netflix 37 NetherRealm Studios 117 Never Alone (game) 197, 201 Never Alone 118, 120

new materialism 47 New York Times 3 Ng, Celeste 129, 132 Nichols, B. 213 Nijkamp, Marieke 229 Nijkamp, N. 229 Nineteen-Eighty-Four (George Orwell) 60 1951 Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees 92 Nisbet, M. C 213 Nitsche, M. 113 Noble Native 168 noble native 172 North Eastern face 149 Northern Stonemans 20 Northern Western media 42 Obama, Barack 7 Obrador, Andrés Manuel López 218 Oh, D. C. 233–234 Okihoro, Gary 130 Omi, M. 131–132 Omkara (2006) 148 One-punch man (2012–2020) 226 online and remote learning 1 online classroom ecology 132–133 online communicational technologies 102 online identity practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp 78–80 online racism 131 onto-epistemic devices 40 onto-epistemic modes 54–55 onto-epistemology 47 Open Graves, Open Minds (2013) 61 Orsini, M. M. 213 Orwell, George 60 othering and colour-blindness in Pocahontas 175–178 outlaw discourses 104 overgeneralisation 35 paired playing 125 Papacharissi, Z. 101 Paranjape, Makarand 147 Parker, D. 73 patriotism 190 Patton, L. D. 19 Peacock, Nathaniel 49 Pearson, A. 31, 37–38 pedagogical implications 178–180 Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage (Freire) 93 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire) 104–106

Index 245 Peele, Jordan 62 Pepper, Jim 156 Pepper’s Powwow (album) 156 Perez, T. 226 persistent looking 104 Pet Sematary (1989) 182, 190–192 Phantom Past, Indigenous Presence: Native Ghosts in North American Culture and History 190 play logs 120 plogs 120–121 Pocahontas (Disney) (1995) 168; cultural and moral alliances in 173–175; Disney memes and themes 169–170; history rewritten 178; Hollywood’s era of neoliberalism 170–171; noble native 172; othering and colour-blindness in 175–178; pedagogical implications 178–180; White saviour 171–172 Pocahontas 168–171, 173–180 police and justice 31–33 police violence 98 Polidori, John 58, 60–64 Pollack, G. 178, 180 Poltergeist II:The Other Side (1986) 182, 190–191 polymedia 71, 85n5 Poole, W. S. 59–62 pop culture, teaching critical theory through 225; educator’s perspective 225–231; student’s sample essay 231–236 popular literature 59 popular media 6 Portal 115–116, 118, 120 positionality 19–22 post-humanism 47–48 post-pandemic education, race and materiality for 40; alive-ness, incomplete 49–52; artist scholars 54–55; decoloniality 46–49; digital revolutions 54–55; distributed intelligences, making of ‘race’ inside 41–43; entrance points 40–41; margins, measures, and marking bodies 43–46; modes, practices, methodologies 52–53; onto-epistemic modes 54–55 post-racial society 7 poverty 42 Prey (game) 199 Primary White Institution (PWI) 7 procrustean academy 53 Prophecy (1979) 182, 189 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) 31 public opinion 213

public service broadcasting (PSB) and television drama 31 Pulp Fiction (1994) 23 Punjabification of Bollywood 146–147 Putnam, A. 174 race 17, 43, 47–48, 218–219; and ethnicity 72–73; and global drug war documentary gaze 212–214; and materiality for post-pandemic education 40–55; and poverty 42; teaching race in film 13–25 racial formation 130 racial groups 72 racial inequities 139 racialisation 48 racial projects 130 racial self-hatred 136 racism 36, 48, 91, 97, 130, 152 Rai, Amit 143 Rambharose, A. 114 Rancière, J. 5–6, 174 reaction video 234 reading and writing to reclaim humanity 129; online classroom ecology 132–133; pedagogy of hope in isolation 135–139; reawakening of Sinophobia in the digital age 130–132; theorising the history of Asian exclusion in America 130 Reagan, Ronald 160 ‘Realist’ Critical Race Film theorists 18 Reality Is Broken (Jane McGonigal) 119 real-time strategy games 198 Reclaiming Native Truth 205 Red Dead Redemption II (Rockstar) 117 Red Indian 163 Red Pedagogy 202–204 ‘Red Pedagogy: The Un-Methodology’ 120 Red Power 166 Red Power movement 184, 188 reductionism 35 Red, White and Blue (McQueen) 33 Reel Injun (2009) 183, 185 refugee camps 69, 78 refugees 91; online identity practices in Kakuma Refugee Camp 78–80; selfpresentation and identity of refugees in online spaces 73–74; social media and identity practices by refugees in Germany 74–78; social media and migration 70–72; social media and the discussion of race and ethnicity 72–73; social media in Kakuma in talking about Black identity 80–83

246 Index Regents of University of California vs. Bakke in 1978 4 renaissance 47 Renegade Radio 165 Ren, M. 121 repatriation 33 Reservoir Dogs (1992) 23 reverse colonization 63 Reyes Garcés, A. 212 Rhineland Palatinate 75 Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013) 193 Ritov, I. 104 romanticism 171 Romero, George A. 62 Rotten Tomatoes 178 Rowling, J. K. 226 Royal Proclamation of 1763 162 Rudd, Amber 36 Ryerson University 156–157 sahrdaya 146 Samurai Showdown Sen (game) 199 Sasquatch Spirit 164 Sassen, S. 91, 96, 99 Sathy,V 226 Scalps (1983) 190 Schmidt, Andrea 211, 217–219 Schönhuth, M. 85n3 Scorzin, C. Pamela 103 Scorzin, Pamela C. 103 screen narratives 1 Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005) 78 self-determination 201 self-presentation and identity of refugees in online spaces 73–74 self-realisation 36 self-reflexivity 19 self-representation 94 separability 47 Setrakian, Abraham 58 Seven Grandfather Teachings 164 Sex Education (2019) 229 sexual harassment 151 Shelley, Mary 48, 64 Sheyahshe, M. A. 195 Shih,Y. H. 29 Shultz, King 23 Shuster, Joe 166 Sim, G. 18 Sinclair, Murray 161 Sitting in Limbo 33–36 skepticism 59 Skinner, J. 232 Skins (2002) 179

slavery, abolition of 14 Slotkin, Richard 184 Slovic, P. 104 Small Axe (Steve McQueen) 31–33 Smith, John 168, 171, 174–175, 177–178 Smoke Signals (1998) 179 Smollett, T. 48–49 social media 73; and the discussion of race and ethnicity 72–73; and identity practices by refugees in Germany 74–78; in Kakuma in talking about Black identity 80–83; and migration 70–72 Song, M. 73 Sontag, S. 16 Spiegelman, Art 166 Star Wars-The Force Awakens (2015) 83 stereotyping 17 Stiers, David Ogden 174 Stoker, Bram 62 Stoneman, Elsie 20 Strong, K. 60 ‘structure of feeling’, concept of 101 ‘student as producer’, concept of 29 Subba, Tanka B. 149 Superman (Joe Shuster) 166 Sweet, Jesse 211, 216–217 systemic racism 28, 30, 34 tagesschau 76 Tamil Nadu 147 Tanu Weds Manu (2011) 148 Tarantino, Quentin 15, 23 Teaching to Transgress (Freire) 50 technologically mediated sociality 69, 73 technology, for education 1 Teen Vogue (2018) 196 Tekken (game) 199 television drama, institutional racism and social critique in 28; critical race theory (CRT) and critical pedagogy 28–31; I May Destroy You 36–38; public service broadcasting (PSB) and television drama 31; Sitting in Limbo 33–36; Small Axe (Steve McQueen) 31–33 The Age of Surveillance Capitalism:The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, Zuboff (2019) 98 The Business of Drugs (2020) 216–217, 222 The Circle (2020) 229 The Dark Power (1985) 190 The New World (2005) 179 The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents and Citizens 96

Index 247 The Siege of Culiacán (2019) 217–219, 222 The Sixties Scoop 161 The Strain (Guillermo del Toro and ChuckHogan) 58 The Vampyre (Polidori) 59, 61 They Came from the Swamp (2016) 186 The WarChiefs 206 Thiele, K. 40 thinking 46 This Is Where It Ends (2016) 229 Thomas, Gordon 63 Thrush, C. 190 Trakilovic ́, M. 100 transposition of material world 50 Trilling, D. 30 Tromp, R. E. 214 Trump, Donald 138 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 161 Tsing, A. 45 Turtle Spirit 164 Ubisoft Montreal 200 United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) 92 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 78–80, 85n1, 85n6 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 92, 96 Until Dawn 199 U.S. Image Rebounds in Mexico 219 US/Mexico drug trade, background on 211–212 Valencia Triana, M. 219 vampire genre 58–61 Veere di Wedding (2018) 147 Verde, Cuesta 190 Vetticad, Anna M.M. 146 video games 111–120, 123–126 vigilantism 184, 192 virtual homemaking 73 virtual migrants 71 visual imagery 10, 159, 201 visual transformation 158 vitruvianism 51 Vizenor, G. 201 Walker, David 66 Wapiti 117 Ward, Annalee 175 war film 14

war journalism 213 Wayne, John 185 Webstar 231 Welcome culture 74 Wenger, Piers 37 WhatsApp 77, 80, 83 What We Do in the Shadows (2019) 58 When Rivers Were Trails (game) 197, 200, 207–208 Whitaker, Dina Gilio 187 White Fang (1991) 172 White Geology 46, 55 White groups 5 White nationalism 131 Whiteness 5 white privilege 30 White saviour 171–172 White Supremacy in Children’s Literature (MacCann) 3 Wi-Fi 75 Williams, D. 197 Williams, R. 101 ‘willingness to contribute’ 104 Wills, J. 116 Willson, M. 69 Winant, H. 130, 133 Windrush generation 32, 35 Windrush Lessons Learned Review 35 Windrush scandal and citizenship 33–36 Winter in the Blood (2013) 179 Wisniewski, N. 197–199 Witteborn, S. 69 Wolf Spirit 164 Women’s and Civil Rights Movements 185 World Association for Christian Communication–Europe Region (WACC Europe) 94 World of Warcraft 123 Wouters, Jelle J.P 149 Wright, J. 17 WTM 99 xenophobia 62, 91, 133–134 Yagelski, R. P. 136 Yellow Face (Mike Ren Yi) 121–122 Yoon, K. 233–234 Yusof, K. 46 Zaghawa Facebook groups 76 Zoom 157 Zuboff, S. 98, 102