Adult Education and the Postmodern challenge: learning beyond the limits

Robin Usher, Ian Bryant & Rennie Johnston (1997)

“Postmodernism sees knowledge generation as a practice of “languaging”, a practice

of textual production.” (204) – and reproduction…

“All knowledge of the real is textual i.e. always already signified, interpreted, or
“written” and, therefore, a “reading” which can be “rewritten” and “reread”. Hence,
there is neither an originary point of knowledge nor a final interpreation. However …
some readings are more powerful than others. The most powerful readings are those
imposed by the violence of closure and the “metaphysics of prsence”, i.e. the
powerful “way of seeing” enshrined in traditional epistemology that the world can be
known in an unmediated way by a rational “objective” self through the use of a
neutral scientific method. Yet, given that all readings are subject to contingency and
the historical moment in which they are read, and given that the object of scientific
research is always open to contest, then all claims to presence, to an unmediated self
and an unmediated knowledgeability, are always problematic.” (p. 208)

“The quest for a ‘God’s eye view’, a disembodied and disembedded timeless
perspective that can know the world by transcending it, is no longer readily accepted.
What has taken its place is a loss of certainty in ways of knowing and what is known.
What we are left with is not an alternative and more secure foundation but an
awareness of the complexity, historical contingency and fragility of the practices
through which knowledge is constructed about ourselves and the world.” (p. 210)

He talks about knowledge – but once you say that knowledge is something that is
constructed about ourselves and the world, then you are also talking about narrative
and memory. While he talks about knowledge, it could as easily be talking about
memory:

• Knowledge is produced through a process of languaging. Language is not a

mirror held up to past experiences, it’s not a transparent vehicle for conveying
memory. Knowledge can’t be separated from language, discourses and texts at
work within culture. Language, discourses and texts are both the carriers and
creators of memory.

• Knowledge is always partial and perpectival; it’s always shaped by language

and discourse; it’s always situated within specific cultures which provide
meaning and significance.

• We have to be self-reflexive about knowledge. We have to consider the

implication of memory and power and unspoken values and the effects, or
politics, of memory.

• Knowledge is a kind of story-telling – “constructing” and “reconstructing”. The

advantage to seeing knowledge like this is that it foregrounds the illuminative,
insightful and emancipatory possibilities of story-telling. But it can also be
oppressive and dangerous.
If knowledge is a kind of story-telling, then what are the implications of this for our
practices of recording those stories/memory? We need to

a) create spaces for stories from which the voices of those not normally
heard can be heard;
b) move outside the conventional modes (documents) for telling stories;
c) ask questions about how we are constructing stories and organising
meaning and highlight the constructive nature of language;
d) challenge the myth of “accurate” knowledge rather than a situated one;
e) explore complex and heterogeneous stories that don’t neatly fit into
pre-established categories;
f) to recognize the situatedness of the story-teller.