Deconstructing domestication

Clarke, Julia (1998) Deconstructing domestication. University of Southampton, Doctoral Thesis.

Abstract

In this study I combine theoretical critique with empirical research to support an argument that the concept of liberation in the discourse of critical pedagogy is rooted in masculine experience and does not take adequate account of women's interests. The key ideas contained in this proposition are elaborated in the first two chapters, beginning with a feminist critique of selected aspects of Critical Theory and critical pedagogy. The aim of this critique is to illuminate the particularly masculine construction of liberation that is defined in opposition to domestication in the work of the Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire. Drawing on feminist theory and deconstruction, I show how this conception of liberation denies and suppresses the domestication on which we depend for our physical and emotional sustenance. I discuss those dilemmas of equality and difference that challenge the motion of gender as another binary classification, but argue for its deployment as a 'classificatory fiction' for the political purposes of feminism. The first section concludes with a discussion of questions regarding knowledge, authority and representation.

I have used a life history approach to conduct empirical research into the question of women's interests, and to explore the relationship between individual biographies and participation in adult continuing education. I begin the second section with a literature review of life history and narrative research in order to locate this study within an established multi-disciplinary framework. I argue that a particularly useful perspective on the question of women's experience and interests can be derived from the life histories of women who are positioned on the margins of industrial society, of organised education and of the labour market.

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