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Description
Since the early 1980s spoken word has been on the rise as a highly influential performance art form. Concurrently, there has been an increase in literature on spoken word, which tends to focus on the critical performative and transformative potential of spoken word. These on-going discussions surrounding youth spoken word often fail to take into account the dynamic, relational, and transitional nature of power that constructs space and subjectivity in spoken word. This ethnographic study of one youth spoken word organization – Poetic Shift – in a southwestern urban area makes a conscious attempt to provide a nuanced, contradictory and partial analysis of space, place, and power in relation to youth spoken word and aspires to generate an understanding of how spaces designated for spoken word are dialectically (re)produced and maintain or subvert dominant relations of power through a constant stream of negotiations. This study aims to more explicitly examine the relationship between place and spoken word in effort to understand how one’s positionality impacts, and is impacted by, their involvement in youth spoken word.
Over the course of a 6-month period participant observation was conducted at two high school spoken word workshops and four interviews were completed with both teaching artists and young adult spoken word poets. Using spatial and critical pedagogy frameworks, this study found that Poetic Shift serves as a platform for youth to engage in the performative process of narratively constructing and reconfiguring their identities. Poetic Shift’s ideological position that attributes value and validation to the voices and lived experiences of each youth is an explicit rejection of the dominant paradigm of knowing that relegates some voices to a culture of silence. The point at which the present study deviated from most other literature on spoken word is where it offers a critique of Poetic Shift as a site of critical literacy and of the unreflexive rhetoric of student empowerment. The problematic presuppositions within the call for youth voice and in the linear, overly simplistic curriculum of Poetic Shift tend to reinforce the dominant relations of power.
Over the course of a 6-month period participant observation was conducted at two high school spoken word workshops and four interviews were completed with both teaching artists and young adult spoken word poets. Using spatial and critical pedagogy frameworks, this study found that Poetic Shift serves as a platform for youth to engage in the performative process of narratively constructing and reconfiguring their identities. Poetic Shift’s ideological position that attributes value and validation to the voices and lived experiences of each youth is an explicit rejection of the dominant paradigm of knowing that relegates some voices to a culture of silence. The point at which the present study deviated from most other literature on spoken word is where it offers a critique of Poetic Shift as a site of critical literacy and of the unreflexive rhetoric of student empowerment. The problematic presuppositions within the call for youth voice and in the linear, overly simplistic curriculum of Poetic Shift tend to reinforce the dominant relations of power.
ContributorsKesselring, Jenna (Author) / Nakagawa, Kathryn (Thesis advisor) / Cheng, Wendy (Thesis advisor) / Lee, Charles (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The pace of segregation of races continues to increase as the gap between wealthy people, and the rest of the human race, increases. Technological advances in human communication ironically decrease human communication as people choose news and social media sites that feed their ideological frames. Bridging the sociopolitical gap is increasingly difficult. Further, privileged hegemonic forces exert pressure to maintain the status quo at the expense of greater humanity. Despite this grave account, some members of the privileged hegemony have moved away from their previous adherence to it and emerged as activists for marginalized populations.
Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Pedagogy for the Privileged, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Transformative Learning Theory and Critical White Studies, this study asks the question: what factors lead to an ideological shift?
Fifteen participants agreed to an in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interview. There were four main themes that emerged. Most participants experienced significant childhood challenges as well as segregated environments. Additionally, they possessed personality traits of curiosity and critical thinking which left them at odds with their family members; and finally, each experienced exposure to new environments and new people. Most notably, in an attempt to satisfy their curiosity and to remedy the disconnect between the imposed family values and their own internal inclinations, most actively sought out disorienting dilemmas that would facilitate an ideological shift. This journey typically included copious reading, critically analyzing information and, mostly importantly, immersion in new environments.
The goal of this study was to understand which factors precipitate an ideological shift in the hope of using the data to create effective interventions that bridge ideological gaps. It was revealed that some of the initiative for this shift is innate, and therefore unreachable. However, exposure to disorienting dilemmas successfully caused an ideological shift. Critically, this research revealed that it is important to identify those individuals who possess this innate characteristic of curiosity and dissatisfaction with the status quo and create opportunities for them to be exposed to new people, information and environments. This will likely lead to a shift from White hegemonic adherent to an emerging advocate for social justice.
Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Pedagogy for the Privileged, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Transformative Learning Theory and Critical White Studies, this study asks the question: what factors lead to an ideological shift?
Fifteen participants agreed to an in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interview. There were four main themes that emerged. Most participants experienced significant childhood challenges as well as segregated environments. Additionally, they possessed personality traits of curiosity and critical thinking which left them at odds with their family members; and finally, each experienced exposure to new environments and new people. Most notably, in an attempt to satisfy their curiosity and to remedy the disconnect between the imposed family values and their own internal inclinations, most actively sought out disorienting dilemmas that would facilitate an ideological shift. This journey typically included copious reading, critically analyzing information and, mostly importantly, immersion in new environments.
The goal of this study was to understand which factors precipitate an ideological shift in the hope of using the data to create effective interventions that bridge ideological gaps. It was revealed that some of the initiative for this shift is innate, and therefore unreachable. However, exposure to disorienting dilemmas successfully caused an ideological shift. Critically, this research revealed that it is important to identify those individuals who possess this innate characteristic of curiosity and dissatisfaction with the status quo and create opportunities for them to be exposed to new people, information and environments. This will likely lead to a shift from White hegemonic adherent to an emerging advocate for social justice.
ContributorsKolomyjec, Wanda (Author) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Lee, Charles (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Rohd, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020