Sympathizing with Social Justice: Poetry of Invitation and Generation

Authors

  • Sean Wiebe UPEI
  • Pauline Sameshima Lakehead University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29243

Keywords:

social justice, poetry, politics, imagination, liminal studio

Abstract

In this paper, we use Sameshima’s Parallaxic Praxis Model to create collaborative poetry. The model invites juxtaposing articulations to generate alternative thinking. Similar to Daignault's (1992) notion of a “thinking maybe" space, we invite readers into what we call a liminal studio to theorize new understandings of social justice. In the data phases for this project, Viet Thanh Nguyen’s (2015) The Sympathizer served as a play object: The narrator, the sympathizer, is a captured communist spy in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, and his confession (the novel) considers a critical question for understanding social justice: “What is more important than independence and freedom?” Nguyen refuses simplistic overtures of social justice. Instead, readers are confronted with questions: “What do those who struggle against power do when they seize power? What does the revolutionary do when the revolution triumphs? Why do those who call for independence and freedom take away the independence and freedom of others?” (p. 178). These questions lead us to the frame of our own ten-part poem, the modern scholar under interrogation. Our poetry reframes social justice as the art of being/nothing, the something of nothingness being a language of resistance for a reimagined politics.

Author Biographies

Sean Wiebe, UPEI

Sean Wiebe, an Associate Professor of Education at the University of Prince Edward Island, teaches courses in multiliteracies, curriculum theory, and critical pedagogy. He has been the principal investigator on four Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council funded projects exploring the intersections of creativity, the creative economy, language and literacies, and arts informed inquiries.

Pauline Sameshima, Lakehead University

Pauline Sameshima, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Arts Integrated Studies at Lakehead university, utilizes multi-modal methodologies to catalyze thinking, dialogues, and social innovation. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies and curates the Lakehead Research Education Galleries. Website: solspire.com.

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Published

2018-03-01

How to Cite

Wiebe, S., & Sameshima, P. (2018). Sympathizing with Social Justice: Poetry of Invitation and Generation. Art/Research/International:/A/Transdisciplinary/Journal, 3(1), 7–29. https://doi.org/10.18432/ari29243