blue scholars – collective memory work and class
In my research work I have dealt with the negative (class) experiences of working class people as a starting point. It is about the question of how I can not only become a student of my own negative class experience, but also a researcher and teacher, all the possible meanings of »blue scholar«. In this context, I used CMW.
I am primarily interested in presenting and discussing various considerations on how the simultaneity of direct negative experience and the understanding of the social mediation of this negative experience is possible. In other words, the constant back and forth between »collar« and »scholar«.
I would like to structure this as a mix of a walk-through exhibition, a lecture and a short musical interlude.
My contribution consists primarily of two parts.
The first part deals with why I ‚failed’ with the application of CMW in my research work.
My initial aim was to critically expand the concept of classism with the help of CMW. This worked formally. However, I was dissatisfied with the result for a reason that was initially unknown to me. In reflecting on my frustration, it became clear that through the application of CMW, I became aware that the context of classism critique seals the experiences expressed within this framework against critique.
The second part deals with how, in this process, I developed a specific approach to negative class experiences based on the allegory of the blue scholar. This makes it possible to give space to the intensity of these negative experiences and at the same time to analyze them critically by allowing for contradictions.
CMW thus appears twice, once as a concrete research method and then as a superordinate materialist-feminist epistemology.
Dirk Eilers can be contacted via:
d.eilers@bildungswerkstatt-migration.de