Using poststructuralism and postcolonialism in education praxis : an exploration of teaching about the 'developing Other' in an Australian high school

This paper analyses my journey as an early career postcolonial and poststructural theorist and teacher. I ask how different ways of knowing and engaging with the “developing Other” can be incorporated into teaching praxis and curriculum planning? The “developing Other” refers to those and that which is othered in the binary oppositions of developed/developing. The paper calls for a better understanding and incorporation of poststructuralism within the classroom by highlighting the uses of poststructural concepts, including discourse, subjectivity, and reflexivity in praxis. The paper begins by introducing my rationale, providing a discussion of the key theoretical concepts I use, and finishes by demonstrating these concepts in action. This is done by analysing a unit of work and my pedagogy created and delivered to an International Studies class during my final undergraduate internship. The unit explored Timor-Leste’s road to independence and focused on interrogating our relationship to the construction of peoples in Timor-Leste as the developing Other. This discussion aims to contribute the literature that supports poststructural and postcolonial classroom praxis by highlighting, critiquing, and deconstructing students’ perceptions of Otherness through the lens of one classroom. I hope to offer this experience as an instance for questioning and to provide an outline of how these concepts can establish small sites of resistance in education to the destructive forces of neoliberalism and neo-colonialism, especially in education.