Detournement as Pedagogical Praxis BREAKTHROUGHS IN THE SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION Volume 3 Series Editor: George W. Noblit, Joseph R. Neikirk Distinguished Professor of Sociology of Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA In this series, we are establishing a new tradition in the sociology of education. Like many fields, the sociology of education has largely assumed that the field develops through the steady accumulation of studies. Thomas Kuhn referred to this as ‘normal science.’ Yet normal science builds on a paradigm shift, elaborating and expanding the paradigm. What has received less attention are the works that contribute to paradigm shifts themselves. To remedy this, we will focus on books that move the field in dramatic and recognizable ways—what can be called breakthroughs. Kuhn was analyzing natural science and was been less sure his ideas fit the social sciences. Yet it is likely that the social sciences are more subject to paradigm shifts than the natural sciences because the social sciences are fed back into the social world. Thus sociology and social life react to each other, and are less able separate the knower from the known. With reactivity of culture and knowledge, the social sciences follow a more complex process than that of natural science. This is clearly the case with the sociology of education. The multiplicity of theories and methods mix with issues of normativity—in terms of what constitutes good research, policy and/or practice. Moreover, the sociology of education is increasingly global in its reach—meaning that the national interests are now less defining of the field and more interrogative of what is important to know. This makes the sociology of education even more complex and multiple in its paradigm configurations. The result is both that there is less shared agreement on the social facts of education but more vibrancy as a field. What we know and understand is shifting on multiple fronts constantly. Breakthroughs is to the series for works that push the boundaries—a place where all the books do more than contribute to the field, they remake the field in fundamental ways. Books are selected precisely because they change how we understand both education and the sociology of education. Detournement as Pedagogical Praxis Edited by James Trier University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: 978-94-6209-798-8 (paperback) ISBN: 978-94-6209-799-5 (hardback) ISBN: 978-94-6209-800-8 (e-book) Published by: Sense Publishers, P.O. Box 21858, 3001 AW Rotterdam, The Netherlands https://www.sensepublishers.com/ Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2014 Sense Publishers No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii 1. The Introduction to Detournement as Pedagogical Praxis 1 James Trier 2. A Detournement of Joe Clark’s Problematic “Motto” of Personal Agency in Lean on Me 39 James Trier 3. Juan Skippy: A Critical Detournement of Skippyjon Jones 55 Amy Senta 4. The Hollywood Indian Goes to School: Detournement as Praxis 79 Trey Adcock 5. Detournement as Anti-Oppressive Pedagogy and Invitation to Crisis: Queering Gender in a Preservice Teacher Education Classroom 107 Ashley Boyd 6. In God’s Country: Deploying Detournement to Expose the Enmeshment of Christianity within the Spectacle of Capitalism 129 Tim Conder 7. Challenging Waiting for Superman through Detournement 155 James Trier 8. Detourning the Charterization of New Orleans Public Schools with Preservice Teachers 171 Joseph D. Hooper 9. Revisiting “Sordid Fantasies”: Using Detournement as an Approach to Qualitative Inquiry 195 Jason Mendez v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS F irst and foremost, I want to thank George Noblit for suggesting the idea of this book, for providing invaluable advice and patient encouragement along the way, and for giving me the opportunity to edit and publish the book in his B reakthroughs in the Sociology of Education series. George is a natural detournement artist, and I consider the published version of his presidential address at the 2000 American Educational Studies Association (published in E ducational Studies) to be his own account of a detournement that operated at several levels. O f course, I also want to express my great appreciation to Trey Adcock, Amy Senta, Jason Mendez, Ashley Boyd, Tim Conder. and Joseph Hooper for the carefully crafted and thoughtful chapters that they contributed to this book. Each one’s approach to detournement is unique, engaging, provocative, and pedagogically powerful, and I think their chapters and mine come together well to form a collective (provisional) reply to the question, “What is detournement?” I look forward to reading their future published work about creating detournements in their current academic contexts. I am sure each will take detournement in new directions. vii JAMES TRIER 1. THE INTRODUCTION TO DETOURNEMENT AS PEDAGOGICAL PRAXIS In the broadest sense, Debord’s whole conception of society is founded on detournement . — Anselm Jappe, 1999 W hile preparing to write this introduction to D etournement as Pedagogical Praxis , I read a great deal about the Paris-based avant-garde group called the Situationist International (SI) because the theory and critical practice of detournement is most often associated in academic writing with the SI. I eventually realized that what I was writing based on the research I was doing about the SI was actually material that went far beyond the purposes of this book, and so I conceptualized another book that will follow this one, a book provisionally titled S ituationist Theory and Education . In that book, I will discuss the Situationist International’s origins, main figures, creative works, writings, history, and post-demise afterlife in academic scholarship and popular culture. Doing that will entail discussing dada, surrealism, the Lettrists, the Lettrist International, psychogeography, the dérive, unitary urbanism, detournement, architecture, painting, cinema, “scandals,” the Spectacle, May’68, and more. I will also explain how the concepts and critical artistic practices of the Situationists have shaped my thinking, teaching, research, and scholarship as an academic in the field of Education. “Detournement” will figure importantly in that book, too, but it won’t be the central focus like it is in this book. But enough about “that book.” What is this book about? Obviously, it is about detournement. Not so immediately obvious is what “detournement” means.1 For now I want to provide the most frequently cited— and partial—definition of detournement given by Guy Debord, the leader of the Situationist International. Debord (1959) stated generally that detournement entails “the reuse of preexisting artistic elements in a new ensemble” (p. 55). Though Debord used the word “artistic” in this general definition, three years earlier he and his friend, Gil Wolman, had defined detournement without such a qualifier, stating, “Any elements, no matter where they are taken from, can be used to make new combinations” (Debord & Wolman, 1956, p. 9). These two definitional statements about detournement—partial and general as they are—enable me to state that each of the authors in this book has written a chapter about how he or she incorporated J. Trier (Ed.), Detournement as Pedagogical Praxis, 1–37. © 2014 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.